Europe is willing to defy the U.S. on Nordstream to the point of forcing the U.S. to openly and nakedly destroy its reputation
with European contractors and governments to stop one pipeline in a place where multiple gas pipelines will be needed for future
growth.
This is the diplomatic equivalent of the nuclear option. And the neocons in the Senate just pushed the button. Europe understands
what this is really about, the U.S. retaining its imperial position as the policy setter for all the world. If it can set energy
policy for Europe then it can set everything else.
And it's clear that the leadership in Europe is done with that status quo. The Trump administration from the beginning has used
NATO as an excuse to mask its real intentions towards Europe, which is continued domination of its policies. Trump complains that
the U.S. pays into NATO to protect Europe from Russia but then Europe buys its energy from Russia. That's unfair, Donald complains,
like a little bitch, frankly, even though he right on the surface. But if the recent NATO summit is any indication, Europe is no
longer interested in NATO performing that function. French President Emmanuel Macron wants NATO re-purposed to fight global terror,
a terrible idea. NATO should just be ended.
But you'll notice how Trump doesn't talk about that anymore. He wants more billions pumped into NATO while the U.S. still sets
its policies. This is not a boondoggle for the MIC as much as it's a Sword of Damocles to hold over Europe's head. The U.S.'s involvement
in should be ended immediately, the troops brought home and the billions of dollars spent here as opposed to occupying most of Europe
to point missiles at a Russia wholly uninterested in imperial ambitions no less harboring any of them.
And Trump also knows this but thinks stopping Nordstream 2 is the price Europe has to pay him for this privilege. It's insane.
The time has come for Europe to act independently from the U.S. As much as I despise the EU, to untangle it from the U.S. on energy
policy is the means by which for it to then deal with its problems internally. It can't do that while the U.S. is threatening it.
Circling the wagons against the immediate threat, as it were.
And that means protecting its companies and citizens from the economic depredations of power-mad neoconservatives in the U.S.
Senate like Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham.
Allseas, the Swiss company laying the pipe for Nordstream 2,
has halted construction for now
, awaiting instructions from the U.S. Gazprom will likely step in to finish the job and Germany will green light any of the necessary
permits to get the pipeline done. Those people will be put out of work just in time for Christmas, turning thousands of people against
the U.S. Commerce drives people together, politics drives them apart.
But, at the same time, the urgency to finish Nordstream 2 on time is wholly irrelevant now because Ukraine and Russia came to
terms on a new five-year gas transit contract. This ensures Gazprom can meet its contractual deliveries to Europe that no one thought
could be done on time. But when the Nazi threat to Zelensky meeting with Merkel, Macron and Putin in Paris failed to materialize,
a gas deal was on the horizon.
And, guess what? U.S. LNG will still not have the marginal lever over Europe's energy policy because of that. Putin and Zelensky
outmaneuvered Cruz, Graham and Trump on this. Because that's what this boils down to. By keeping Russian gas out of Europe, it was
supposed to constrain not only Russia's growth but also Europe's. Because then the U.S. government can control who and how much energy
can make it into European markets at critical junctures politically.
That was the Bolton Doctrine to National Security. And that doctrine brought nothing but misery to millions.
And if you look back over the past five years of U.S./EU relations you will see this gambit clearly for what it was, a way to
continue European vassalage at the hands of the U.S. by forcing market share of U.S. providers into European markets.
Again, it gets back to Trump's ideas about Emergy Dominance
and becoming the supplier of the marginal erg of energy to important economies around the world.
The smart play for the EU now that the gas transit deal is in place is to threaten counter-sanctions against the U.S. and bar
all LNG shipments into Europe. Gas prices are at historic lows, gas supplies are overflowing thanks to fears of a deal not being
in place.
So, a three to six month embargo of U.S. LNG into Europe to bleed off excess supply while Nordstream 2 is completed would be the
right play politically.
But, in reality, they won't need to, because the U.S. won't be able to import much into Europe under current prices and market
conditions. And once Nordstream 2 is complete, LNG sales to Europe should crater.
In the end, I guess it's too bad for Ted Cruz that economics and basic human ingenuity are more powerful than legislatures. Because
Nordstream 2 will be completed. Turkstream's other trains into Europe will be built. Venezuela will continue rebuilding its energy
sector with Russian and Chinese help.
There is no place for U.S. LNG in Europe outside of the Poles literally burning money virtue signaling their Russophobia. Nordstream 2 was a response to the revolt in Ukraine, to replace any potential losses in market share to Europe. Now Russia will
have what it had before passing through Ukraine along with Nordstream 2. By 2024 there will be at least two trains from Turkstream
coming into Europe.
Iran will keep expanding exports, settling its oil and gas trade through Russian banks. And the U.S. will continue to fulminate
and make itself even more irrelevant over time. What men like Ted Cruz and Donald Trump refuse to understand is that when you go nuclear you can't ever go back. If you threaten
the nuclear option, there's no fall back position.
And when those that you threaten with annihilation survive they are made all the stronger for passing through the eye of the needle. Looking at Gazprom's balance sheet right now, that's my take.
Dec 10, 2018 Iran has arrested more than 100 Christians in the last week,
charities report, amid a growing crackdown by the Islamic Republic. play_arrowplay_arrow 3 Reply reply Report flag CTG_Sweden
19 minutes ago ( Edited ) remove Share link Copy But so far they haven´t been kicked out of Iran, like a
considerable portion of the Palestinian Christians in Palestine/Israel back in 1947-48. 30 % of
the Palestinians who were driven out from Israel were Christians. Nor have they been starved to
death like the Christians who owned farmland in Russia/Ukraine in the 1920s and 30s when Lenin,
Trotsky, Stalin and Stalin´s "brother in law" Kaganovych ruled over Russian/Ukrainian
farmers. But I agree that Europe still is a better place for Christians than Iran. But does a
person like Barbara Lerner-Spectre want to keep it that way? Well, I´m not so sure about
that. CTG_Sweden 17 minutes ago remove Share link Copy
falconflight:
"christians, and btw Yazidies have been destroyed in those two nations."
My comments:
... by ISIS and Al-Qaeda which indirectly were supported by the West which also wished to
topple Assad. Israel even treated wounded ISIS fighters in Golan (which they had conquered from
Syria in 1967). TeraByte 1 hour ago remove Share link Copy Israel is too arrogant to be able to recognize the current altered
terror balance in ME, even when this is confirmed by their own military analysts. The country
will experience a very hard awakening, if attacking neighbour nations. How is it possible these
Choosenites swearing God chose them to reign over other people and their Holy Talmud telling
"the Universe was created for the fulfillment of the destiny of the Jewish people" now
simultaneously can claim they have a cool rational of their real position on real time. These
lunatics´ religious arguments simply do not add up.
"... we have sent the factories to distant lands and eliminated your jobs, and all the meaning and purpose in your lives -- and cheap stuff from Asia is your consolation prize. Enjoy ..."
"... Homelessness in America runs way deeper than just the winos and drug addicts living on the big city sidewalks. ..."
All the people of America, including the flyovers, are responsible for the sad situation
we're in: this failure to reestablish a common culture of values most people can subscribe to
and use it to rebuild our towns into places worth caring about. Main Street, as it has come to
be, is the physical manifestation of that failure. The businesses that used to occupy the
storefronts are gone, except for second-hand stores. Nobody in 1952 would have believed this
could happen. And yet, there it is: the desolation is stark and heartbreaking.
Even George Bailey's "nightmare" scene in It's a Wonderful Life depicts the
supposedly evil Pottersville as a very lively place, only programmed for old-fashioned
wickedness: gin mills and streetwalkers. Watch the movie and see for yourself.
Pottersville is way more appealing than 99 percent of America's small towns today,
dead as they are.
The dynamics that led to this are not hard to understand. The concentration of retail
commerce in a very few gigantic corporations was a swindle that the public fell for.
Enthralled like little children by the dazzle and gigantism of the big boxes, and the free
parking, we allowed ourselves to be played.
The excuse was "bargain shopping," which actually meant we have sent the factories to
distant lands and eliminated your jobs, and all the meaning and purpose in your lives -- and
cheap stuff from Asia is your consolation prize. Enjoy
The "bones" of the village are still standing but the programming for the organism of a
community is all gone: gainful employment, social roles in the life of the place, confidence in
the future. For a century starting in 1850, there were at least five factories in town. They
made textiles and later on, paper products and, in the end, toilet paper, ironically enough.
Yes, really.
They also made a lot of the sod-busting steel ploughs that opened up the Midwest, and cotton
shirts, and other stuff. The people worked hard for their money, but it was pretty good money
by world standards for most of those years.
It allowed them to eat well, sleep in a warm house, and raise children, which is a good
start for any society. The village was rich with economic and social niches, and yes, it was
hierarchical, but people tended to find the niche appropriate to their abilities and
aspirations -- and, believe it or not, it is better to have a place in society than to have no
place at all, which is the sad situation for so many today.
Homelessness in America runs way deeper than just the winos and drug addicts living on
the big city sidewalks.
It seems there's a major political party exactly working against a common American
culture. They jeer at the thought of it. It seems to be the main platform, above all
else.
It is a major party alright BRH, but it is no so much political as it is economic and
socially stratified. They are opulent, self consumed and greedy as hell (literally). There
can only be so many parasites sucking the lifeblood out of any herd of servant beasts, and
they can only suck so long on their hosts before the poor beasts fall over and die. And that
is the tipping point, where we lose enough life blood that we can no longer stand upright,
but drop to the deck and are consumed. It is the classic Goose that laid the Golden Egg fairy
tale being acted out in real life and coming to a neighborhood near you soon.
Log in to Reply
Beautiful, thoughtful post Jim, yet to be honest it fills me with a sense of anxiety, and
this is simply because the catastrophic events you forecast, although for the better in the
long run (as they will compel a return to a world made by hand, or the recovery of human
scale) will nonetheless bring much suffering to a lot of people ( including my own family). I
would personally like to believe there is another way a more sustainable civilization could
be attained than on the heels of societal collapse. I do believe the world is full of
mystery, and that life itself is a series of unfolding miracles we lack the capacity to
comprehend due to our limited perspective. Yet perhaps you are right and some type of
collapse is inevitable before a new beginning can be made. If such be the case, as
individuals we will be compelled to tap into inner potentials that will needed to meet the
approaching apocalypse, potentials which currently lie dormant and undeveloped. Maybe in the
process of doing so we will recover our wholeness as well.
The new US defense bill, agreed on by both parties, includes sanctions on executives of companies involved in the completion
of Nordstream 2. This is companies involved in laying the remaining pipe, and also companies involved in the infrastructure around
the arrival point.
This could include arrest of the executives of those companies, who might travel to the United States. One of the companies
is Royal Dutch Shell, who have 80,000 employees in the United States.
Some people believe 'the market' for crude oil is a fair and effective arbiter of the industry supply and demand.
But if we step back an inch or two, we all can see it has been a severely broken mechanism during this up phase in oil.
For example, there has been long lags between market signals of shortage or surplus.
Disruptive policies and mechanisms such as tariffs, embargo's, and sanctions, trade bloc quotas, military coups and popular revolutions,
socialist agendas, industry lobbying, multinational corporate McCarthyism, and massively obese debt financing, are all examples
of forces that have trumped an efficient and transparent oil market.
And yet, the problems with the oil market during this time of upslope will look placid in retrospect, as we enter the time beyond
peak.
I see no reason why it won't turn into a mad chaotic scramble.
We had a small hint of what this can look like in the last mid-century. The USA responded to military expansionism of Japan by
enacting an oil embargo against them. The response was Pearl Harbor. This is just one example of many.
How long before Iran lashes out in response to their restricted access to the market?
People generally don't respond very calmly to involuntary restriction on food, or energy, or access to the markets for these things.
"... One key, yet often overlooked, player behind the push to prevent a full U.S. troop withdrawal in Syria in order to "keep the oil" was current U.S. ambassador to Turkey, David Satterfield ..."
"... Over the course of his long diplomatic career, Satterfield has been known to the U.S. government as an Israeli intelligence asset embedded in the U.S. State Department. Indeed, Satterfield was named as a major player in what is now known as the AIPAC espionage scandal, also known as the Lawrence Franklin espionage scandal, although he was oddly never charged for his role after the intervention of his superiors at the State Department in the George W. Bush administration. ..."
"... WINEP's close association with AIPAC, which has spied on the U.S. on behalf of Israel several times in the past with no consequence, combined with Jeffrey's long-time acquaintance with key U.S. figures in Iraq, such as McGurk, provided an ideal opening for Israel in Iraq. Following the implementation of Jeffrey's plan, Israeli imports of KRG oil constituted 77 percent of Israel's total oil imports during the KRG's occupation of Kirkuk. ..."
"... the role played by the U.S. Israel lobby in this capacity, particularly in terms of orchestrating oil sale agreements for Israel's benefit, is hardly exclusive to Iraq and can accurately be described as a repeated pattern of behavior. ..."
The outsized role of U.S. Israel lobby operatives in abetting the theft of Syrian and Iraqi oil reveals how this
powerful lobby also facilitates more covert aspects of U.S.-Israeli cooperation and the implementation of policies that
favor Israel.
Kirkuk, Iraq
--
"We want to bring our soldiers home. But we did leave soldiers
because we're keeping the oil," President Trump stated on November 3, before adding, "I like oil. We're keeping the
oil."
Though he had promised a withdrawal of U.S. troops from their illegal occupation of Syria, Trump shocked many with
his blunt admission that troops were being left behind to prevent Syrian oil resources from being developed by the
Syrian government and, instead, kept in the hands of whomever the U.S. deemed fit to control them, in this case, the
U.S.-backed Kurdish-majority militia known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
Though Trump himself received all of the credit -- and the scorn -- for this controversial new policy, what has been
left out of the media coverage is the fact that key players in the U.S.' pro-Israel lobby played a major role in its
creation with the purpose of selling Syrian oil to the state of Israel. While recent developments in the Syrian conflict
may have hindered such a plan from becoming reality, it nonetheless offers a telling example of the covert role often
played by the U.S.' pro-Israel lobby in shaping key elements of U.S. foreign policy and closed-door deals with major
regional implications.
Indeed, the Israel lobby-led effort to have the U.S. facilitate the sale of Syrian oil to Israel is not an isolated
incident given that, just a few years ago, other individuals connected to the same pro-Israel lobby groups and Zionist
neoconservatives manipulated both U.S. policy and Iraq's Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) in order to allow Iraqi oil
to be sold to Israel without the approval of the Iraqi government. These designs, not unlike those that continue to
unfold in Syria, were in service to longstanding neoconservative and Zionist efforts to balkanize Iraq by strengthening
the KRG and weakening Baghdad.
After the occupation of Iraq's Nineveh Governorate by ISIS (June 2014-October 2015), the Kurdistan Regional
Government (KRG) took advantage of the Iraqi military's retreat and, amidst the chaos, illegally seized Kirkuk on June
12. Their claim to the city was supported by both the U.S. and Israel and, later, the U.S.-led coalition targeting ISIS.
This gave the KRG control, not only of Iraq's export pipeline to Turkey's Ceyhan port, but also to Iraq's largest oil
fields.
Israel imported massive amounts of oil from the Kurds during this period, all without the consent of Baghdad. Israel
was also the
largest customer of oil
sold by ISIS, who used Kurdish-controlled Kirkuk to sell oil in areas of Iraq and Syria
under its control. To do this in ISIS-controlled territories of Iraq, the oil was sent first to the Kurdish city of
Zakho near the Turkey border and then into Turkey, deceptively labeled as oil that originated from Iraqi Kurdistan. ISIS
did nothing to impede the KRG's own oil exports even though they easily could have given that the Kirkuk-Ceyhan export
pipeline passed through areas that ISIS had occupied for years.
In retrospect, and following
revelations from Wikileaks
and new information regarding the background of relevant actors, it has been revealed
that much of the covert maneuvering behind the scenes that enabled this scenario intimately involved the United States'
powerful pro-Israel lobby. Now, with a similar scenario unfolding in Syria, efforts by the U.S.' Israel lobby to
manipulate U.S. foreign policy in order to shift the flow of hydrocarbons for Israel's benefit can instead be seen as a
pattern of behavior, not an isolated incident.
"Keep the oil" for Israel
After recent shifts in the Trump administration in its Syria policy, U.S. troops have controversially been kept in
Syria to "
keep
the oil
," with U.S. military officials subsequently claiming that doing so was "a subset of the counter-ISIS
mission." However, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper
later claimed
that another factor behind U.S. insistence on guarding Syrian oil fields was to prevent the extraction
and subsequent sale of Syrian oil by either the Syrian government or Russia.
One key, yet often overlooked, player behind the push to prevent a full U.S. troop withdrawal in Syria in order to
"keep the oil" was current U.S. ambassador to Turkey, David Satterfield. Satterfield was previously the assistant
secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs, where he yielded great influence over U.S. policy in both Iraq and Syria
and worked closely with Brett McGurk, the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Iraq and Iran and later special
presidential envoy for the U.S.-led "anti-ISIS" coalition.
Over the course of his long diplomatic career, Satterfield has been known to the U.S. government as an Israeli
intelligence asset embedded in the U.S. State Department. Indeed, Satterfield was named as a major player in what is now
known as the AIPAC espionage scandal, also known as the Lawrence Franklin espionage scandal, although he was oddly never
charged for his role after the intervention of his superiors at the State Department in the George W. Bush
administration.
David
Satterfield, left, arrives in Baghdad with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, right, and Joey Hood, May 7, 2019. Mandel
Ngan | AP
In 2005, federal prosecutors cited a U.S. government official as
having illegally passed
classified information
to Steve Rosen, then working for AIPAC, who then passed that information to the Israeli
government. That classified information included intelligence on Iran and the nature of U.S.-Israeli intelligence
sharing. Subsequent media reports from the
New York Times
and other outlets revealed that this government
official was none other than David Satterfield, who was then serving as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Near
East Affairs.
Charges against Rosen, as well as his co-conspirator and fellow AIPAC employee Keith Weissman, were dropped in 2009
and no charges were levied against Satterfield after State Department officials shockingly claimed that Satterfield had
"acted within his authority" in leaking classified information to an individual working to advance the interests of a
foreign government. Richard Armitage, a neoconservative ally with
a long history
of ties to CIA covert operations in the Middle East and elsewhere,
has since claimed
that he was one of Satterfield's main defenders in conversations with the FBI during this time
when he was serving as Deputy Secretary of State.
The other government official named in the indictment, former Pentagon official Lawrence Franklin, was not so lucky
and was charged under the Espionage Act in 2006. Satterfield, instead of being censured for his role in leaking
sensitive information to a foreign government, was subsequently promoted in 2006 to serve as the Coordinator for Iraq
and Senior Adviser to then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
In addition to his history of leaking classified information to AIPAC, Satterfield also has a longstanding
relationship with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a controversial spin-off of AIPAC also known by its
acronym WINEP. WINEP's website has long listed Satterfield as
one of its experts
and Satterfield has spoken at several WINEP events and policy forums, including several
after his involvement
with the AIPAC espionage scandal became public knowledge. However, despite his longstanding
and controversial ties to the U.S. pro-Israel lobby, Satterfield's current relationship with some elements of that
lobby, such as the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), is complicated at best.
While Satterfield's role in yet another reversal of a promised withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria has largely
escaped media scrutiny, another individual with deep ties to the Israel lobby and Syrian "rebel" groups has also been
ignored by the media, despite his outsized role in taking advantage of this new U.S. policy for Israel's benefit.
US Israel Lobby secures deal with Kurds
Earlier this year, well before Trump's new Syria policy of "keeping the oil" had officially taken shape, another
individual with deep ties to the U.S. Israel lobby secured a lucrative agreement with U.S.-backed Kurdish groups in
Syria.
An official document
issued earlier this year by the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC), the political arm of the
Kurdish majority and U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a New Jersey-based company,
founded and run
by U.S.-Israeli dual citizen Mordechai "Motti" Kahana, was given control of the oil in territory held by the SDC.
Per the document, the SDC formally accepted the offer from Kahana's company -- Global Development Corporation (GDC) --
to represent SDC in all matters pertaining to the sale of oil extracted in territory it controls and also grants GDC
"the right to explore and develop oil that is located in areas we govern."
The
SDC's formal acceptance of Global Development Corporation's offer to develop Syrian oil fields. Source |
Al-Akhbar
The document also states that the amount of oil then being produced in SDC-controlled areas was 125,000 barrels per
day and that they anticipated that this would increase to 400,000 barrels per day and that this oil is considered a
foreign asset under the control of the United States by the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
After the document was made public by the Lebanese outlet
Al-Akhbar
, the SDC claimed that it was a forgery,
even though Kahana had
separately
confirmed
its contents and shared the letter itself to the
Los Angeles Times
as recently as a few weeks
ago. Kahana previously attempted to distance himself from the effort and
told the Israeli newspaper
Israel Hayom
in July that he had made the offer to the SDC as means to prevent
the "Assad regime" of Syria from obtaining revenue from the sale of Syrian oil.
The Kurds currently hold 11 oil wells in an area controlled by the [Syrian] Democratic Forces. The overwhelming
majority of Syrian oil is in that area. I don't want this oil reaching Iran, or the Assad regime."
At the time, Kahana also stated that "the moment the Trump administration gives its approval, we can begin to export
this oil at fair prices."
Given that Kahana has openly confirmed that he is representing the SDC's oil business shortly after Trump's adoption
of the controversial "keep the oil policy," it seems plausible that Kahana has now received the approval needed for his
company to export the oil on behalf of the SDC. Several media reports
have speculated
that, if Kahana's efforts go forward unimpeded, the Syrian oil will be sold to Israel.
However, considering Turkey's aversion to engaging in any activities that may benefit the PKK-SDF – there are
considerable obstacles to Kahana's plans. While the SDF -- along with assistance from U.S. troops -- still controls
several oil fields in Syria, experts assert that they can only realistically sell the oil to the Syrian government. Not
even the Iraqi Kurds are a candidate, considering Baghdad's firm control over the Iraq-Syria border and the KRG's
weakened state after its failed independence bid in late 2017.
Regardless, Kahana's involvement in this affair is significant for a few reasons. First, Kahana has been a key player
in the promotion and funding of radical groups in Syria and has even been
caught hiring
so-called "rebels" to kidnap Syrian Jews and take them to Israel against their will. It was Kahana,
for instance, who financed and orchestrated the now infamous trip of the late Senator John McCain to Syria, where he met
with Syrian "rebels" including Khalid al-Hamad – a "moderate" rebel who gained notoriety after a video of him eating the
heart of a Syrian Army soldier
went viral online
. McCain had also
admitted meeting
with ISIS members, though it is unclear if he did so on this trip or another trip to Syria.
In addition, Kahana was also the mastermind behind the "Caesar" controversy, whereby a Syrian using the pseudonym
"Caesar" was brought to the U.S. by Kahana and went on to make claims regarding torture and other crimes allegedly
committed by the Assad-led government Syria, claims which were
later discredited
by independent analysts. He was also
very involved
in Israel's failed efforts to establish a "safe zone" in Southern Syria as a means of
covertly expanding Israel's territory
from the occupied Golan Heights and into Quneitra.
Notably, Kahana has deep ties -- not just to efforts to overthrow the Syrian government -- but also to U.S. Israel
lobby, including the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) where Satterfield is as an expert. For instance,
Kahana was a key player in
a 2013 symposium
organized by WINEP along with Syrian opposition groups intimately involved in the arming of so-called "rebels." One of
the other participants in the symposium alongside Kahana was Mouaz Moustafa, director of the "Syrian Emergency Task
Force" who assisted Kahana in bringing McCain to Syria in 2013. Moustafa
was
listed
as a WINEP expert on the organization's website but was later mysteriously deleted.
Kahana is also intimately involved with the Israeli American Council (IAC), a pro-Israel lobby organization, as
a team member
of its national conference. IAC was co-founded and is chaired by
Adam Milstein
, a multimillionaire and convicted felon who is also on the boards of AIPAC, StandWithUs, Birthright
and other prominent pro-Israel lobby organizations. One of IAC's top donors is Sheldon Adelson, who is also the top
donor to President Trump as well as the entire Republican Party.
Though the machinations of both Kahana and Satterfield to guide U.S. policy in order to manipulate the flow of
Syria's hydrocarbons for Israel's benefit may seem shocking to some, this same tactic of pro-Israel lobbyists using the
Kurds to illegally sell a country's oil to Israel was developed a few years prior, not in Syria, but Iraq. Notably, the
individuals responsible for that policy in Iraq shared connections to several of the same pro-Israel lobby organizations
as both Satterfield and Kahana, suggesting that their recent efforts in Syria are not an isolated event, but a pattern.
War against ISIS is a war for oil
In
an email
dated June 15, 2014, James Franklin Jeffrey (former Ambassador to Iraq and Turkey and current U.S. Special
Representative for Syria) revealed to Stephen Hadley, a former George Bush administration advisor then working at the
government-funded United States Institute of Peace, his intent to advise the KRG in order to sustain Kirkuk's oil
production. The plan, as Jeffery described it, was to supply both the Kurdistan province with oil and allow the export
of oil via Kirkuk-Ceyhan to Israel, robbing Iraq of its oil and strengthening the country's Kurdish region along with
its regional government's bid for autonomy.
Jeffrey,
whose hawkish views on Iran and Syria are well-known
, mentioned that Brett McGurk, the U.S.' main negotiator between
Baghdad and the KRG, was acting as his liaison with the KRG. McGurk, who had served in various capacities in Iraq under
both Bush and Obama, was then also serving Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Iraq and Iran. A year later, he would
be made the special presidential envoy for the U.S.-led "anti-ISIS" coalition and, as previously mentioned, worked
closely with David Satterfield.
James
Jeffrey, left, meets with Kurdish Regional Government President Massoud Barzani, April 8, 2011, at an airport in
Irbil, Iraq. Chip Somodevilla | AP
Jeffrey was then a private citizen not currently employed by the government and was used as a non-governmental
channel in the pursuit of the plans described in the leaked emails published by WikiLeaks. Jeffrey's behind-the-scenes
activities with regards to the KRG's oil exports were done clandestinely, largely because he was then employed by a
prominent arm of the U.S.' pro-Israel lobby.
At the time of the email, Jeffrey was serving
as a
distinguished fellow
(2013-2018) at WINEP. As previously mentioned, WINEP is a pro-Israel foreign policy think-tank
that espouses neoconservative views and was created in 1985 by researchers
that had hastily left AIPAC to escape investigations
against the organization that were related to some of its
members conducting espionage on behalf of Israel. AIPAC, the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, is the largest
registered Israel lobbyist organization in the US (albeit registration under the Foreign Agents Registration Act would
be more suitable), and, in addition to the 1985 incident that led to WINEP's creation, has had members indicted for
espionage against the U.S. on Israel's behalf.
WINEP's launch was funded by former President of the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles, Barbara Weinberg, who is its
founding president and constant Chairman Emerita. Nicknamed 'Barbi', she is the wife of the late Lawrence Weinberg who
was President of AIPAC from 1976-81 and who JJ Goldberg, author of the 1997 book
Jewish Power,
referred to as
one of a select few individuals
who essentially dominated AIPAC regardless of its elected leadership.
Co-founder alongside Weinberg was Martin
Indyk. Indyk, U.S. Ambassador to Israel (1995-97) and Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs (1997-99),
led the AIPAC research time that formed WINEP to escape the aforementioned investigations.
WINEP
has
historically
received funding from
donors
who donate
to causes of special interest for Zionism and Israel. Among its trustees are extremely prominent names in political
Zionism and funders of other Israel Lobby organizations, such as
Charles and Edgar Bronfman
and
the Chernicks
.
Its
membership
remains dominated by individuals who have spent their careers promoting Israeli interests in the U.S.
WINEP has become more well-known, and arguably more controversial, in recent years after its research director
famously called for false-flag attacks to trigger a U.S. war with Iran in 2012, statements well-aligned with
longstanding attempts by the Israel Lobby
to bring about such a war.
A worthy partner in crime
Stephen Hadley, another private citizen who Jeffrey evidently considered as a partner in his covert dealings
discussed in the emails, also has his own past of involvement with Israel-specific intrigues and meddling.
During the G.W. Bush administration, Hadley tagged along with
neoconservatives
in their numerous creations of fake intelligence and efforts to incriminate Iraq for possessing
chemical and nuclear weapons. Hadley was one of the promoters from within the U.S. government of the false claim that
9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta met with Iraqi officials in Prague.
What this particular claim had in common with the
'Iraq meets Atta in Prague'
disinformation, and other famous lies against Iraq fabricated and circulated by the
dense neocon network, was its source: Israel and pro-Israel partisans.
The distribution
network
of these now long-debunked claims was none other than the neoconservatives who act a veritable Israeli fifth
column that has long sought to promote Israeli foreign policy objectives as being in the interest of the United States.
In this, Hadley played his part by helping to ensure that the United States was railroaded into a war that had long been
promoted by both Israeli and American neoconservatives, particularly Richard Perle -- an advisor to WINEP -- who had been
promoting regime change in Iraq
for Israel's explicit benefit
for decades.
In short, for covert intrigues to serve Israel that would likely be met with protest if pitched to the government for
implementation as policy, Hadley's resume was impressive.
Israeli interests pursued through covert channels
Given his employment at WINEP during this time, Jeffrey's intent to advise the KRG to sustain Kirkuk's oil production
despite the seizure of the Baiji oil refinery by ISIS is somewhat suspect, especially since it required that 100,000
barrels per day pass through ISIS-controlled territory unimpeded.
Jeffrey's email from June 14, therefore, demonstrated that he had foreknowledge that ISIS would not disturb the KRG
as long as the Kurds redirected oil that was intended originally for Baiji to the Kirkuk-Ceyhan export pipeline,
facilitating its export and later sale to Israel.
Notably, up until its liberation in mid-2015 by the Iraqi government and aligned Shia paramilitaries,
ISIS kept the refinery running
and, only upon their retreat, destroyed the facility.
One would normally expect ISIS to be opposed to such collusion given that the KRG, while a beneficiary of the
ISIS-Baghdad conflict, was not an ally of ISIS. Thus, a foreign power
with strategic ties to ISIS
used its
close ties to the KRG
and assurances that it was on-board for the oil trade, to deliver a credible guarantee that
ISIS would 'cooperate' and that a boom in production and exports was in the cards.
This foreign power -- acting as a guarantor for the ISIS-KRG understanding vis-a-vis the illegal oil economy,
represented by Jeffrey and clearly not on good terms with Iraq's government -- was quite clearly Israel.
Israel
established considerable financial support
as well as the provision of armaments to other extremist terrorist groups
active near the border between the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and Southern Syria when war first broke out in Syria
in 2011. At least four of these extremist groups were led by individuals
with direct ties to Israeli intelligence
. These same groups, sometimes promoted as 'moderates' by some media, were
actively fighting Syria's government – an enemy of Israel and ally of Iran – before ISIS existed and
eagerly partnered with ISIS
when it expanded its campaign into Syria.
Israel has also long promoted the independence of Iraqi Kurdistan, with Israel having provided Iraq's Kurds with
weapons, training and teams of Mossad advisers
as far back as the 1960s
. More recently,
Israel was the only state
to support the KRG independence referendum in September 2017 despite its futility, hinting
at the regard Israel holds for the KRG. Iraq's government subsequently militarily
defeated the KRG's push for statehood
and reclaimed Kirkuk's oil fields with assistance from the Shia paramilitaries
which were responsible for defeating ISIS in the area.
A
2014 map shows the areas under ISIS and Kurdish control at the time. Source |
Telegraph
This arrangement orchestrated by Jeffrey, served the long-time neoconservative-Israeli agenda of empowering the
Kurds,
selling Iraqi oil
to Israel and weakening Iraq's Baghdad-based government.
WINEP's close association with AIPAC,
which has spied on the U.S. on behalf of Israel
several times in the past with no consequence, combined with
Jeffrey's long-time acquaintance with key U.S. figures in Iraq, such as McGurk, provided an ideal opening for Israel in
Iraq. Following the implementation of Jeffrey's plan, Israeli imports of KRG oil constituted
77
percent of Israel's total oil imports
during the KRG's occupation of Kirkuk.
The WINEP connection to the KRG-Israel oil deal demonstrates the key role played by the U.S. pro-Israel Lobby, not
only in terms of sustaining U.S. financial aid to Israel and ratcheting up tensions with Israel's adversaries but also
in facilitating the more covert aspects of U.S.-Israeli cooperation and the implementation of policies that favor
Israel.
Yet the role played by the U.S. Israel lobby in this capacity, particularly in terms of orchestrating oil sale
agreements for Israel's benefit, is hardly exclusive to Iraq and can accurately be described as a repeated pattern of
behavior.
caucus99percent
free-range politics, organic community
Trump is stealing Syria's oil for the Saudis
gjohnsit
on Fri, 12/20/2019 - 4:28pm
President Trump recently said the quiet part
out loud
.
"We may have to fight for the oil. It's O.K.," he said. "Maybe somebody else wants the oil, in
which case they have a hell of a fight. But there's massive amounts of oil." The United States,
he added, should be able to take some of Syria's oil. "What I intend to do, perhaps, is make a
deal with an ExxonMobil or one of our great companies to go in there and do it properly," he
said. The goal would be to "spread out the wealth."
At the very least this amounts to pillaging, but then respect for the law isn't on Trump agenda.
Trump is "protecting" Syria's oil in the
exact
same way that the mob "protects" a
small businessman from arson.
Not
kind of
the same way. EXACTLY the same way.
Trump comment US intends to keep the oil in
Syria. Guard with US armored forces. Bring in US oil companies to modernize the field. WHAT ARE
WE BECOMING.... PIRATES? If ISIS is defeated we lack Congressional authority to stay. The oil
belongs to Syria.
https://t.co/Leko5s1hXF
So what "great companies" would be willing "to go in there" and "spread out the wealth?"
That company turned out to be
ARAMCO
.
Sources have disclosed that the Saudi Arabian Oil Company, commonly referred to as Aramco, has
sent a delegation of experts to discuss
investment opportunities in the oil fields and
wells in the Eastern Syrian city of Deir Ez-Zor.
According to the oppositionist news site Deir Ezzor 24, Aramco "started implementing
practical steps in this field, where a group of the company arrived in an official mission to
al-Omar oil field in the eastern Deir Ezzor countryside."
There is no legal means to do this. This is the outright theft of resources.
And it keeps getting worse.
It is believed that the
investments will be made through contracts signed between Aramco
and the US government
, whose armed forces have steadily been increasing their military
presence in terms of manpower and equipment around the oil fields.
That is trafficking in the sale of stolen property, but it gets even worse than that.
The Kurdish Syrian Defence Forces (formerly known as the YPG) currently control most of the
country's oil fields and have shifted towards an alliance with the Syrian government after
losing American protection in the north-east of the country in the wake of Trump's "withdrawal"
and ensuing Turkish offensive dubbed "Operation Peace Spring" to clear the area of Kurdish
militias
So we can't even pretend to be doing this for the benefit of the local population, our regional
allies, or any other justification except naked theft.
Trump should be in jail for this.
"I think in this case we are not talking about an operation associated with a huge share of
risk, but, on the contrary, about a well-thought-out operation."
- Professor RSUH Grigory Kosach
The Pentagon is enthusiastically cooperating in this blatant violation of international law.
US troops have
returned
to six out of 16 bases in Syria that had been previously abandoned during the October
withdrawal.
What's more, our military is
settling in
for the long haul.
Barely two months after US President Donald Trump's demagogic announcement that he was pulling
US troops out of northeastern Syria to fulfill his campaign promise to bring a halt to
Washington's "endless wars," the senior civilian and uniformed Pentagon chiefs told a House
panel Wednesday that
there is no foreseeable end to the American presence there.
...
Esper went even further, insisting that US military forces had to remain in Syria not so much to
counter any existing military force, but rather an "ideology".
"I think the defeat, if you will, will be hard because it's an ideology," Esper told the
House panel after repeated questions regarding US strategy in Syria.
"It's hard to
foresee anytime soon we would stamp it out,"
he added.
Everyone that somehow finds a way to defend Trump based on his so-called aversion to foreign
wars needs to take a good, hard look at this. Because THIS is 100% Trump's doing.
US-led forces have blown up three oil tankers in Syria as the United States increases
its pressure on Syria by thwarting the oil trade between the PKK/YPG and the Assad
regime, according to local sources quoted by several media sources.
The YPG are our Kurdish allies that the warmongers were so concerned about just a few
months ago. We "care" about them, right up until they want to sell oil to the Assad
regime. Then they deserve death.
That's OUR oil.
I think the powerful foreign policy cabal in Washington have him by the balls and give
them a squeeze when he gets off point.
One day he is pulling out. The next day he says
he staying in to "protect" the oil fields. The third day he sends US forces back in so he
can sell the oil so that the Syrians don't "steal" it.
What's going to happen on the fourth day when a half dozen American soldiers get
eviscerated by a roadside bomb while on patrol?
but just like congress won't make him withdraw troops from Yemen and stop supporting the
Saudis, they are in complete agreement with him doing that.
Israel bought Syria's oil from ISIS all during Obama's tenure as he watched them take
it out through Turkey.
But it's Russian aggression that is causing all the problems in the Middle East right?
And Iran's too. Why we can't make deals for resources instead of spending gawd only knows
how much money. But then the defense companies wouldn't get all of our money now would
they? We pay for the defense companies CEOs large bonuses and salaries. Great gig!
Regarding your last sentence: this is the great truth that Washington's world hegemonists would have you forget. Taking into
account the untapped vast resources of Canada and Alaska and its expansive offshore economic zones extending deep into the Atlantic,
the Pacific, the Gulf of Mexico and the Arctic Ocean, the North American anglosphere could be entirely self-sufficient and do
quite nicely on its own for hundreds of years to come, it just wouldn't be the sole tyrannical state presumably ruling the entire
planet.
Why, it might even entertain the idea of actually cooperating with other regional powers like Russia, China, the EU, India,
Iran, Turkey, the Middle East, greater central Asia, Latin America and even Africa to everyone's benefit, rather than bullying
them all because god ordained us to be the boss of all humans.
America's major malfunction is its lack of historical roots compared to the other societies mentioned. All those places had
thousands of years to refine their sundry cultures and international relationships, certainly through trial and error and many
horrible setbacks, most notably wars, famines, pestilence, genocide and human bondage which people did not have the foresight
to nip in the bud. They learned by their mistakes and some, like the great world wars, were doozies.
The United States, and some of its closest homologues like Canada, Australia, Brazil and Argentina, were thrown together very
rapidly as part of developing colonial empires. It was created through the brute actions of a handful of megalomaniacal oligarchs
of their day. What worked to suppress vast tracts of aboriginal homelands, often through genocide and virtual extinction of the
native populations, was so effective that it was institutionalized in the form of slavery and reckless exploitation of the local
environment. These "great leaders," "pioneers" and "founding fathers" were not about to give up a set of principles -- no matter
how sick and immoral -- which they knew to "work" and accrued to them great power and riches. They preferred to label it "American
exceptionalism" and force it upon the whole rest of the world, including long established regional powers -- cultures going back
to antiquity -- and not just conveniently sketched "burdens of the white man."
No, ancient cultures like China, India, Persia and so forth could obviously be improved for all concerned merely by allowing
a handful of Western Europeans to own all their property and run all their affairs. That grand plan fell apart for most of the
European powers in the aftermath of World War Two, but Washington has held tough and never given up its designs of micromanaging
and exploiting the whole planet. It too is soon to learn its lesson and lose its empire. Either that or it will take the world
down in flames as it tries to cling to all that it never really owned or deserved. The most tragic (or maybe just amusing) part
is that Washington still had most of the world believing its bullshit about exceptionalism and indispensability until it decided
it had to emulate every tyrannical empire that ever collapsed before it.
Realist , April 30, 2019 at 02:08
"ex·tor·tion /ik?stôrSH(?)n/ noun The practice of obtaining something, especially money, through force or threats."
"Racketeering refers to crimes committed through extortion or coercion. A racketeer attempts to obtain money or property from
another person, usually through intimidation or force. The term is typically associated with organized crime."
I see. So, American foreign policy, as applied to both its alleged enemies and presumed allies, essentially amounts to an exercise
in organised crime. So much for due process, free trade, peaceful co-existence, magical rainbows and other such hypocritical platitudes
dispensed for domestic consumption in place of the heavy-handed threats routinely delivered to Washington's targets.
That's quite in keeping with the employment of war crimes as standard "tactics, techniques and procedures" on the battlefield
which was recently admitted to us by Senator Jim Molan on the "60 Minutes" news show facsimile and discussed in one of yesterday's
forums on this blog.
Afghanistan was promised a carpet of gold or a carpet of bombs as incentive to bend to our will (and that of Unocal which,
unlike Nordstream, was a pipeline Washington wanted built). Iraq was promised and delivered "shock and awe" after a secretary
of state had declared the mass starvation of that country's children as well worth the effort. They still can't find all the pieces
left of the Libyan state. Syria was told it would be stiffed on any American contribution to its rebuilding for the effrontery
of actually beating back the American-recruited, trained and financed ISIS terrorist brigades. Now it's being deliberately starved
of both its energy and food requirements by American embargoes on its own resources! North Korea was promised utter annihilation
by Yankee nukes before Kim's summit with our great leader unless it submitted totally to his will, or more likely that of Pompous
Pompeo, the man who pulls his strings. Venezuela is treated to cyber-hacked power outages and shortages of food, medicines, its
own gold bullion, income from its own international petroleum sales and, probably because someone in Washington thinks it's funny,
even toilet paper. All they have to do to get relief is kick out the president they elected and replace him with Washington's
chosen puppet! Yep, freedom and democracy blah, blah, blah. And don't even ask what the kids in Yemen got for Christmas from Uncle
Sam this year. (He probably stole their socks.) A real American patriot will laughingly take Iran to task for ever believing in
the first place that Washington could be negotiated with in good faith. All they had to do was ask the Native Americans (or the
Russians) how the Yanks keep their word and honor their treaties. It was their own fault they were taken for suckers.
Information from local sources said that US army helicopters have already transported the gold bullions under cover of darkness
on Sunday [February 24th], before transporting them to the United States.
The sources said that tens of tons that Daesh had been keeping in their last hotbed in al-Baghouz area in Deir Ezzor countryside
have been handed to the Americans, adding up to other tons of gold that Americans have found in other hideouts for Daesh, making
the total amount of gold taken by the Americans to the US around 50 tons, leaving only scraps for the SDF [Kurdish] militias that
serve them [the US operation].
Recently, sources said that the area where Daesh leaders and members have barricaded themselves in, contains around 40 tons
of gold and tens of millions of dollars.
Allegedly, "US occupation forces in the Syrian al-Jazeera area made a deal with Daesh terrorists, by which Washington gets tens
of tons of gold that the terror organization had stolen, in exchange for providing safe passage for the terrorists and their leaders
from the areas in Deir Ezzor where they are located."
ISIS was financing its operations largely by the theft of oil from the oil wells in the Deir Ezzor area, Syria's oil-producing
region, and they transported and sold this stolen oil via their allied forces, through Turkey, which was one of those US allies trying
to overthrow Syria's secular Government
and install a Sunni fundamentalist regime that would be ruled from Riyadh (i.e., controlled by the Saud family) . This gold is
the property of the Syrian Government, which owns all that oil and the oil wells, which ISIS had captured (stolen), and then sold.
Thus, this gold is from sale of that stolen black-market oil, which was Syria's property.
The US Government evidently thinks that the public are fools, idiots. America's allies seem to be constantly amazed at how successful
that approach turns out to be.
Jihadists were recruited from throughout the world to fight against Syria's secular Government. Whereas ISIS was funded mainly
by black-market sales of oil from conquered areas, the Al-Qaeda-led groups were mainly funded by the Sauds and other Arab royal families
and their retinues, the rest of their aristocracy. On 13 December 2013, BBC headlined
"Guide to the Syrian rebels" and opened "There are
believed to be as many as 1,000 armed opposition groups in Syria, commanding an estimated 100,000 fighters." Except in the Kurdish
areas in Syria's northeast, almost all of those fighters were being led by Al Qaeda's Syrian Branch, al-Nusra. Britain's Center on
Religion & Politics headlined on 21 December 2015,
"Ideology
and Objectives of the Syrian Rebellion" and reported: "If ISIS is defeated, there are at least 65,000 fighters belonging to other
Salafi-jihadi groups ready to take its place." Almost all of those 65,000 were trained and are led by Syria's Al Qaeda (Nusra), which
was protected by
the US
In September 2016 a UK official
"FINAL REPORT OF THE TASK
FORCE ON COMBATING TERRORIST AND FOREIGN FIGHTER TRAVEL" asserted that, "Over 25,000 foreign fighters have traveled to the battlefield
to enlist with Islamist terrorist groups, including at least 4,500 Westerners. More than 250 individuals from the United States have
also joined." Even just 25,000 (that official lowest estimate) was a sizable US proxy-army of religious fanatics to overthrow Syria's
Government.
On 26 November 2015, the first of Russia's videos of Russia's bombing ISIS oil trucks headed into Turkey was bannered at a US
military website
"Russia Airstrike on ISIS Oil Tankers" , and exactly a month later, on 26 December 2015, Britain's Daily Express headlined
"WATCH: Russian fighter jets smash ISIS oil tankers after spotting 12,000 at Turkish border" . This article, reporting around
twelve thousand ISIS oil-tanker trucks heading into Turkey, opened: "The latest video, released by the Russian defence ministry,
shows the tankers bunched together as they make their way along the road. They are then blasted by the fighter jet." The US military
had nothing comparable to offer to its 'news'-media. Britain's Financial Times headlined on 14 October 2015,
"Isis Inc: how oil fuels the jihadi terrorists" . Only America's allies were
involved in this commerce with ISIS -- no nation that supported Syria's Government was participating in this black market of stolen
Syrian goods. So, it's now clear that a lot of that stolen oil was sold for gold as Syria's enemy-nations' means of buying that oil
from ISIS. They'd purchase it from ISIS, but not from Syria's Government, the actual owner.
An estimated 20,000-40,000 barrels of oil are produced daily in ISIS controlled territory generating $1-1.5 million daily profit
for the terrorist organization. The oil is extracted from Dir A-Zur in Syria and two fields in Iraq and transported to the Kurdish
city of Zakhu in a triangle of land near the borders of Syria, Iraq and Turkey. Israeli and Turkish mediators come to the city
and when prices are agreed, the oil is smuggled to the Turkish city of Silop marked as originating from Kurdish regions of Iraq
and sold for $15-18 per barrel (WTI and Brent Crude currently sell for $41 and $45 per barrel) to the Israeli mediator, a man
in his 50s with dual Greek-Israeli citizenship known as Dr. Farid. He transports the oil via several Turkish ports and then onto
other ports, with Israel among the main destinations.
The US had done the same thing when it took over Ukraine by
a brutal coup in February 2014
: It grabbed the gold. Iskra News in Russian
reported, on 7 March 2014 , that "At 2 a.m. this morning ... an unmarked transport plane was on the runway at Borosipol Airport"
near Kiev in the west, and that, "According to airport staff, before the plane came to the airport, four trucks and two Volkswagen
minibuses arrived, all the truck license plates missing." This was as translated by Michel Chossudovsky at Global Research headlining
on 14 March,
"Ukraine's Gold Reserves Secretly Flown Out and Confiscated by the New York Federal Reserve?" in which he noted that, when asked,
"A spokesman for the New York Fed said simply, 'Any inquiry regarding gold accounts should be directed to the account holder.'" The
load was said to be "more than 40 heavy boxes." Chossudovsky noted that, "The National Bank of Ukraine (Central Bank) estimated Ukraine's
gold reserves in February to be worth $1.8 billion dollars." It was allegedly 36 tons. The US, according to Victoria Nuland (
Obama's detail-person
overseeing the coup ) had invested around $5 billion in the coup. Was her installed Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk
cleaning out the nation's gold reserves in order to strip the nation so that the nation's steep indebtedness for Russian gas would
never be repaid to Russia's oligarchs? Or was he doing it as a payoff for Nuland's having installed him? Or both? In any case: Russia
was being squeezed by this fascist
Ukrainian-American ploy.
The Syria operation was about oil, gold, and guns. However, most of America's support was to Al-Qaeda-led jihadists, not to ISIS-jihadists.
As the great independent investigative journalist Dilyana
Gaytandzhieva reported on 2 July 2017 :
"In December of last year while reporting on the battle of Aleppo as a correspondent for Bulgarian media I found and filmed
9 underground warehouses full of heavy weapons with Bulgaria as their country of origin. They were used by Al Nusra Front (Al
Qaeda affiliate in Syria designated as a terrorist organization by the UN)."
Furthermore, On
8 March 2013, Richard Spenser of Britain's Telegraph reported that Croatia's Jutarnji List newspaper had reported that "3,000
tons of weapons dating back to the former Yugoslavia have been sent in 75 planeloads from Zagreb airport to the rebels, largely via
Jordan since November. The airlift of dated but effective Yugoslav-made weapons meets key concerns of the West, and especially Turkey
and the United States, who want the rebels to be better armed to drive out the Assad regime."
Also, a September 2014 study by Conflict Armaments Research (CAR), titled
"Islamic State Weapons
in Iraq and Syria" , reported that not only east-European, but even US-made, weapons were being "captured from Islamic State
forces" by Kurds who were working for the Americans, and that this was very puzzling and disturbing to those Kurds, who were risking
their lives to fight against those jihadists.
In December 2017, CAR headlined
"Weapons of the Islamic State"
and reported that "this materiel was rapidly captured by IS forces, only to be deployed by the group against international coalition
forces." The assumption made there was that the transfer of weapons to ISIS was all unintentional.
That report ignored contrary evidence, which I summed up on 2 September 2017 headlining
"Russian TV
Reports US Secretly Backing ISIS in Syria" , and reporting there also from the Turkish Government an admission that the US was
working with Turkey to funnel surviving members of Iraq's ISIS into the Deir Ezzor part of Syria to help defeat Syria's Government
in that crucial oil-producing region. Moreover, at least one member of the 'rebels' that the US was training at Al Tanf on Syria's
Jordanian border had quit because his American trainers were secretly diverting some of their weapons to ISIS. Furthermore: why hadn't
the US bombed Syrian ISIS before Russia entered the Syrian war on 30 September 2015? America talked lots about its supposed effort
against ISIS, but why did US wait till 16 November 2015 before taking action,
"'Get Out Of Your Trucks And Run Away': US Gives ISIS 45 Minute Warning On Oil Tanker Strikes" ?
So, regardless of whether the US Government uses jihadists as its proxy-forces, or uses fascists as its proxy-forces, it grabs
the gold -- and grabs the oil, and takes whatever else it can.
This is today's form of imperialism.
Grab what you can, and run. And call it 'fighting for freedom and democracy and human rights and against corruption'. And the
imperial regime's allies watch in amazement, as they take their respective cuts of the loot. That's the deal, and they call it 'fighting
for freedom and democracy and human rights and against corruption around the world'. That's the way it works. International gangland.
That's the reality, while most of the public think it's instead really "fighting for freedom and democracy and human rights and against
corruption around the world." For example, as
RT reported on Sunday , March 3rd,
about John Bolton's effort at regime-change in Venezuela, Bolton said: "I'd like to see as broad a coalition as we can put together
to replace Maduro, to replace the whole corrupt regime,' Bolton told CNN's Jake Tapper." Trump's regime wants to bring clean and
democratic government to the poor Venezuelans, just like Bush's did to the Iraqis, and Obama's did to the Libyans and to the Syrians
and to the Ukrainians. And Trump, who pretends to oppose Obama's regime-change policies, alternately expands them and shrinks them.
Though he's slightly different from Obama on domestic policies, he never, as the US President, condemns any of his predecessors'
many coups and invasions, all of which were disasters for everybody except America's and allies' billionaires. They're all in on
the take.
The American public were suckered into destroying Iraq in 2003, Libya in 2011, Syria in 2011-now, and so many other countries,
and still haven't learned anything, other than to keep trusting the allegations of this lying and psychopathically vicious and super-aggressive
Government and of its stenographic 'news'-media. When is enough finally enough ? Never? If not never, then when ? Or do most people
never learn? Or maybe they don't really care. Perhaps that's the problem.
Back on 21 December 2018, one of the US regime's top 'news'-media, the Washington Post, had headlined
"Retreating ISIS army smuggled a fortune in cash and gold out of Iraq and Syria" and reported that "the Islamic State is sitting
on a mountain of stolen cash and gold that its leaders stashed away to finance terrorist operations." So, it's not as if there hadn't
been prior reason to believe that some day some of the gold would be found after America's defeat in Syria. Maybe they just hadn't
expected this to happen quite so soon. But the regime will find ways to hoodwink its public, in the future, just as it has in the
past. Unless the public wises-up (if that's even possible).
In any case withdrawal from Syria was a surprising and bold move on the Part of the Trump. You can criticizes Trump for not doing
more but before that he bahvaves as a typical neocon, or a typical Republican presidents (which are the same things). And he started
on this path just two month after inauguration bombing Syria under false pretences. So this is something
I think the reason of change is that Trump intuitively realized the voters are abandoning him in droves and the sizable faction
of his voters who voted for him because of his promises to end foreign wars iether already defected or is ready to defect. So this is
a move designed to keep them.
Notable quotes:
"... "America shouldn't be doing the fighting for every nation on earth, not being reimbursed in many cases at all. If they want us to do the fighting, they also have to pay a price," Trump said. ..."
President Trump's big announcement to pull US troops out of Syria and Afghanistan is now emerging less as a peace move, and more
a rationalization of American military power in the Middle East. In a surprise visit to US forces in Iraq this week, Trump
said he had no intention of withdrawing the troops in that country, who have been there for nearly 15 years since GW Bush invaded
back in 2003.
Hinting at private discussions with commanders in Iraq, Trump boasted that US forces would in the future launch attacks from there
into Syria if and when needed. Presumably that rapid force deployment would apply to other countries in the region, including Afghanistan.
In other words, in typical business-style transactional thinking, Trump sees the pullout from Syria and Afghanistan as a cost-cutting
exercise for US imperialism. Regarding Syria, he has bragged about Turkey being assigned, purportedly, to "finish off" terror
groups. That's Trump subcontracting out US interests.
Critics and supporters of Trump are confounded. After his Syria and Afghanistan pullout call, domestic critics and NATO allies
have accused him of walking from the alleged "fight against terrorism" and of ceding strategic ground to US adversaries Russia
and Iran.
Meanwhile, Trump's supporters have viewed his decision in more benign light, cheering the president for "sticking it to"
the deep state and military establishment, assuming he's delivering on electoral promises to end overseas wars.
However, neither view gets what is going on. Trump is not scaling back US military power; he is rationalizing it like a cost-benefit
analysis, as perhaps only a real-estate-wheeler-dealer-turned president would appreciate. Trump is not snubbing US militarism or
NATO allies, nor is he letting loose an inner peace spirit. He is as committed to projecting American military as ruthlessly and
as recklessly as any other past occupant of the White House. The difference is Trump wants to do it on the cheap.
Here's what he said to reporters on Air Force One before touching down in Iraq:
"The United States cannot continue to be the policeman of the world. It's not fair when the burden is all on us, the United
States We are spread out all over the world. We are in countries most people haven't even heard about. Frankly, it's ridiculous."
He added: "We're no longer the suckers, folks."
Laughably, Trump's griping about US forces "spread all over the world" unwittingly demonstrates the insatiable, monstrous
nature of American militarism. But Trump paints this vice as a virtue, which, he complains, Washington gets no thanks for from the
150-plus countries around the globe that its forces are present in.
As US troops greeted him in Iraq, the president made explicit how the new American militarism would henceforth operate.
"America shouldn't be doing the fighting for every nation on earth, not being reimbursed in many cases at all. If they want
us to do the fighting, they also have to pay a price," Trump said.
This reiterates a big bugbear for this president in which he views US allies and client regimes as "not pulling their weight"
in terms of military deployment. Trump has been browbeating European NATO members to cough up more on military budgets, and he has
berated the Saudis
and other Gulf Arab regimes to pay more for American interventions.
Notably, however, Trump has never questioned the largesse that US taxpayers fork out every year to Israel in the form of nearly
$4 billion in military aid. To be sure, that money is not a gift because much of it goes back to the Pentagon from sales of fighter
jets and missile systems.
The long-held notion that the US has served as the "world's policeman" is, of course, a travesty.
Since WWII, all presidents and the Washington establishment have constantly harped on, with self-righteousness, about America's
mythical role as guarantor of global security.
Dozens of illegal wars on almost every continent and millions of civilian deaths attest to the real, heinous conduct of American
militarism as a weapon to secure US corporate capitalism.
But with US economic power in historic decline amid a national debt now over $22 trillion, Washington can no longer afford its
imperialist conduct in the traditional mode of direct US military invasions and occupations.
Perhaps, it takes a cost-cutting, raw-toothed capitalist like Trump to best understand the historic predicament, even if only
superficially.
This gives away the real calculation behind his troop pullout from Syria and Afghanistan. Iraq is going to serve as a new regional
hub for force projection on a demand-and-supply basis. In addition, more of the dirty work can be contracted out to Washington's
clients like Turkey, Israel and Saudi Arabia, who will be buying even more US weaponry to prop the military-industrial complex.
This would explain why Trump made his hurried, unexpected visit to Iraq this week. Significantly, he
said
: "A lot of people are going to come around to my way of thinking", regarding his decision on withdrawing forces from Syria
and Afghanistan.
Since his troop pullout plan announced on December 19, there has been serious pushback from senior Pentagon figures, hawkish Republicans
and Democrats, and the anti-Trump media. The atmosphere is almost seditious against the president. Trump flying off to Iraq on Christmas
night was
reportedly his first visit to troops in an overseas combat zone since becoming president two years ago.
What Trump seemed to be doing was reassuring the Pentagon and corporate America that he is not going all soft and dovish. Not
at all. He is letting them know that he is aiming for a leaner, meaner US military power, which can save money on the number of foreign
bases by using rapid reaction forces out of places like Iraq, as well as by subcontracting operations out to regional clients.
Thus, Trump is not coming clean out of any supposed principle when he cuts back US forces overseas. He is merely applying his
knack for screwing down costs and doing things on the cheap as a capitalist tycoon overseeing US militarism.
During past decades when American capitalism was relatively robust, US politicians and media could indulge in the fantasy of their
military forces going around the world in large-scale formations to selflessly "defend freedom and democracy."
Today, US capitalism is broke. It simply can't sustain its global military empire. Enter Donald Trump with his "business solutions."
But in doing so, this president, with his cheap utilitarianism and transactional exploitative mindset, lets the cat out of the
bag. As he says, the US cannot be the world's policeman. Countries are henceforth going to have to pay for "our protection."
Inadvertently, Trump is showing up US power for what it really is: a global thug running a protection racket.
It's always been the case. Except now it's in your face. Trump is no Smedley Butler, the former Marine general who in the 1930s
condemned US militarism as a Mafia operation. This president is stupidly revealing the racket, while still thinking it is something
virtuous.
Finian Cunningham (born 1963) has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages.
Originally from Belfast, Northern Ireland, he is a Master's graduate in Agricultural Chemistry and worked as a scientific editor
for the Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, England, before pursuing a career in newspaper journalism. For over 20 years he worked
as an editor and writer in major news media organizations, including The Mirror, Irish Times and Independent. Now a freelance journalist
based in East Africa, his columns appear on RT, Sputnik, Strategic Culture Foundation and Press TV.
dnm1136
Once again, Cunningham has hit the nail on the head. Trump mistakenly conflates fear with respect. In reality, around the world,
the US is feared but generally not respected.
My guess is that the same was true about Trump as a businessman, i.e., he was not respected, only feared due to his willingness
to pursue his "deals" by any means that "worked" for him, legal or illegal, moral or immoral, seemingly gracious or mean-spirited.
William Smith
Complaining how the US gets no thanks for its foreign intervention. Kind of like a rapist claiming he should be thanked for
"pleasuring" his victim. Precisely the same sentiment expressed by those who believe the American Indians should thank the Whites
for "civilising" them.
Phoebe S,
"Washington gets no thanks for from the 150-plus countries around the globe that its forces are present in."
That might mean they don't want you there. Just saying.
ProRussiaPole
None of these wars are working out for the US strategically. All they do is sow chaos. They seem to not be gaining anything,
and are just preventing others from gaining anything as well.
Ernie For -> ProRussiaPole
i am a huge Putin fan, so is big Don. Please change your source of info Jerome, Trump is one man against Billions of people
and dollars in corruption. He has achieved more in the USA in 2 years than all 5 previous parasites together.
Truthbetold69
It could be a change for a better direction. Time will tell. 'If you do what you've always been doing, you'll get what you've
always been getting.'
"... One of the most revealing and absurd responses to rejections of forever war is the ridiculous dodge that the U.S. isn't really at war when it uses force and kills people in multiple foreign countries: ..."
"... The distinction between "real war" and the constant U.S. involvement in hostilities overseas is a phony one. The war is very real to the civilian bystanders who die in U.S. airstrikes, and it is very real to the soldiers and Marines still getting shot at and blown up in Afghanistan. This is not an "antidote to war," but rather the routinization of warfare. ..."
"... The routinization and normalization of endless, unauthorized war is one of the most harmful legacies of the Obama administration. ..."
"... When the Obama administration wanted political and legal cover for the illegal Libyan war in 2011, they came up with a preposterous claim that U.S. forces weren't engaged in hostilities because there was no real risk to them from the Libyan government's forces. According to Harold Koh, who was the one responsible for promoting this nonsense, U.S. forces weren't engaged in hostilities even when they were carrying out a sustained bombing campaign for months. That lie has served as a basis for redefining what counts as involvement in hostilities so that the president and the Pentagon can pretend that the U.S. military isn't engaged in hostilities even when it clearly is. When the only thing that gets counted as a "real war" is a major deployment of hundreds of thousands of troops, that allows for a lot of unaccountable warmaking that has been conveniently reinvented as something else. ..."
One of the most revealing and absurd responses to
rejections of forever war
is the ridiculous dodge that the U.S. isn't really at war when it uses force and kills people in multiple foreign countries:
Just like @POTUS , who put a limited op of NE
#Syria under heading of "endless
war," this op-ed has "drone strikes & Special Ops raids" in indictment of US-at-war. In fact, those actions are antidote to war.
Their misguided critique is insult to real war. https://t.co/DCLS9IDKSw
War has become so normalized over the last twenty years that the constant use of military force gets discounted as something other
than "real war." We have seen this war denialism on display several times in the last year. As more presidential candidates and analysts
have started rejecting endless war, the war's
defenders have often
chosen to
pretend
that the U.S. isn't at war at all. The distinction between "real war" and the constant U.S. involvement in hostilities overseas is
a phony one. The war is very real to the civilian bystanders who die in U.S. airstrikes, and it is very real to the soldiers and
Marines still getting shot at and blown up in Afghanistan. This is not an "antidote to war," but rather the routinization of warfare.
Because Obama is relatively less aggressive and reckless than his hawkish opponents (a very low bar to clear), he is frequently
given a pass on these issues, and we are treated to misleading stories about his supposed "realism" and "restraint." Insofar as
he has been a president who normalized and routinized open-ended and unnecessary foreign wars, he has shown that neither of those
terms should be used to describe his foreign policy. Even though I know all too well that the president that follows him will
be even worse, the next president will have a freer hand to conduct a more aggressive and dangerous foreign policy in part because
of illegal wars Obama has waged during his time in office.
The attempt to define war so that it never includes what the U.S. military happens to be doing when it uses force abroad has been
going on for quite a while. When the Obama administration wanted political and legal cover for the illegal Libyan war in 2011, they
came up with a preposterous claim that U.S. forces weren't engaged in hostilities because there was no real risk to them from the
Libyan government's forces. According to Harold Koh, who was the one responsible for promoting this nonsense, U.S. forces weren't
engaged in hostilities even when they were carrying out a sustained bombing campaign for months. That lie has served as a basis for
redefining what counts as involvement in hostilities so that the president and the Pentagon can pretend that the U.S. military isn't
engaged in hostilities even when it clearly is. When the only thing that
gets counted as a "real war" is a major deployment
of hundreds of thousands of troops, that allows for a lot of unaccountable warmaking that has been conveniently reinvented as something
else.
It isn't just physical war that results in active service body bags but our aggression has alreay cost lives on the home front
and there is every reason to believe it will do so again.
We were not isolationists prior to 9/11/2001, Al Qaeda had already attacked but we were distracted bombing Serbia, expanding
NATO, and trying to connect Al Qaeda attacks to Iran. We were just attacked by a Saudi officer we were training on our soil to
use the Saudis against Iran.
It remains to be seen what our economic warfare against Iran, Venezuela, Syria, Yemen, and our continued use of Afghanistan
as a bombing platform will cost us. We think we are being clever by using our Treasury Dept and low intensity warfare to minimize
direct immediate casualties but how long can that last.
This article confirms what the last Real Commander-in-Chief, General/President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned about when he retired
58 years ago.
His wise Council based on his Supreme Military-Political experience has been ignored.
The MSM, Propagandists for the Military-Industrial Complex, won't remind the American People.
Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could,
with time and as required, make swords as well.
But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments
industry of vast proportions.
Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on
military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.
This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total
influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government.
We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the
very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought,
by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for
granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military
machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
The psychological contortionism required to deny that we are at war amazes me. US military forces are killing people in other
countries – but it's not war? Because we can manufacture comforting euphemisms like "police action" or "preventive action" or
"drone strike," it's not war? Because it's smaller scale than a "real" war like WWII?
Cancer is cancer. A small cancer is still a cancer. Arguing that it's not cancer because it's not metastatic stage IV is, well,
the most polite term is sophistry. More accurate terms aren't printable.
I think it should have been seen as a thirty year campaign and the same with Iraq and Libya.
The northern Ireland campaign took 30 years and many people are as bitter as they ever were
much of it secondhand from younger people who weren't even alive during the conflict. The
idea of a quick war is a very big mistake I think and flawed short-term thinking.
The West and the USA in particular have always taken the stand that their ideology is the
only right one. That they have a right to interfere in the interns, affairs of other
countries but their own internal affairs are sacrosanct.
So - USA, with UK support decided that Saddam Hussein had to be removed. They moved in to
do so - they killed Saddam but had no plan to return the country to a functioning nation.
Instead they facilitated the unleashing of internal wars and have now left the citizens of
that country in utter turmoil.
& then went and repeated the exercise n Libya.
Decades ago, Britain decided that Palestinians could be thrown out of their homes to make
way for the creation of Israel and laid the foundation for the Middle-East turmoil that has
caused untold misery and suffering. They followed that up with throwing out the Chagosians
out of their homes and making them homeless. Invited Caribbean's to the 'Mother Country' to
serve their erstwhile lords, ladies, masters and mistresses only to then drive to despair the
children and grandchildren of the invitees who had contributed to the 'Mother Country' for
decades.
We are 18 years into an illegal invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. We are the invaders,
the terrorists. The Taliban are fighting for their country, they may use brutal methods but
so did the French, Dutch, Russian freedom fighters during the Nazi invasions. America's
puppet regime in Afghanistan is reminiscent of the Quislings of WW2. And to use drones to
kill Afghans and to say it is progress that there is more transparency is the height of
hubris. All it does is show the corrosive effect of unfettered power in America and it's
military. Why do we tolerate this inhuman action on another country's society? America is by
far the greatest contributor to the rise in terrorism in the world and if not somehow stopped
the greatest threat to world peace. It keeps on invading country after country with it's MSM
propaganda machine claiming it is spreading Democracy throughout the globe. Thank you America
!
"... The Washington Examiner first reported Friday that lawyers for the Free Beacon -- a conservative outlet based in the nation's capital -- funded the project from fall 2015 to spring 2016, when it pulled its funding as Trump looked set to clinch the nomination. ..."
"... Washington Free Beacon ..."
"... After the Democrats took over funding of the operation in mid-2016, Fusion GPS would hire former British spy Christopher Steele and would lead to the production of the so-called "Trump dossier," filled with salacious but unconfirmed claims about how Trump was compromised by the Russians. ..."
"... The Free Beacon noted in its statement that it had "no knowledge of or connection to the Steele dossier, did not pay for the dossier, and never had contact with, knowledge of, or provided payment for any work performed by Christopher Steele." ..."
"... The Free Beacon is funded in large part by the New York hedge fund billionaire and major GOP donor Paul Singer. The New York Times reports that Singer initially supported Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) for the Republican nomination, but later spearheaded a campaign to deny Trump the nomination even after Rubio dropped out of the race. ..."
"... While supporting Republican establishment favorites such as Rubio and 2012 presidential candidate Mitt Romney, Singer was a major backer of Common Core and was the founder of a super-PAC that has the express purpose of turning the GOP pro-gay marriage. ..."
"... Kristol is also the founder of the Weekly Standard, which like the Free Beacon has a neoconservative foreign policy outlook. The Free Beacon was co-founded by two former Weekly Standard writers, chairman Michael Goldfarb and editor-in-chief Matthew Continetti. ..."
The Washington Free Beacon, funded by GOP mega-donor Paul Singer, was the original funder of
Fusion GPS' research project that attempted to dig up dirt on then-candidate Donald Trump -- a
project that would later be funded by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton's
campaign.
The Washington Examiner first
reported Friday that lawyers for the Free Beacon -- a conservative outlet based in the
nation's capital -- funded the project from fall 2015 to spring 2016, when it pulled its
funding as Trump looked set to clinch the nomination.
Lawyers for the Free Beacon informed the House Intelligence Committee of its role in the
funding on Friday. The outlet issued a statement
standing by its decision to fund the project:
Since its launch in February of 2012, the Washington Free Beacon has retained
third party firms to conduct research on many individuals and institutions of interest to us
and our readers. In that capacity, during the 2016 election cycle we retained Fusion GPS to
provide research on multiple candidates in the Republican presidential primary, just as we
retained other firms to assist in our research into Hillary Clinton.
After the Democrats took over funding of the operation in mid-2016, Fusion GPS would
hire former British spy Christopher Steele and would lead to the production of the so-called
"Trump dossier," filled with salacious but unconfirmed claims about how Trump was compromised
by the Russians.
Fusion has come under scrutiny for its
alleged ties to Russia, including the fact that many of the claims
originate from Kremlin sources -- meaning that the information came from inside the Russian
government.
The Free Beacon noted in its statement that it had "no knowledge of or connection to the
Steele dossier, did not pay for the dossier, and never had contact with, knowledge of, or
provided payment for any work performed by Christopher Steele."
"The Washington Free Beacon has issued a statement asserting that it had no involvement with
Christopher Steele or the dossier he compiled from Russian sources," Jack Langer, spokesman for
the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, told Breitbart News. "The Beacon has
agreed to cooperate with the House Intelligence Committee to help the Committee verify this
assertion."
Yet, the revelation is likely to fuel questions about the role the so-called "Never Trump"
movement played in an effort that would eventually inflict damage on President Trump, and that
was possibly part of a Russian misinformation scheme.
The Free Beacon is funded in large part by the New York hedge fund billionaire and major
GOP donor Paul Singer. The New York Times reports
that Singer initially supported Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) for the Republican nomination, but
later spearheaded a campaign to deny Trump the nomination even after Rubio dropped out of the
race.
While supporting Republican establishment favorites such as Rubio and 2012 presidential
candidate Mitt Romney, Singer was a major
backer of Common Core and was the
founder of a super-PAC that has the express purpose of turning the GOP pro-gay
marriage.
The Examiner reports that the Free Beacon was originally part of the 501(c)(4)
tax-exempt organization -- the Center for American Freedom -- but in 2014 became a for-profit
organization. The Center's original board of directors includes William Kristol, a prominent
"Never Trump" activist.
Kristol is also the founder of the Weekly Standard, which like the Free Beacon has a
neoconservative foreign policy outlook. The Free Beacon was co-founded by two former Weekly
Standard writers, chairman Michael Goldfarb and editor-in-chief Matthew Continetti.
***Update***
"The Washington Free Beacon has issued a statement asserting that it had no involvement with
Christopher Steele or the dossier he compiled from Russian sources," Jack Langer, spokesman for
the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, told Breitbart News. "The Beacon has
agreed to cooperate with the House Intelligence Committee to help the Committee verify this
assertion."
TrumpAlways •
2 years ago • edited I smell McCain. Anyone else smell McCain with a little bit of
Bush in there...
In 2012, when economist Thomas Philippon was looking into some data, something odd caught
his attention.
His homeland, France, was undergoing another revolution, although a much different one: a
revolution in the country's telecommunication market. A new mobile operator, Free, had
entered the market and disrupted it almost overnight. The new operator slashed prices,
offering plans that hadn't been seen before in France.
France's three legacy mobile operators were forced to react and drop their own prices. It
didn't help. In only three months, Free's market share reached 4 percent. At the end of the
following year, its market share tripled. Today, Free controls 15 to 16 percent of the
market, making it France's third largest mobile operator. (If you add the six virtual
operators to the mix -- meaning companies who lease broadband space -- you'll get a total of
10 different mobile operators in a country with a population one-fifth the size of the United
States.)
"Digging deeper into that crystallized everything for me," says Philippon. "It was an
oligopoly based on three legacy carriers that lobbied very hard to prevent anybody from
getting a fourth (mobile) license. For 10 years they were successful. But then, in 2011, the
regulator changed and gave a license [to] Free. It wasn't a technological change or a change
in consumers' taste. It was purely a regulatory decision."
For French consumers, this one decision changed everything. Instead of paying $55 for a
1-gigabyte plan, the new prices for much better plans cost half that. And prices continued to
drop. Today, a Free 60-gigabyte plan costs only $12.
But Philippon wasn't just interested in what the new competition in the French telecom
industry said about French markets. Having lived in the United States since 1999, he compared
the French telecom revolution to the American market. The numbers blew his mind. While in
France the number of mobile operators was rising, in the US the number was getting smaller
(and that number might even decline further, if the planned Sprint-T-Mobile merger goes
through).
The result was a huge price gap between the two countries.
"France went from being much more expensive to much cheaper in two years," he says. "The
change in price was drastic -- a relative price move of 50 percent. In such a big market with
gigantic firms, that's a big change. And it was not driven by technology, it was driven by
pro-competition regulation." He immediately adds, just to emphasize the irony: "It happened
in France of all places, a country that historically had a political system that made sure
there wasn't too much competition. This is not the place where we expected this kind of
outcome."
The opposite was very surprising too: The level of competition in the United States, the
role model of free-market democracy, was declining.
Philippon, an acclaimed professor of finance at the New York University Stern School of
Business, kept pulling that thread. He gathered an overwhelming amount of data on various
markets, took a few steps back to look at the big picture, and then identified a pattern. The
result is "The Great Reversal," his recent book, in which he explores and explains when, why,
and how, as his subtitle puts it, "America Gave Up on Free Markets."
The telecom story is just one of many examples Philippon provides throughout the book of
non-competitive US markets, in which most or all of the power is concentrated in the hands of
a few big companies. It's a situation that makes it almost impossible for new competitors to
enter and lower prices for consumers. The airline market is another example, as is the
pharmaceutical industry, the banking system, and the big tech companies such as Google and
Facebook, who have no real competition in the markets they operate in.
The book's main argument has a refreshing mix of both right- and left-leaning economic
thinking. It goes like this: During the last 20 years, while the European Union has become
much more competitive, the United States has become a paradise for monopolies and oligopolies
-- with a few players holding most of the market share. As US companies grew bigger, they
became politically powerful. They then used their influence over politicians and regulators,
and their vast resources, to skew regulation in their favor.
The fight over net neutrality, to name one example, demonstrates it well.
"Guess who lobbied for that? It's a simple guess -- the people who benefited from it, the
ISP's [internet service providers]. And they are already charging outrageous prices, twice as
high [as] any other developed country," Philippon says.
This growing concentration of power in the hands of a few has affected everything and
everyone. It has inflated prices because consumers have fewer options. Wages are stagnant
because less competition means firms don't have to fight over workers. Financial investment
in new machinery and technology has plummeted because when companies have fewer competitors
they lose the incentive to invest and improve. It has driven CEO compensation up, and
workers' compensation down. It has caused a spike in inequality, which in turn has ignited
social unrest.
If all of this is too much to wrap your head around, Philippon puts a price tag on it:
$5,000 per year. That's the price the median American household pays every year for the lost
competition. That's the cost of the United States becoming a Monopoly Land.
How did this happen? According to Philippon, it's a story with two threads. The European
side of this story happened almost by mistake. The American side, on the contrary, was no
coincidence.
When the European Union was formed in the early 1990s, there was a lot of suspicion
between the member states, namely France and Germany. (Two World Wars tend to have that
effect.) This mistrust birthed pan-European regulators who enjoyed an unprecedented amount of
freedom, more powerful than any of the member countries' governments.
"We did that mostly because we didn't really trust each other very much," he says. Now, 20
years later, "it turns out that this system we created is just a lot more resilient towards
lobbying and bad influences than we thought."
At the same time in the United States, the exact opposite was happening. Adopting a
free-market approach, regulators and legislators chose not to intervene. They didn't block
mergers and acquisitions, and let big companies get bigger.
This created a positive feedback loop: As companies grew stronger, the regulators got
weaker, and more dependent on the companies they are supposed to regulate. Tens of millions
of dollars were channeled into lobbying. The Supreme Court's Citizens United decision gave
corporate money even more political influence.
At some point, big companies started using regulation itself to prevent new competitors
from entering the market.
The result wasn't free markets, but "the opposite -- market capture," says Philippon,
referring to a situation in which the regulator is so weak it depends completely on the
companies it regulates to design regulation.
Philippon is not the only one who's making these claims. A group of economists from the
University of Chicago Booth School of Business holds a similar view. They are called
Neo-Brandeisian, after the late Justice Louis Brandeis, who, a century ago, fought to broaden
antitrust laws. They believe the big tech companies, for example, managed to rig the system,
and fly under current antitrust regulation. They think it is time to break them apart.
But not everyone agrees with Philippon's narrative or his conclusions. Economists like
Edward Conard, author of "The Upside of Inequality," thinks Philippon's claim that big
companies are evidence of less competition is upside down. According to his criticism, it's
exactly the opposite: These companies became big and powerful because they innovate and give
a lot of value to consumers. He also argues that the conclusion that Europe is more
competitive and innovative than the United States is preposterous, given that the biggest
tech companies are American, not European.
Philippon addresses this counterclaim in his book. The United States is one giant market
of English speakers. Theoretically, if you have a good idea for a new product and you can
finance it, you have more than 300 million potential users on day one. In the EU, on the
other hand, there are 28 countries, with residents who speak 24 different languages. It's not
as simple.
Philippon, who by the age of 40 was named one of the top 25 promising economists by the
International Monetary Fund, also differentiates himself from the Chicago school of thought
in one important way: He's not dogmatic, he's pragmatic. Instead of a one-size-fits-all
solution to the problem, he suggests a more nuanced approach. This is exactly what makes his
case both unique and somewhat tricky to grasp. His approach is neither right nor left.
"The idea that free markets and government intervention are opposites, that's bogus. So
half of me agrees with the Chicago School and half disagrees," he says.
"But if you think that you can get to a free market without any scrutiny by the
government, that's crazy. That's simply untrue empirically. We need to make entry easier to
increase competition, that's the objective," he says. "And the way to do so sometimes means
more government intervention."
OK, but how do you do that? According to Philippon, each case is different.
"In some cases it will be by more intervention. Like maybe force Facebook to break from
WhatsApp. And sometimes it will be by less intervention. Kill a bunch of regulations and
requirements for small companies," he says.
The first idea, at least, has caught a lot of public attention during the last year, and
has been a talking point of the presidential campaigns of Senators Bernie Sanders and
Elizabeth Warren. Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg was recorded saying that if Warren wins, it
will "suck for us." Warren's plan for the big tech companies, for example, includes
"reversing mergers," which means uncoupling WhatsApp and Instagram from Facebook. Her plan
would also forbid Amazon being both a marketplace and a vendor at the same time.
But can any of these interventions actually happen? And if so, what would they mean for
American consumers? Those are more complicated questions.
If big tech companies were broken up, Philippon estimates that the average American
consumer won't be affected financially.
"Since people don't pay these companies directly, it won't change the bottom line for the
middle class, it won't have a big impact on people's disposable income," he says.
What would have a tremendous impact on Americans' lives and income is to keep on going
beyond the big tech companies. "We should go after the big ticket items -- telecom,
transport, energy, and healthcare. That's where you want action, but there is much less
bipartisan support for that," he says.
Something similar to the French telecom revolution is still far from happening in the
United States, but the fact that the 2020 campaign is already pushing competition-promoting
ideas back into the public discourse is a reason for cautious optimism, according to
Philippon. Nevertheless, he warns, we should not let this mild optimism mislead us.
"Free markets are like a public good: It is in nobody's interest to protect them.
Consumers are too dispersed and businesses love monopolies," he says. "So to take free
markets for granted, that's just stupid."
(Shaul Amsterdamski is senior economics editor
for Kan, Israel's public broadcasting corporation.)
(Hmmm. Our largest monthly bill is for 'telecom',
from Comcast, for TV, phone & internet service.
There's no competitive offering in our town.)
"...Our largest monthly bill is for 'telecom',
from Comcast, for TV, phone & internet service..."
[I got the same information from the service tech doing the annual clean and test on my
propane fireplace insert yesterday, in reference to his parents though. They were on Verizon
Fios for cable. He thought they should dump cable for a web-TV solution and just use cell
phones. Their bill was over $400/month. Mine is a little over $200/month for the same
service, which in both cases includes land line. In my zip code Verizon does not bundle Fios
with mobile. The only difference that I know is that we have neither any premium channels nor
DVR boxes and I assume that his parents must have both to run up a bill that high. When we
pony up for Fios Gb, then at least for three years our bill will fall below $100/month, then
return to a higher monthly yet if we do not take another new contract after that upgrade
contract ends. Verizon only makes new contracts when new services are added or upgraded.
Customers get next to no benefit for loyalty/retention. We have both Verizon and Comcast
available in our area. I have had both in my present home at different times, but hate
Comcast for failures on their part to provide tall vehicle clearance to pass down my driveway
until forced to do so by the power company whose poles they must use and for a duplicate
billing error where they billed me for two separate addresses and put me into collections for
the one that I never resided at since I never saw that bill or knew of it prior to the first
collections call.]
Bernie Sanders unveils plan to boost broadband
access, break up internet and cable titans https://cnb.cx/34TzaQw
CNBC - Jacob Pramuk - Dec 6
Bernie Sanders unveiled a plan Friday to expand broadband internet access as part of a
push to boost the economy and reduce corporate power over Americans.
In his sprawling "High-Speed Internet for All" proposal, the Vermont senator and
Democratic presidential candidate calls to treat internet like a public utility. His campaign
argues that the internet should not be a "price gouging profit machine" for companies such as
Comcast, AT&T and Verizon.
Sanders' plan would create $150 billion in grants and aid for local and state governments
to build publicly owned broadband networks as part of the Green New Deal infrastructure
initiative. The total would mark a massive increase over current funding for broadband
development initiatives. The proposal would also break up what the campaign calls "internet
service provider and cable monopolies," stop service providers from offering content and end
what it calls "anticompetitive mergers."
Sanders and his rivals for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination have pushed to
boost high-speed internet access for rural and low-income Americans, saying it has become a
necessity to succeed in school and business. The self-proclaimed democratic socialist has
unveiled numerous plans to root out corporate influence as he runs near the top of a jammed
primary field. ...
Aa excellent article that brings no new ideas to the debate but updates the debate to today.
One thing economist Thomas Philippon did not mention is that voters must turn out the
elected and get new ones who will vote to create more and vigorous competition instead of
oligopoly.
"... As Bolivian soldiers were firing tear gas at a funeral for slain protesters recently, the US State Department issued a statement saluting "Bolivia's political transition to democracy" and declaring that the military leaders who had just overthrown the elected government were "standing up for their constitution." It was the latest example of intensifying US support for violently oppressive regimes south of our border. We are paying attention to Latin America again. That's bad news for Latin America. ..."
As Bolivian soldiers were firing tear gas at a funeral for slain protesters recently, the
US State Department issued a statement saluting "Bolivia's political transition to democracy"
and declaring that the military leaders who had just overthrown the elected government were
"standing up for their constitution." It was the latest example of intensifying US support
for violently oppressive regimes south of our border. We are paying attention to Latin
America again. That's bad news for Latin America.
The US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan nearly 20 years ago are sometimes described as
wars in which everyone lost. In an odd way, though, Latin America won those wars. For more
than a decade, the US government focused so obsessively on the Middle East that it forgot
about Latin America. Free of intervention from Washington, voters in several countries
elected progressive or leftist leaders whom the United States would never have tolerated in
an earlier era. That cycle is now ending. The United States is returning to its traditional
role in Latin America, embracing retrograde regimes just as we did during the dark days of
military dictatorship in the 1970s and 1980s.
In Bolivia, the landlocked heart of South America, the military deposed President Evo
Morales on Nov. 10 after opponents charged that he had used fraud to secure his re-election
three weeks earlier. Morales was Bolivia's first indigenous president and an outspoken
socialist. He had nationalized the oil and gas industries. Some feared that he was preparing
to limit foreign exploitation of his country's rich lithium deposits. His indigenous identity
was a permanent affront to the white ruling class. The little-known politician who has
installed herself as provisional president, Jeanine Añez, once tweeted: "I dream of a
Bolivia free of satanic indigenous rituals."
Morales may have -- manipulated election laws to give himself an extra presidential term.
But in its first days, the new regime has shown little democratic impulse. Morales has been
forced to flee the country. Senior members of his party have been attacked or arrested. If
his masses of indigenous followers are pushed back into political isolation despite
constituting the country's majority, many will feel disenfranchised and angry.
Their cousins in Honduras would know the feeling. Late one night in 2009, the elected
Honduran president, Manuel Zelaya, who like Morales had alienated both the United States and
his own ruling elite, was pulled out of bed and put on a plane out of the country while still
in his pajamas. In the decade since then, the new regime in Honduras has eagerly handed out
mining and hydroelectric contracts to foreign corporations. It has abolished term limits for
presidents -- the very sin for which we denounced President Morales in Bolivia. Mass protests
have been harshly suppressed. Environmental activists are killed with impunity.
Last month in a New York court, the brother of Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez
was convicted on charges of large-scale drug trafficking. A witness testified that the drug
lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman had contributed $1 million to Hernandez's presidential
campaign. Yet just a couple of days after the trial ended, the senior American diplomat in
Honduras was photographed partying with President Hernandez. Hondurans who saw those pictures
could hardly miss the message: the United States happily supports a Latin American government
that holds power unconstitutionally, allows political killers to rampage freely, and is
widely reported to be infiltrated by drug traffickers -- as long as it is friendly to the
United States. How has Honduras showed that friendship? By keeping leftists out of power and
agreeing to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
The other Latin American country in which the United States is most assiduously wrecking
prospects for democracy is Guatemala. Like neighboring Honduras, it has long been dominated
by a clique of lavishly corrupt oligarchs. But over the last decade, a force has emerged that
for the first time mounted a serious challenge to drug traffickers, larcenous politicians,
organized-crime kingpins, and death squad leaders. In 2006, the government invited a squad of
investigators and prosecutors assembled by the United Nations to come to Guatemala and build
cases against powerful criminals. Since then the squad, known by the Spanish acronym CICIG,
has secured more than 400 convictions and deeply shaken the political elite. Presidents
George W. Bush and Barack Obama recognized that this process might help stabilize Guatemala,
and provided moral support and funding for CICIG.
This year, at the request of senior Guatemalan officials who seemed likely to be indicted
for corruption, the State Department agreed to stop backing CICIG. That crippled the first
serious effort in generations to confront the violent corruption that throttles civic life in
Guatemala. What did President Trump ask in return? That Guatemala open an embassy in
Jerusalem and agree to serve as a "safe haven" for Honduran and Salvadoran immigrants the
United States doesn't want to accept -- a sick joke considering that Guatemala is plagued by
violence and has one of the world's highest murder rates.
Bashing leftists in Latin America and embracing their quasi-fascist enemies is one of
Washington's oldest habits. It feels good and pays electoral dividends in Florida. Bolivians,
Hondurans, and Guatemalans might be forgiven for wishing that United States would once again
plunge into all-consuming war somewhere far away. That might allow them to try shaping their
societies as they see fit.
In addition to L.A., others in California submitting briefs include Sacramento, San Diego,
Fresno, Riverside and Orange counties, as well as a slew of cities, including Sacramento,
Fullerton, Torrance and Newport Beach. Several states including Idaho, Texas and Alaska have
as well. Their reasons for doing so vary.
"We're saying that we agree with the central tenet of Boise that no one should be
susceptible to punishment for sleeping on a sidewalk at night if there's no alternative
shelter at that point," said Los Angeles City Atty. Mike Feuer. "But the rationale sweeps too
broadly ... It makes the opinion unclear and, therefore, the opinion raises more issues than
are resolved. And so it leaves jurisdictions like us without the certainty that we need."
---
The ninth curt ruling specified that without enough shelters, public camping cannot be
banned.
LA is spewing horse manure, claiming they want a humane solution, but they are filing to
have the ruling overturned. LA wants to ban homeless camping and they make up a bunch of
irrational horse manure because they had already invited the homeless to California with
promises of shelter that does not exits. They re caught in a contradiction and end up talking
out of the side of their mouth.
And no, more national debt to promise apartments for everyone just make inequality worse
because we end up doing bad deals with the primary dealers. The evidence is in on that. Our
ten year experiment of the '50 little hoovers' crowd has been proven fraudulent.
How World Bank arbitrators mugged Pakistan
By Jeffrey D. Sachs
Wall Street hedge funds and lawyers have turned an arcane procedure of international
treaties into a money machine, at the cost of the world's poorest people. The latest
shakedown is a 5.9-billion-U.S.-dollars award against Pakistan's government in favor of two
global mining companies – Antofagasta PLC of Chile and Barrick Gold Corporation of
Canada – for a project that was never approved by Pakistan and never carried out.
Here are the facts.
In 1993, a U.S.-incorporated mining company, BHP, entered into a joint venture (JV) with
the Balochistan Development Authority (BDA), a public corporation in Pakistan's impoverished
Balochistan province. The JV was set up to prospect for gold and copper, and in the event of
favorable discoveries, to seek a mining license.
BHP was not optimistic about the project's profitability and dragged its feet on
exploration. In the early 2000s, it assigned the prospecting rights to an Australian company,
which created Tethyan Copper Company (TCC) for the project.
In 2006, Antofagasta acquired TCC for 167 million U.S. dollars, and sold half to Barrick
Gold. Soon after the purchase, however, the original JV agreement with BHP was challenged in
Pakistan's courts.
In 2013, the Pakistan Supreme Court found that the JV's terms violated Pakistan's mining
and contract laws in several ways and declared the agreement – and thus the rights
claimed by TCC – to be null and void.
Specifically, the Court ruled that the BDA did not have authority to bind Balochistan to
the terms of the JV agreement; that it awarded the contract without competition or
transparency; and that it had greatly exceeded its authority and violated the law by
promising extensive deviations from the rules normally applicable to mining projects.
Moreover, the JV failed to obtain, and even to pursue, many mandatory approvals from the
state and federal governments, and BHP failed to undertake prospecting in a timely manner
required under the mining law.
The Supreme Court's decision came after years of public-interest litigation challenging
the deal for violations of domestic law and the rights of the public. In the meantime, the
BDA's chairman was found to have conflicts of interest and to be living beyond the means
afforded by his official salary, which in the Court's words was tantamount to corruption.
In a normal world, the Court's judgment would be respected absent proven evidence of
corruption or other wrongdoing against the justices. But in the world we actually inhabit,
the so-called international rule of law enables rich companies to exploit poor countries with
impunity and disregard their laws and courts.
When TCC lost its case in Pakistan's Supreme Court, it simply turned to the World Bank's
International Center for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), in complete disregard
of Pakistan's laws and institutions.
A panel of three arbitrators with no expertise in or respect for Pakistan's legal
system ruled that TCC deserved compensation for all future profits that it allegedly would
have earned if the non-existent project, based on a voided agreement, had gone
forward!
Because there was no actual project, and no agreement for one, the arbitrators had no
basis to say what terms – royalties, corporate taxes, environmental standards, land
area, and other basic provisions – the governments of Balochistan and Pakistan would
have set. In fact, disagreement on many of those terms had stalled negotiations for
years.
Nonetheless, the ICSID panel arbitrarily decided that TCC would have had the right to mine
1,000 square kilometers, though the mining law forbade licensing such a vast area. The
arbitrators ruled that TCC would have received a tax holiday for 15 years, even though there
is no evidence that such a tax holiday was in the offing – or even legal. The
arbitrators decided that TCC would have benefited from a royalty rate several percentage
points below the mandatory statutory rate, though there is no reason why Pakistan would have
set such a low rate.
The arbitrators also ruled that TCC would have met all environmental standards, or that
the government would have exempted TCC from relevant requirements, though the mining area is
in a desert region subject to extreme water stress, and the mining project would have
demanded vast amounts of water. And the arbitrators ruled that to obtain the land needed for
TCC's pipeline, the government would have taken it from its owners and inhabitants.
The arbitration ruling is utterly capricious. An illegal project, declared null and
void by Pakistan's Supreme Court and never pursued, was found by the World Bank's arbitration
panel to be worth more than four billion U.S. dollars to TCC's owners, who had paid 167
million U.S. dollars for it in 2006.
Moreover, the tribunal declared that Pakistan must compensate TCC in full, with back
interest, and cover its legal fees, raising the bill to 5.9 billion U.S. dollars, or roughly
two percent of Pakistan's GDP. It is more than twice Pakistan's entire public spending on
health care for 200 million people, in a country where seven percent of children die before
their fifth birthday. For many Pakistanis, the World Bank's arbitration ruling is a death
sentence.
The ICSID is not an honest broker. One of the tribunal members in the TCC case is using
the same expert put forward by TCC for another case in which the arbitrator is acting as
counsel! When challenged about this obvious conflict of interest, the arbitrator refused to
step down and the ICSID proceeded as if all were normal.
Thanks to the World Bank's arbitrators, the rich are making a fortune at the expense of
poor countries. Multinational companies are feasting on unapproved, non-existent
projects.
Fixing the broken arbitration system should start with a reversal of the outrageous ruling
against Pakistan and a thorough investigation of the flawed and corrupt process that made it
possible.
Jeffrey D. Sachs, professor of sustainable development and professor of health policy
and management at Columbia University, is director of Columbia's Center for Sustainable
Development.
We Americans are less obvious, if also less subtle: we quickly transform our common story
into uncommon glory -- of a Continental Army standing unbowed before well-drilled Redcoats, of
a war against slavery that, within a generation, became a War for Southern Independence, or in
extolling the sacrifice of 58,000 Americans in a divisive intervention that became, less than a
half a decade later, a "noble cause." Not surprisingly, the truth is far more interesting than
any myth. The Continental Army at Valley Forge was not only ill-clothed, underpaid, and
desertion-riddled, its finest day had come not against British regulars but mercenary Hessians;
the War for Southern Independence was waged to eliminate a racial blight that, when the war
began, had already seen its best (or, rather, worst), days, while the "noble cause" of Vietnam
featured a
military that , by 1971, was "in a state approaching collapse, with individual units
avoiding or having refused combat, murdering their officers, drug-ridden, and dispirited where
not near-mutinous."
The substitution of myth for fact, however, has its uses -- as one of our greatest soldiers,
General George Patton, certainly knew. While Patton was an indifferent student (he flunked
mathematics at West Point), he was an avid reader with a prodigious memory and a finely tuned
sense of history. Which makes his speech to the Third Army on June 5 of 1944 (as celebrated in
Hollywood's epic 1970 paean), all the more remarkable, as it extols a history we wish we had --
but don't: "Men, this stuff that some sources sling around about America wanting out of this
war, not wanting to fight, is a crock of bullshit," Patton announced. "Americans love to fight,
traditionally. All real Americans love the sting and clash of battle."
But Patton was just getting started. "Americans love a winner. Americans will not tolerate a
loser," he went on to say. "Americans despise cowards. Americans play to win all the time. I
wouldn't give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That's why Americans have never
lost nor will ever lose a war; for the idea of losing is hateful to America."
Of course, very little of this was actually true -- even in 1944, two decades before
Vietnam. All Americans love the sting and clash of battle? Not really. In January of 1781, in
the midst of the American Revolution, 1500 soldiers of the Pennsylvania and New Jersey lines of
the Continental Army mutinied, murdered their officers, and threatened to march on
Philadelphia.
When the mutiny spread, Washington had the mutineers rounded up, arrested, and their
ringleaders shot by a firing squad made up of their
fellow soldiers . On July 10 of 1863, one week after the Battle of Gettysburg, the New York
draft riots protesting conscription set fire to 50 buildings, lynched 11 black bystanders, and
left 120 civilians dead. The insurrection (as it was called by city officials), was finally
quelled by the New York State Militia. And in late 1944, while commanding in Europe, Dwight
Eisenhower was so angered by the reports of teeming throngs of American deserters raping and
looting their way through France that he considered "lining them up and mowing them down."
Americans have never lost a war? It doesn't take a trained historian to point out that the
American military botched the War of 1812 (the White House was burned and Washington occupied),
performed poorly (and genocidally) in the Indian Wars of the late 19th century (in which one of
its most famous units, the 7th Cavalry, was erased from existence), and mishandled the brutal
1899 Philippine Insurrection -- during which Mark Twain described American soldiers as
"uniformed assassins." Patton was no dummy and might have recited all of this himself. But his
speech made for good copy (and, as it turned out, great cinema) and undoubtedly boosted morale,
particularly for those who, within a short time, would be facing off against the best light
infantry in the history of the world.
But while historical myths have their place in creating a national story, France, China, and
Russia have, in turn (and over time), chosen truth over triumph -- exhuming the greatness of
Napoleon, Mao, and Lenin,
while burying forever the policies they followed . This is true also for the United States.
For while we Americans readily adopt the regalia of our past, we expect that our institutions
will not follow suit; that in the midst of failure, our policymakers will discard myths and
choose reality.
This is what happened, famously, on March 25, 1968 when President Lyndon
Johnson met with a group he called "the wise men" -- a wizened crew of 14 Washington
policymakers to help him decide what to do about the worsening situation in Vietnam. Included
in the group was former secretary of state Dean Acheson, former White House counsel Clark
Clifford, former ambassador to South Vietnam Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., and former JCS chairman
General Omar Bradley.
These officials had traditionally supported Johnson's Vietnam policies but now, in the wake
of the disastrous Tet Offensive, they had second thoughts. Stunned by the ferocity of the
Vietnamese attack, only two of the 14 (Maxwell Taylor and Abe Fortas) recommended that Johnson
"stay the course." The shift was symbolized by Omar Bradley, a military icon. Victory? "Maybe
we ought to lower our sights," he told Johnson.
Of course, while the March 1968 meeting of the wise men was crucial to America's adventure
in Vietnam (and Lyndon Johnson's political future), it did little to dampen the controversy
surrounding the war -- which has been refought, since, in the pages of the war's histories.
Indeed, it seems axiomatic that what cannot be won on a battlefield is often alchemized in
later accounts.
These bloodless campaigns, fought with pen rather than sword, turn defeats into victories,
burnish reputations, assess blame, but also blight understanding and blemish history. This is
particularly true when it comes to America's most controversial conflicts. In 1869, Confederate
Major General Dabney Herndon Maury founded the Southern Historical Society. Its papers, later
collected in 52 volumes, rewrote much of Civil War history, a tendentious rendering whose goal
was to argue the justness of the Lost Cause. Many of the society's papers remain troubling,
rehabilitating the image of the most famous and otherwise failed rebel leaders, while laying
the blame for the Confederate loss at the feet of southerners who, in later years, conceded the
Union victory. The papers also remain controversial because their most important claims (that Lee lost at
Gettysburg because his orders were disobeyed, that soldier-for-soldier, the southern armies
were simply better fighters than their northern counterparts) resulted from barely veiled
pro-southern and racially tinged political agendas. You'd have thought the South had won the
war.
The same holds true for Vietnam. In that war's aftermath, while much of America was trying
to forget the conflict, a small group of respected historians continued to pick at its scab,
leaving a blood trail of if-onlys in their wake. The most prominent of these historians was
Lewis "Bob" Sorley, a respected former officer and celebrated biographer (of Creighton Abrams
and William Westmoreland, among others), whose book on Vietnam, A Better War , has been
the subject of controversy since its publication in 1999.
In A Better War , Sorley argued that the U.S. might have won in Vietnam, if only that
nation's top commander in the conflict had discarded his costly and morale-sapping
search-and-destroy strategy in favor of maintaining the security of South Vietnam's population,
substituted clear-and-hold tactics for massive sweep operations, improved the training and
equipping of South Vietnam's military, decreased the destruction of U.S. firepower -- and
supported the South Vietnamese, instead of abandoning them.
The conclusions ignited a bonfire of criticism, particularly from some of the Army's more
respected thinkers. Writing in the pages of The National Interest in 2012, retired
Colonel Gian Gentile took on Sorley in a pointed critique that proposed that America should
have never been in Vietnam in the first place.
"In war, political and societal will are calculations of strategy, and strategists in
Vietnam should have discerned early on that the war was simply unwinnable based on what the
American people were willing to pay," Gentile wrote .
"Once the war started and it became clear that to prevail meant staying for an unacceptable
amount of time, American strategy should have moved to withdraw much earlier than it did.
Ending wars fought under botched strategy and policy can be every bit as damaging as the wars
themselves."
Put simply, Sorley argues that the Vietnam War could have been won, if only the U.S. had the
will to prevail, while Gentile responds that because the American people did not have the will
to prevail, the war should have never been fought.
The spat over the Civil War and Vietnam doesn't necessarily mean that history repeats
itself, but it does get rewritten -- and rethought. The same is now true for the war in Iraq.
The Army War College's weighty two-volume study of the 2003 Iraq conflict ( The U.S. Army in
the Iraq War ), has sparked a divisive mini-controversy among the uniformed services, whose
senior officers regularly debate its major conclusions (as I noted in The American
Conservative , online,
back in February ): that U.S. commanders didn't understand the country they invaded, made
assumptions about an enemy that proved to be wrong, didn't have enough soldiers to win the
fight, who bungled the military's detention policies, and who failed in their mission to train
and equip the Iraqi armed forces.
But any praise for these conclusions has been muted by the study's other (Sorley-like)
judgment: that, as in Vietnam -- where the villains were the antiwar movement and the Congress,
the villains in Iraq are George W. Bush and Barack Obama, the former blamed for too quickly
getting us in, the latter for too quickly getting us out.
Into this affray has now jumped a much shorter (at 292 pages), offering, written by a team
of nine experts and researchers at the Rand Corporation. The U.S. Army and the Battle for Baghdad , gives us what
the Army War College didn't -- an unvarnished and precise accounting of what went wrong and
why, and without the tendentious political overtones of the tome-like AWC study. This shouldn't
come as a surprise. Among the study's authors are two of the Army's leading thinkers: retired
Colonels David E. Johnson and Gian Gentile, the latter the outspoken Sorley critic known in the
military for his often-scathing ability to say what he means.
Johnson, on the other hand, is known for his counter-intuitive and often uncomfortable
question of given premises, which has made him a valued interlocutor in the upper echelons of
the Army. The likely result of the study (much talked about in the military prior to its
release earlier this year), is that it has had a far greater impact than its 1200-plus page
predecessor. The U.S. Army and the Battle for Baghdad is not a page-turner, unless of course
you're an Army officer, but it lays out in precise detail the eight lessons the military can,
and should learn, from Operation Iraqi Freedom. But most readers will find the study's
understated third chapter, on the U.S. occupation of Iraq, among the most compelling written on
the war.
At the center of this presentation is the unshifting, unalterable truth of the war -- -that
the dysfunction obvious at the upper levels of the U.S. military following the fall of Baghdad
mirrored a deeper civilian-military chasm in Washington. The result of the dysfunction was that
the initial Battle for Baghdad was simply a prelude to a continuing battle for Baghdad, that
the war, once ended, simply continued.
The study's authors issue this crisp judgment, which is starkly at odds with the AWC
study:
"While much of the blame for the shortcomings of postwar planning rightly falls on senior
rungs of the Bush administration, the truth of the matter is that there is more than enough
blame to go around, up and down the chains of command in military and civilian planning."
Military officers speak candidly of the problem: "I don't think that any of us either could
have or did anticipate the total collapse of this regime," Lt. General William Wallace told the
authors, "and the psychological impact it had on the entire nation."
In military history, this is "the Henry Wentz problem." Henry Wentz was born in York County
in Pennsylvania in 1827, but moved with his family to nearby Gettysburg when he was nine. He
spent his most formative years on his family farm, which was just south of the town and off the
Emmitsburg Road.
As a young adult Henry went to Martinsburg (then in Virginia), married a local girl and
became a carriage maker. When the Civil War came he joined the Confederate Army, serving as an
ordnance sergeant in Taylor's Virginia Battery. On July 2, 1863, Wentz found himself manning
his rebel guns in his family's front yard, at Gettysburg, as a part of Longstreet's bloody
assault on the Union Army's III Corps. Lee had attacked with Longstreet that day to unhinge the
Union line, planning to take the high ground around the Wentz farm at a peach orchard, which
Lee thought was a dominating position.The orchard, owned by the Sherfy family (and hence
referred to as the Sherfy Peach Orchard in battle histories) seemed to rise out of the ground
and command the fields beyond. The problem was that Sherfy's orchard didn't dominate anything.
It was not on a rise, it did not control the land beyond. The orchard's height, if you stand on
it, is an optical illusion. A short discussion with Henry Wentz might have shown this, if only
Lee had known that Wentz was there.
He didn't.
For military officers commanding thousands or hundreds of thousands of young men and women,
for military experts whose job it is to study these operations -- -and not just for hobbyists
or aficionados -- the Henry Wentz problem is a tolling bell, a heart stopping
wake-you-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night realization that not knowing , particularly when
lives are at stake, is an unforgivable blunder. Reading about Gettysburg many years later,
generations of Civil War historians, reclining by their firesides, want to scream at Lee: "What
do you mean you didn't know ?" And that is the value of The U.S. Army and the Battle
of Baghdad -- -and the effect of William Wallace's seemingly mundane, if stunning,
observation. The U.S. military did not anticipate that the drive for Baghdad would be
difficult, did not anticipate that the Iraq Army would transform itself into an insurgency, did
not anticipate "the total collapse of the regime" -- and so did not anticipate the tragedy that
followed. To which we too want to scream: what do you mean you didn't anticipate? It was
your job to anticipate."
It is long past time that the senior military leadership with Iraq invasion (not to
ignore the Afghan debacle) and since be held accountable for multitude of blunders and poor
performance overall.
The fawning adulation from the press serves no good purpose and simply perpetuates the
waste and fraud that gives us more blunders and weapons systems and "strategies" that do
not and could not work to specs and plans.
But as the article states, there is plenty of blame to go around, I am referring to the
"political Leadership" of bush, obama, and now trump, and of course, congress. Leadership
may be too kind a term for what passes for leadership.
no issues holding the military mistakes to account. But these choices were politically
made and the political leadership should not be permitted to scapegoat the military for the
leaderships choices to engage in regime change which included purging military
dissenters.
Full agreement here. In fact, it's rather silly to strike at the military leaders, people
trained in war, for supporting war. It's like complaining about a scientist who decides to
solve every crisis with attaching it to the Internet.
The generals look at ways to fight a war. It's the political leaders that determine if
war is the right idea. That's why it's the elected leaders, not the military, that hold the
keys. All of the manipulations of the DoD end once we have a Congress and White House that
wants it to end.
Honestly I respect the idea of going after the past leaderships that sent us here, but
really I'd be content with just finding a leadership that stops the train now and leave the
old guard to their retirements. That's going to be difficult as it is without us turning on
a revenge campaign that might turn ugly.
It's a relatively minor point in the article, but I would agree with those who claim that
man-for-man the Confederates were better soldiers than the Yankees. They held out for 4
years against the US, whose forces were numerically superior and far better equipped and
supplied, while managing to inflict more military casualties on their foes than they
suffered. In the same way, I'd also agree with the many historians and WWII veterans who
claim that the Germans were man-for-man better soldiers than any of their enemies. Both the
American Civil War and WWII were essentially wars of attrition. Losing such a war is no
military disgrace but it also doesn't mean that the losing side had a noble cause. In most
wars, there are no good guys.
in what way were the confederate soldiers better "man for man"?
US soldiers got slaughtered wholesale throughout the war - yet they had the spirit to
keep coming. They got slaughtered wholesale because they used tactics developed for the
previous generation of small arms. The tactic of marching at the enemy packed together.
As James McPherson describes in "Battle Cry of Freedom" they got slaughtered because
they 1) had to fight on offense and 2) they were using tactics designed for the previous
generation of small arms. They used tactics designed for weak-firing in accurate muskets
rather than the current generation of rifles - accurate and deadly from long ranges.
They used the tactic of massing men together and marching at the enemy. This worked for
muskets. For rifles loaded with minie balls, it made them sitting ducks when they marched
towards dug in Confederates.
This article's author, Mr. Perry, mentions the slaughter of the Confederate soldiers at
the peach orchard. A slaughter that resulted from the Confederates having to walk across a
long rise of land before they could engage with the enemy. The slaughter that was said to
have begun the defeat the Confederates. An awful slaughter.
The US soldiers didn't have just one peach orchard, they had many. They had "cold
harbor", they had "the bloody angle", they had "Marye's heights". Dug in confederates armed
with rifles mangled US soldiers horribly. Mangled them as they marched, out in the open,
well within rifle range, towards dug in and hidden Confederates.
Yet the Union soldiers had the spirit to keep on coming. It's like "Butch Cassidy and
The Sundance Kid". As Perry points out, post Civil War Southern supporting writers
romanticized the poor, starving, southern infantryman. He was handsome, stoic, and a
fighter. But it was the northern guys who kept on coming. Kept on coming despite seeing so
many of their friends torn to pieces.
Northern soldiers who had the stuff to get the job done.
So the more numerous side that has the spirit to keep coming despite enormous casualties
and because of bad tactics are by definition better soldiers than the less numerous side
which using good tactics has the spirit to keep fighting until they finally run out of
effective fighters? By this standard the more numerous are always better soldiers as long
as they win in the end, which they usually will in a war of attrition. By this standard,
the Russians were far better soldiers than the Germans in WWII. Hint - the term man-for-man
indicates I am measuring quality rather than just quantity and quality in soldiers includes
tactical proficiency, not just bravery.
War is an obsolete idea. 1000 years ago, the only way to increase your wealth was to take
over someone else's land and enthrall the local population to farm it for you. 200 years
ago it was necessary to capture a population in order to force them to only purchase your
manufactured goods, so your capitalists didn't have to compete with those of other
countries.
In a information/service economy, war and control over other populations serve no
purpose. The DOD, like all grand bureaucracies, survives only through the corruption of
Congress.
It is time to disband the military. Get rid of the Navy, but leave the Coast Guard. Then
turn the Coast Guard over to the States. Disband the Army and Marine Corps. Let the State's
maintain their National Guards if they want. Disband the Air Force. The federal government
should just maintain a nuclear deterrent force and set up a coastal missile defense that
can destroy any Navy attempting to sail to attack us.
Have the federal government manufacture everything it needs itself instead of handing
over tax payer dollars which are then used to corrupt Congress. It's time.
I look forward to further articles on the military's culture of not knowing. I've spent
my whole adult life around Army personnel. (mostly retired). Going off to do things
half-cocked is a point of pride with them. It's a macho trait that they love about
themselves. Being willing to take action even though they haven't spent much time assessing
the forces in their way.- being willing to wade into unknown danger.
Pondering things seriously is weakness - in their view.
further, at least one of these unlikely seeming new proponents of traditional
masculinity - Jordan Peters - celebrates this macho trait. The macho trait of taking action
without considering all knowable facts.
"the War for Southern Independence was waged to eliminate a racial blight that, when the
war began, had already seen its best (or, rather, worst)"
The comforting notion that slavery was destined to "fade away" was frequently indulged
in during the 250 plus years that it lasted in the U.S., but it never did. As for the Wentz
anecdote, if Lee had talked with Wentz, the outcome of the war would not have changed.
There is an interesting "sabermetric" study of generals you can find online that gives a
particularly interesting picture of Lee. He was one of the most aggressive generals in
history, fighting more battles than anyone except Napoleon. But he was also--wait for
it--BELOW AVERAGE. (Please don't spill your mint julip.) Grant, on the other hand, was one
of the 10 best ever.
Slavery was on the way out and in another generation was gone throughout the western world,
including the African colonies, and surviving only in Arabia. Only in the US and Haiti was
slavery ended by wars and horrific bloodshed. In all other countries, including the vast
slave empire of Brazil, slavery was abolished with minimal to no casualties. A bit of
patience on the part of the abolitionists and unionists would have led to a somewhat later
but peaceful end of slavery in the southern US. The union of all the states may not have
been preserved, but in my estimation that would have been a good thing, if achieved
peacefully.
The military planners knew what was needed to pacify Iraq in the invasion and occupation.
750,000 troops and 25B+ dollars. Darth Cheney knew the US public wouldn't accept that, so
they went in on the cheap, ignored the vast stores of conventional weapons, and Viceroy
Bremmer back-stabbed the Iraqi army, thus creating the insurgency. Why? Because Planned
Chaos is the most profitable, and taking Iraq oil off the market greatly enriched our
"Saudi friends" and lots of other producers in the region. Inflation-adjusted oil prices
more than doubled from 2003 to 2007.
As of early 2009, the surge had worked, were holding territory on turf Islamic savages
considered their own and were killing hoards of jihadi scum who were flocking there, pretty
much at will, who were being induced to do so at the behest of Bin Laden. Iraq was part of
a long term strategic regional strategy (kill them on their own turf) which was working
quite well as far as it got. 4000 dead US soldiers is a travesty under any circumstances,
but considering what we had accomplished it pales in comparison with Vietnam. Keep in mind
we stayed in Germany and Japan for decades after WWII to ensure our efforts were not
wasted.
Iraq was not a debacle until 0bama refused to negotiate an updated SOFA, effectively
surrendered (against military and other expert advice) and rendered every single US
military death to have been in vain.
We Americans are less obvious, if also less subtle: we quickly transform our common story
into uncommon glory -- of a Continental Army standing unbowed before well-drilled Redcoats, of
a war against slavery that, within a generation, became a War for Southern Independence, or in
extolling the sacrifice of 58,000 Americans in a divisive intervention that became, less than a
half a decade later, a "noble cause." Not surprisingly, the truth is far more interesting than
any myth. The Continental Army at Valley Forge was not only ill-clothed, underpaid, and
desertion-riddled, its finest day had come not against British regulars but mercenary Hessians;
the War for Southern Independence was waged to eliminate a racial blight that, when the war
began, had already seen its best (or, rather, worst), days, while the "noble cause" of Vietnam
featured a
military that , by 1971, was "in a state approaching collapse, with individual units
avoiding or having refused combat, murdering their officers, drug-ridden, and dispirited where
not near-mutinous."
The substitution of myth for fact, however, has its uses -- as one of our greatest soldiers,
General George Patton, certainly knew. While Patton was an indifferent student (he flunked
mathematics at West Point), he was an avid reader with a prodigious memory and a finely tuned
sense of history. Which makes his speech to the Third Army on June 5 of 1944 (as celebrated in
Hollywood's epic 1970 paean), all the more remarkable, as it extols a history we wish we had --
but don't: "Men, this stuff that some sources sling around about America wanting out of this
war, not wanting to fight, is a crock of bullshit," Patton announced. "Americans love to fight,
traditionally. All real Americans love the sting and clash of battle."
But Patton was just getting started. "Americans love a winner. Americans will not tolerate a
loser," he went on to say. "Americans despise cowards. Americans play to win all the time. I
wouldn't give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That's why Americans have never
lost nor will ever lose a war; for the idea of losing is hateful to America."
Of course, very little of this was actually true -- even in 1944, two decades before
Vietnam. All Americans love the sting and clash of battle? Not really. In January of 1781, in
the midst of the American Revolution, 1500 soldiers of the Pennsylvania and New Jersey lines of
the Continental Army mutinied, murdered their officers, and threatened to march on
Philadelphia.
When the mutiny spread, Washington had the mutineers rounded up, arrested, and their
ringleaders shot by a firing squad made up of their
fellow soldiers . On July 10 of 1863, one week after the Battle of Gettysburg, the New York
draft riots protesting conscription set fire to 50 buildings, lynched 11 black bystanders, and
left 120 civilians dead. The insurrection (as it was called by city officials), was finally
quelled by the New York State Militia. And in late 1944, while commanding in Europe, Dwight
Eisenhower was so angered by the reports of teeming throngs of American deserters raping and
looting their way through France that he considered "lining them up and mowing them down."
Americans have never lost a war? It doesn't take a trained historian to point out that the
American military botched the War of 1812 (the White House was burned and Washington occupied),
performed poorly (and genocidally) in the Indian Wars of the late 19th century (in which one of
its most famous units, the 7th Cavalry, was erased from existence), and mishandled the brutal
1899 Philippine Insurrection -- during which Mark Twain described American soldiers as
"uniformed assassins." Patton was no dummy and might have recited all of this himself. But his
speech made for good copy (and, as it turned out, great cinema) and undoubtedly boosted morale,
particularly for those who, within a short time, would be facing off against the best light
infantry in the history of the world.
But while historical myths have their place in creating a national story, France, China, and
Russia have, in turn (and over time), chosen truth over triumph -- exhuming the greatness of
Napoleon, Mao, and Lenin,
while burying forever the policies they followed . This is true also for the United States.
For while we Americans readily adopt the regalia of our past, we expect that our institutions
will not follow suit; that in the midst of failure, our policymakers will discard myths and
choose reality.
This is what happened, famously, on March 25, 1968 when President Lyndon
Johnson met with a group he called "the wise men" -- a wizened crew of 14 Washington
policymakers to help him decide what to do about the worsening situation in Vietnam. Included
in the group was former secretary of state Dean Acheson, former White House counsel Clark
Clifford, former ambassador to South Vietnam Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., and former JCS chairman
General Omar Bradley.
These officials had traditionally supported Johnson's Vietnam policies but now, in the wake
of the disastrous Tet Offensive, they had second thoughts. Stunned by the ferocity of the
Vietnamese attack, only two of the 14 (Maxwell Taylor and Abe Fortas) recommended that Johnson
"stay the course." The shift was symbolized by Omar Bradley, a military icon. Victory? "Maybe
we ought to lower our sights," he told Johnson.
Of course, while the March 1968 meeting of the wise men was crucial to America's adventure
in Vietnam (and Lyndon Johnson's political future), it did little to dampen the controversy
surrounding the war -- which has been refought, since, in the pages of the war's histories.
Indeed, it seems axiomatic that what cannot be won on a battlefield is often alchemized in
later accounts.
These bloodless campaigns, fought with pen rather than sword, turn defeats into victories,
burnish reputations, assess blame, but also blight understanding and blemish history. This is
particularly true when it comes to America's most controversial conflicts. In 1869, Confederate
Major General Dabney Herndon Maury founded the Southern Historical Society. Its papers, later
collected in 52 volumes, rewrote much of Civil War history, a tendentious rendering whose goal
was to argue the justness of the Lost Cause. Many of the society's papers remain troubling,
rehabilitating the image of the most famous and otherwise failed rebel leaders, while laying
the blame for the Confederate loss at the feet of southerners who, in later years, conceded the
Union victory. The papers also remain controversial because their most important claims (that Lee lost at
Gettysburg because his orders were disobeyed, that soldier-for-soldier, the southern armies
were simply better fighters than their northern counterparts) resulted from barely veiled
pro-southern and racially tinged political agendas. You'd have thought the South had won the
war.
The same holds true for Vietnam. In that war's aftermath, while much of America was trying
to forget the conflict, a small group of respected historians continued to pick at its scab,
leaving a blood trail of if-onlys in their wake. The most prominent of these historians was
Lewis "Bob" Sorley, a respected former officer and celebrated biographer (of Creighton Abrams
and William Westmoreland, among others), whose book on Vietnam, A Better War , has been
the subject of controversy since its publication in 1999.
In A Better War , Sorley argued that the U.S. might have won in Vietnam, if only that
nation's top commander in the conflict had discarded his costly and morale-sapping
search-and-destroy strategy in favor of maintaining the security of South Vietnam's population,
substituted clear-and-hold tactics for massive sweep operations, improved the training and
equipping of South Vietnam's military, decreased the destruction of U.S. firepower -- and
supported the South Vietnamese, instead of abandoning them.
The conclusions ignited a bonfire of criticism, particularly from some of the Army's more
respected thinkers. Writing in the pages of The National Interest in 2012, retired
Colonel Gian Gentile took on Sorley in a pointed critique that proposed that America should
have never been in Vietnam in the first place.
"In war, political and societal will are calculations of strategy, and strategists in
Vietnam should have discerned early on that the war was simply unwinnable based on what the
American people were willing to pay," Gentile wrote .
"Once the war started and it became clear that to prevail meant staying for an unacceptable
amount of time, American strategy should have moved to withdraw much earlier than it did.
Ending wars fought under botched strategy and policy can be every bit as damaging as the wars
themselves."
Put simply, Sorley argues that the Vietnam War could have been won, if only the U.S. had the
will to prevail, while Gentile responds that because the American people did not have the will
to prevail, the war should have never been fought.
The spat over the Civil War and Vietnam doesn't necessarily mean that history repeats
itself, but it does get rewritten -- and rethought. The same is now true for the war in Iraq.
The Army War College's weighty two-volume study of the 2003 Iraq conflict ( The U.S. Army in
the Iraq War ), has sparked a divisive mini-controversy among the uniformed services, whose
senior officers regularly debate its major conclusions (as I noted in The American
Conservative , online,
back in February ): that U.S. commanders didn't understand the country they invaded, made
assumptions about an enemy that proved to be wrong, didn't have enough soldiers to win the
fight, who bungled the military's detention policies, and who failed in their mission to train
and equip the Iraqi armed forces.
But any praise for these conclusions has been muted by the study's other (Sorley-like)
judgment: that, as in Vietnam -- where the villains were the antiwar movement and the Congress,
the villains in Iraq are George W. Bush and Barack Obama, the former blamed for too quickly
getting us in, the latter for too quickly getting us out.
Into this affray has now jumped a much shorter (at 292 pages), offering, written by a team
of nine experts and researchers at the Rand Corporation. The U.S. Army and the Battle for Baghdad , gives us what
the Army War College didn't -- an unvarnished and precise accounting of what went wrong and
why, and without the tendentious political overtones of the tome-like AWC study. This shouldn't
come as a surprise. Among the study's authors are two of the Army's leading thinkers: retired
Colonels David E. Johnson and Gian Gentile, the latter the outspoken Sorley critic known in the
military for his often-scathing ability to say what he means.
Johnson, on the other hand, is known for his counter-intuitive and often uncomfortable
question of given premises, which has made him a valued interlocutor in the upper echelons of
the Army. The likely result of the study (much talked about in the military prior to its
release earlier this year), is that it has had a far greater impact than its 1200-plus page
predecessor. The U.S. Army and the Battle for Baghdad is not a page-turner, unless of course
you're an Army officer, but it lays out in precise detail the eight lessons the military can,
and should learn, from Operation Iraqi Freedom. But most readers will find the study's
understated third chapter, on the U.S. occupation of Iraq, among the most compelling written on
the war.
At the center of this presentation is the unshifting, unalterable truth of the war -- -that
the dysfunction obvious at the upper levels of the U.S. military following the fall of Baghdad
mirrored a deeper civilian-military chasm in Washington. The result of the dysfunction was that
the initial Battle for Baghdad was simply a prelude to a continuing battle for Baghdad, that
the war, once ended, simply continued.
The study's authors issue this crisp judgment, which is starkly at odds with the AWC
study:
"While much of the blame for the shortcomings of postwar planning rightly falls on senior
rungs of the Bush administration, the truth of the matter is that there is more than enough
blame to go around, up and down the chains of command in military and civilian planning."
Military officers speak candidly of the problem: "I don't think that any of us either could
have or did anticipate the total collapse of this regime," Lt. General William Wallace told the
authors, "and the psychological impact it had on the entire nation."
In military history, this is "the Henry Wentz problem." Henry Wentz was born in York County
in Pennsylvania in 1827, but moved with his family to nearby Gettysburg when he was nine. He
spent his most formative years on his family farm, which was just south of the town and off the
Emmitsburg Road.
As a young adult Henry went to Martinsburg (then in Virginia), married a local girl and
became a carriage maker. When the Civil War came he joined the Confederate Army, serving as an
ordnance sergeant in Taylor's Virginia Battery. On July 2, 1863, Wentz found himself manning
his rebel guns in his family's front yard, at Gettysburg, as a part of Longstreet's bloody
assault on the Union Army's III Corps. Lee had attacked with Longstreet that day to unhinge the
Union line, planning to take the high ground around the Wentz farm at a peach orchard, which
Lee thought was a dominating position.The orchard, owned by the Sherfy family (and hence
referred to as the Sherfy Peach Orchard in battle histories) seemed to rise out of the ground
and command the fields beyond. The problem was that Sherfy's orchard didn't dominate anything.
It was not on a rise, it did not control the land beyond. The orchard's height, if you stand on
it, is an optical illusion. A short discussion with Henry Wentz might have shown this, if only
Lee had known that Wentz was there.
He didn't.
For military officers commanding thousands or hundreds of thousands of young men and women,
for military experts whose job it is to study these operations -- -and not just for hobbyists
or aficionados -- the Henry Wentz problem is a tolling bell, a heart stopping
wake-you-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night realization that not knowing , particularly when
lives are at stake, is an unforgivable blunder. Reading about Gettysburg many years later,
generations of Civil War historians, reclining by their firesides, want to scream at Lee: "What
do you mean you didn't know ?" And that is the value of The U.S. Army and the Battle
of Baghdad -- -and the effect of William Wallace's seemingly mundane, if stunning,
observation. The U.S. military did not anticipate that the drive for Baghdad would be
difficult, did not anticipate that the Iraq Army would transform itself into an insurgency, did
not anticipate "the total collapse of the regime" -- and so did not anticipate the tragedy that
followed. To which we too want to scream: what do you mean you didn't anticipate? It was
your job to anticipate."
It is long past time that the senior military leadership with Iraq invasion (not to
ignore the Afghan debacle) and since be held accountable for multitude of blunders and poor
performance overall.
The fawning adulation from the press serves no good purpose and simply perpetuates the
waste and fraud that gives us more blunders and weapons systems and "strategies" that do
not and could not work to specs and plans.
But as the article states, there is plenty of blame to go around, I am referring to the
"political Leadership" of bush, obama, and now trump, and of course, congress. Leadership
may be too kind a term for what passes for leadership.
no issues holding the military mistakes to account. But these choices were politically
made and the political leadership should not be permitted to scapegoat the military for the
leaderships choices to engage in regime change which included purging military
dissenters.
Full agreement here. In fact, it's rather silly to strike at the military leaders, people
trained in war, for supporting war. It's like complaining about a scientist who decides to
solve every crisis with attaching it to the Internet.
The generals look at ways to fight a war. It's the political leaders that determine if
war is the right idea. That's why it's the elected leaders, not the military, that hold the
keys. All of the manipulations of the DoD end once we have a Congress and White House that
wants it to end.
Honestly I respect the idea of going after the past leaderships that sent us here, but
really I'd be content with just finding a leadership that stops the train now and leave the
old guard to their retirements. That's going to be difficult as it is without us turning on
a revenge campaign that might turn ugly.
It's a relatively minor point in the article, but I would agree with those who claim that
man-for-man the Confederates were better soldiers than the Yankees. They held out for 4
years against the US, whose forces were numerically superior and far better equipped and
supplied, while managing to inflict more military casualties on their foes than they
suffered. In the same way, I'd also agree with the many historians and WWII veterans who
claim that the Germans were man-for-man better soldiers than any of their enemies. Both the
American Civil War and WWII were essentially wars of attrition. Losing such a war is no
military disgrace but it also doesn't mean that the losing side had a noble cause. In most
wars, there are no good guys.
in what way were the confederate soldiers better "man for man"?
US soldiers got slaughtered wholesale throughout the war - yet they had the spirit to
keep coming. They got slaughtered wholesale because they used tactics developed for the
previous generation of small arms. The tactic of marching at the enemy packed together.
As James McPherson describes in "Battle Cry of Freedom" they got slaughtered because
they 1) had to fight on offense and 2) they were using tactics designed for the previous
generation of small arms. They used tactics designed for weak-firing in accurate muskets
rather than the current generation of rifles - accurate and deadly from long ranges.
They used the tactic of massing men together and marching at the enemy. This worked for
muskets. For rifles loaded with minie balls, it made them sitting ducks when they marched
towards dug in Confederates.
This article's author, Mr. Perry, mentions the slaughter of the Confederate soldiers at
the peach orchard. A slaughter that resulted from the Confederates having to walk across a
long rise of land before they could engage with the enemy. The slaughter that was said to
have begun the defeat the Confederates. An awful slaughter.
The US soldiers didn't have just one peach orchard, they had many. They had "cold
harbor", they had "the bloody angle", they had "Marye's heights". Dug in confederates armed
with rifles mangled US soldiers horribly. Mangled them as they marched, out in the open,
well within rifle range, towards dug in and hidden Confederates.
Yet the Union soldiers had the spirit to keep on coming. It's like "Butch Cassidy and
The Sundance Kid". As Perry points out, post Civil War Southern supporting writers
romanticized the poor, starving, southern infantryman. He was handsome, stoic, and a
fighter. But it was the northern guys who kept on coming. Kept on coming despite seeing so
many of their friends torn to pieces.
Northern soldiers who had the stuff to get the job done.
So the more numerous side that has the spirit to keep coming despite enormous casualties
and because of bad tactics are by definition better soldiers than the less numerous side
which using good tactics has the spirit to keep fighting until they finally run out of
effective fighters? By this standard the more numerous are always better soldiers as long
as they win in the end, which they usually will in a war of attrition. By this standard,
the Russians were far better soldiers than the Germans in WWII. Hint - the term man-for-man
indicates I am measuring quality rather than just quantity and quality in soldiers includes
tactical proficiency, not just bravery.
War is an obsolete idea. 1000 years ago, the only way to increase your wealth was to take
over someone else's land and enthrall the local population to farm it for you. 200 years
ago it was necessary to capture a population in order to force them to only purchase your
manufactured goods, so your capitalists didn't have to compete with those of other
countries.
In a information/service economy, war and control over other populations serve no
purpose. The DOD, like all grand bureaucracies, survives only through the corruption of
Congress.
It is time to disband the military. Get rid of the Navy, but leave the Coast Guard. Then
turn the Coast Guard over to the States. Disband the Army and Marine Corps. Let the State's
maintain their National Guards if they want. Disband the Air Force. The federal government
should just maintain a nuclear deterrent force and set up a coastal missile defense that
can destroy any Navy attempting to sail to attack us.
Have the federal government manufacture everything it needs itself instead of handing
over tax payer dollars which are then used to corrupt Congress. It's time.
I look forward to further articles on the military's culture of not knowing. I've spent
my whole adult life around Army personnel. (mostly retired). Going off to do things
half-cocked is a point of pride with them. It's a macho trait that they love about
themselves. Being willing to take action even though they haven't spent much time assessing
the forces in their way.- being willing to wade into unknown danger.
Pondering things seriously is weakness - in their view.
further, at least one of these unlikely seeming new proponents of traditional
masculinity - Jordan Peters - celebrates this macho trait. The macho trait of taking action
without considering all knowable facts.
"the War for Southern Independence was waged to eliminate a racial blight that, when the
war began, had already seen its best (or, rather, worst)"
The comforting notion that slavery was destined to "fade away" was frequently indulged
in during the 250 plus years that it lasted in the U.S., but it never did. As for the Wentz
anecdote, if Lee had talked with Wentz, the outcome of the war would not have changed.
There is an interesting "sabermetric" study of generals you can find online that gives a
particularly interesting picture of Lee. He was one of the most aggressive generals in
history, fighting more battles than anyone except Napoleon. But he was also--wait for
it--BELOW AVERAGE. (Please don't spill your mint julip.) Grant, on the other hand, was one
of the 10 best ever.
Slavery was on the way out and in another generation was gone throughout the western world,
including the African colonies, and surviving only in Arabia. Only in the US and Haiti was
slavery ended by wars and horrific bloodshed. In all other countries, including the vast
slave empire of Brazil, slavery was abolished with minimal to no casualties. A bit of
patience on the part of the abolitionists and unionists would have led to a somewhat later
but peaceful end of slavery in the southern US. The union of all the states may not have
been preserved, but in my estimation that would have been a good thing, if achieved
peacefully.
The military planners knew what was needed to pacify Iraq in the invasion and occupation.
750,000 troops and 25B+ dollars. Darth Cheney knew the US public wouldn't accept that, so
they went in on the cheap, ignored the vast stores of conventional weapons, and Viceroy
Bremmer back-stabbed the Iraqi army, thus creating the insurgency. Why? Because Planned
Chaos is the most profitable, and taking Iraq oil off the market greatly enriched our
"Saudi friends" and lots of other producers in the region. Inflation-adjusted oil prices
more than doubled from 2003 to 2007.
As of early 2009, the surge had worked, were holding territory on turf Islamic savages
considered their own and were killing hoards of jihadi scum who were flocking there, pretty
much at will, who were being induced to do so at the behest of Bin Laden. Iraq was part of
a long term strategic regional strategy (kill them on their own turf) which was working
quite well as far as it got. 4000 dead US soldiers is a travesty under any circumstances,
but considering what we had accomplished it pales in comparison with Vietnam. Keep in mind
we stayed in Germany and Japan for decades after WWII to ensure our efforts were not
wasted.
Iraq was not a debacle until 0bama refused to negotiate an updated SOFA, effectively
surrendered (against military and other expert advice) and rendered every single US
military death to have been in vain.
"... Until now, Iran has restrained itself despite constant aggression from Israel, but this could easily change. "The result could be a counterstrike by Iran, using cruise missiles that penetrate Israel's air defenses and smash into targets like the Kiryah, Tel Aviv's equivalent of the Pentagon. Israel would retaliate massively against Hezbollah's headquarters in Beirut as well as dozens of its emplacements along the Lebanese border. And then, after a day of large-scale exchanges, the real war would begin " ..."
In my 2011 book,
The Wandering Who
, I elaborated on the possible disastrous scenario in which Israel is the nucleus of a
global escalation over Iran's emerging nuclear capabilities. I concluded that Israel's PRE Traumatic Stress
Syndrome (PRE-TSS) would be central to such a development. "The Jewish state and the Jewish discourse in
general are completely foreign to the notion of temporality. Israel is blinded to the consequences of its
actions, it only thinks of its actions in terms of short-term pragmatism. Instead of temporality, Israel
thinks in terms of an extended present."
In 2011 Israel was still confident in
its military might, certain that with the help of America or at least its support, it could deliver a mortal
military blow to Iran. But this confidence has diminished, replaced by an existential anxiety that might
well be warranted. For the last few months, Israeli military analysts have had to come to terms with Iran's
spectacular strategic and technological abilities. The recent attack on a Saudi oil facility delivered a
clear message to the world, and in particular to Israel, that Iran is far ahead of Israel and the West. The
sanctions were counter effective: Iran independently developed its own technology.
Former Israeli ambassador to the US, and
prolific historian, Michael Oren, repeated my 2011 predictions this week in the
Atlantic
and described a horrific scenario for the next, and likely last, Israeli conflict.
Oren understands that a minor Israeli
miscalculation could lead to total war, one in which missiles and drones of all types would rain down on
Israel, overwhelm its defences and leave Israeli cities, its economy and its security in ruins.
Oren gives a detailed account of how a
conflict between Israel and Iran could rapidly descend into a massive "conflagration" that would devastate
Israel as well as its neighbours.
In Israel, the term
"The War Between the Wars
," refers to the targeted covert inter-war campaign waged by the Jewish State
with the purpose of postponing, while still preparing for, the next confrontation, presumably with Iran. In
the last few years Israel has carried out hundreds of 'war between the wars' strikes against Iran-linked
targets in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. Oren speculates that a single miscalculation could easily lead to
retaliation by Iran. "Israel is girding for the worst and acting on the assumption that fighting could break
out at any time. And it's not hard to imagine how it might arrive. The conflagration, like so many in the
Middle East, could be ignited by a single spark."
Until now, Iran has restrained itself
despite constant aggression from Israel, but this could easily change. "The result could be a counterstrike
by Iran, using cruise missiles that penetrate Israel's air defenses and smash into targets like the Kiryah,
Tel Aviv's equivalent of the Pentagon. Israel would retaliate massively against Hezbollah's headquarters in
Beirut as well as dozens of its emplacements along the Lebanese border. And then, after a day of large-scale
exchanges, the real war would begin "
Oren predicts that rockets would "rain on
Israel" at a rate as high as 4,000 a day. The Iron Dome system would be overwhelmed by the vast simultaneous
attacks against civilian and military targets throughout the country. And, as if this weren't devastating
enough, Israel is totally unprepared to deal with precision-guided missiles that can accurately hit targets
all across Israel from 1000 miles away.
Ben Gurion International Airport would be
shut down and air traffic over Israel closed. The same could happen to Israel's ports. Israelis that would
seek refuge in far away lands would have to swim to safety
.
In this scenario, Palestinians and
Lebanese militias might join the conflagration and attack Jewish border communities on the ground while
long-range missiles from Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Iran land. Before long, Israel's economy would cease to
function, electrical grids severed and damaged factories and refineries would spew toxic chemicals into the
air.
In the Shoah scenario Oren describes,
"Millions of Israelis would huddle in bomb shelters. Hundreds of thousands would be evacuated from the
border areas as terrorists attempt to infiltrate them. Restaurants and hotels would empty, along with the
offices of the high-tech companies of the start-up nation. The hospitals, many of them resorting to
underground facilities, would quickly be overwhelmed, even before the skies darken with the toxic fumes of
blazing chemical factories and oil refineries."
Oren predicts that Israel's harsh
response to attack, including a violent put down of likely West Bank and Gaza protests, would result in
large scale civilian casualties and draw charges of war crimes.
As Oren states, he did not invent this
prediction, it is one of the similar scenarios anticipated by Israeli military and government officials.
If such events occur, the US will be
vital to the survival of the Jewish State by providing munitions, diplomatic, political, and legal support,
and after the war, in negotiating truces, withdrawals, prisoner exchanges and presumably 'peace agreements.'
However, the US under the Trump administration is somewhat unpredictable, especially in light of the current
impeachment proceedings against Trump.
In 1973 the US helped save Israel by
providing its military with the necessary munitions. Will the US do so again? Do the Americans have the
weapons capability to counter Iran's ballistics, precision missiles and drones? More crucially, what kind of
support could America provide that would lift the spirits of humiliated and exhausted Israelis after they
emerge from underground shelters having enduring four weeks without electricity or food and see their cities
completely shattered?
This leads us to the essential issue.
Zionism vowed to emancipate the Jews from their destiny by liberating the Jews from themselves. It vowed to
bring an end to Jewish self-destruction by creating a Jewish safe haven. How is it that just seven decades
after the founding of the Jewish state, the people who have suffered throughout their history have once
again managed to create the potential for their own disaster?
ORDER IT NOW
In The Wandering Who I provide a
possible answer: "Grasping the notion of temporality is the ability to accept that the past is shaped and
revised in the light of a search for meaning. History, and historical thinking, are the capacity to rethink
the past and the future." Accordingly,
revisionism
is the true essence of historical thinking. It
turns the past into a moral message, it turns the moral into an ethical act. Sadly this is exactly where the
Jewish State is severely lacking. Despite the Zionist promise to introduce introspection, morality and
universal thinking to the emerging Hebrew culture, the Jewish State has failed to break away from the Jewish
past because it doesn't really grasp the notion of the 'past' as a dynamic elastic ethical substance.
Everyone understands that a minor Iranian miscalculation could lead to total war. One in which nuclear bombs
would rain down on Iran leaving its cities, economy, and security in ruins.
The sociopath, Ayatollah
Khameni is detached from reality and may be willing to take such risks. However, there is no reason to
believe that The Iranian military or civilian population will embrace certain suicide. It is quite likely
that the IRGC would decide that it is time for another revolution and end the theocracy, rather than die
following the dubious commands of a deranged Ayatollah.
____
The whole theory about a prolonged conflict falls apart once accurate facts are applied to the situation.
Iranian al'Hezbollah has large numbers of Katyusha pattern rockets, but very few precision weapons. And to
provide human shields for these weapons, almost all of them are in a limited number of urban centers.
The facts are clear, even if Gilad chooses to ignore them in favor of his personal fantasies. Iranian
al'Hezbollah would lose badly in a total forces engagement. The nuclear incineration of their rear echelons
would leave forward forces totally defenseless against overwhelming Israeli air superiority.
-- Would there be Israeli civilian casulities? Certainly.
-- Would Lebanon become uninhabitable? Yes.
-- Would Ayatollah Khameni perish when Israeli nukes Tehran? Absolutely.
______
There is no possible scenario where Iran "wins" if they launch a substantial first strike. And, the
Iranian military understands this as fact.
@A123
It is really fun when Gilad gets off Epstein and rape stuff and ventures into wars and Israeli security. The
generals have kept Gilad up to date on the latest and the greatest.
He is so out to lunch in his desire to see Israel panic and loose the next war facing horrible casualties
because it makes his point about how the Jews are doomed unless they cease being Jews.
He really believes
that he can solve the problem and change our destiny if we all read "Wondering
Who"
In The Wandering Who I provide a possible answer: "Grasping the notion of temporality is the ability
to accept that the past is shaped and revised in the light of a search for meaning. History, and
historical thinking, are the capacity to rethink the past and the future." Accordingly, revisionism is
the true essence of historical thinking. It turns the past into a moral message, it turns the moral into
an ethical act. Sadly this is exactly where the Jewish State is severely lacking. Despite the Zionist
promise to introduce introspection, morality and universal thinking to the emerging Hebrew culture, the
Jewish State has failed to break away from the Jewish past because it doesn't really grasp the notion of
the 'past' as a dynamic elastic ethical substance.
I wonder what it is like to wish death and destruction on a people and a country to prove your point and
call yourself an unemotional Athenian.
@A123
As you may have noticed, in the Israeli apocalyptic scenarios the Jewish state doesn't put into play the
Samson option.. it is slightly less genocidal than yourself .. you may want to ask yourself why
Israel is making a terrible mistake. The oft touted "Sampson Option" is a bogus option as Bibi, Benny Gatz
and/or any other Israeli leader knows it will be suicide if they use this option. Because even if they
emerge from the bunkers days later after using nuclear bombs against Iran, Syria, Lebanon and other European
capitals (
Samson option targets Europe
) they will be greeted with hostility and will have no
sanctuary.
Three times in world history the Jews were rescued by the Persians.
Believe it or not.
However, the US under the Trump administration is somewhat unpredictable, especially in light of the
current impeachment proceedings against Trump.
Not at all unpredictable with regards to Israel. Trump and Congress would use the last cent of US
taxpayer's money and the last drop of Anglo blood to save the place. Trump is Israel's US Viceroy and
Congress is its Colonial Parliament.
Israel's real nightmare starts when US nationalists toss out the colonialists, and Israel has to find a
way live on its own resources.
I have to think that considering the failure of military intelligence agencies in the past that no one has
any real idea how close Iran is to getting the bomb. But even if they get numbers of them and have a means
to deliver them on target it simply would mean that Iran and Israel are in a standoff. I can understand how
Israel would not want Iran to have the bomb but in reality how much difference would it make? It would only
be relevant if the two countries had already blundered into war and things were entering a final disastrous
stage. Then it would simply mean both countries would be destroyed instead of just one.
Also, not being a military man am I naive in thinking Iran might be able to buy nuclear weapons on the black
market? From North Korea, perhaps? I have got to suspect Israel will be faced with two options. Either fight
Iran sooner, before they get nukes. Or they will simply have to accept that Iran is going to be a nuclear
power. It's pretty obvious that Israel has been trying to get America to fight their war for them. But Trump
has been reluctant to do so. No wonder the Jews are chomping at the bit to find some way to get rid of him.
2020 should prove to be an interesting year.
This analysis leaves out two very significant historic military facts:
1) The 2006 Israeli invasion of Lebanon aka the "33 Day War" where in:
"Hezbollah inflicted more Israeli casualties per Arab fighter in 2006 than did any of Israel's state
opponents in the 1956, 1967, 1973, or 1982 Arab-Israeli interstate wars, and is generally acknowledge that
Israel flat out lost that war and de facto sued for a cease fire.
(see: "U.S. Department of Defense. The 2006 Lebanon Campaign and the Future of Warfare: Implications for
Army and Defense Policy." Kindle Edition.)
2) The Syrian army is currently the only army in the world that has multi-front, contiguous multi-year
'combined arms' (i.e. army, armor, artillery and air force) combat experience .
Further, the leader of Hezbollah Hassan Nasrallah in a recent interview pointed out that Hezbollah
fighting along side of the Syrian Army these past five years, now has experience in offensive warfare. In
2006 they fought strictly defensively.
In short, if an Israeli war comes again, given the experience of the Syrian and Hezbollah armies and
Syria acquiring state of the art air defense system (S 300, etc), Iranian missiles may very well be the
least of Israel's worries.
Indeed, before Iran launches missiles, Hezbollah and Syria may move to take back Shebaa Farms and Golan
Heights.
To my mind: Israel and American militaries are "paper Tigers". Israel has never fought a combined arms
war for a sustained period of time against an equally matched military. And the US not since Korea. Their
victories have always been overwhelming an inferior force.
@AaronB
For me the fact that the Jewish state indulges itself in apocalyptic and genocidal fantasies is really a
glimpse into to tribal mind.. as far as I can tell this pre traumatic stress points at severe form of
projection .. Israeli politicians and commentators attribute their own symptoms to their neighbours ..
@Rev. Spooner
' Three times in world history the Jews were rescued by the Persians.
Believe it or not.'
The Persians more or less created 'the Jews.' At any rate, a religion recognizable
as Judaism first appeared in the wake of the Persian conquests.
However, when did the Persians 'rescue' the Jews?
They allowed the creation of an autonomous Jewish state in Palestine when they overran that place around
the beginning of the seventh century AD -- but that only lasted for about twenty years anyway.
@A123
If I may: I don't know for sure what G Atzmon meant by the Samson Option; but, I have come across this
express before and I took it to mean that Israel will go to nuclear war even if means the destruction of the
Jewish State. That is, like Samson who destroyed his enemies by killing himself; Israel nuec's Iran and Iran
nuce's Israel (kills enemies and itself).
This should not be taken lightly. While it would be totally irrational for most states to take the Samson
Option, it is to my mind a plausible option for Israel. For even if the Jewish State is destroyed, the
Jewish Nation i.e. the Jewish people around the world will survive and continue on as they have these
thousands of years. But, they will be free of what they perceive as their arch enemy i.e. Iran and other
Moslems. They survived the metaphoric Holocaust and they will survive a literal one. The Jewish State may be
destroyed but not the Jewish People.
This is something not enough people comment on. Israel's military is not a mini US military, it has serious
problems and takes losses and casualties in contexts that would be shocking for another Western country that
spends as much per capita for it's military.
This is why Israel having nuclear weapons irks me so much, the more it can't rely on it's conventional
military, the more they'll lean into their nuclear deterrent, increasing the probability of it's use. (Not
dissimilar to the situation with Pakistan vis-a-vis India, though in that case, India has nukes too)
@Tom Verso
The Samson Option
The Samson Option.jpg
Author Seymour Hersh
Country United States
Language English
Genre Non-fiction
Publisher Random House
Publication date
1991
Media type Print (Hardback)
Pages 362 pp
ISBN 0-394-57006-5
OCLC 24609770
Dewey Decimal
355.8/25119/095694 20
LC Class UA853.I8 H47 1991
The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy is a 1991 book by Seymour Hersh. It
details the history of Israel's nuclear weapons program and its effects on Israel-American relations. The
"Samson Option" of the book's title refers to the nuclear strategy whereby Israel would launch a massive
nuclear retaliatory strike if the state itself was being overrun, just as the Biblical figure Samson is said
to have pushed apart the pillars of a Philistine temple, bringing down the roof and killing himself and
thousands of Philistines who had gathered to see him humiliated.
According to The New York Times, Hersh
relied on Ari Ben-Menashe, a former Israeli government employee who says he worked for Israeli intelligence,
for much of his information on the state of the Israeli nuclear program. However, Hersh confirmed all of
this information with at least one other source.[1] Hersh did not travel to Israel to conduct interviews for
the book, believing that he might have been subject to the Israeli Military Censor. Nevertheless, he did
interview Israelis in the United States and Europe during his three years of research.[1]
@Fran Taubman
' If you study it, can be pretty scary. It is not just Israel. Also who wants another North Korea
blackmail game?'
You mean something like the Samson option?
Anyway, the whole discussion is silly.
No nation
-- and that included Imperial Japan in 1945, when
the chips were down -- chooses self-immolation. They always give way. Iran isn't a threat to Israel because
Iran's not going to commit national suicide, and 'the Samson Option' is bullshit as well, because six
million Jews aren't going to commit national suicide either.
Zionists such as yourself only choose to think otherwise about Iran -- in spite of the absence of any
historical evidence at all -- because it justifies your own pathological aggression towards a nation that is
(a) a thousand miles away, and (b) poses no serious threat to Israel whatsoever.
Try not attacking literally everyone you can think of. That might help. I mean, fuck -- Israel is the only
state in modern history that has attacked literally
every single one
of her neighbors, and several
more besides. Since 1948, she's attacked Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Tunisia, and even the
United States. What's up?
Despite the Zionist promise to introduce introspection, morality and universal thinking to the
emerging Hebrew culture, the Jewish State has failed to break away from the Jewish past because it
doesn't really grasp the notion of the 'past' as a dynamic elastic ethical substance.
The Jews are always long-term losers because they teach their children that they have always been and
will forever be victims of humanity. Jew children are traumatized at an immature young age – they are
mentally damaged by the thought that humanity wants to kill them and do them harm. This notion is inculcated
deep in the Jew child's psyche. These poor children can never escape what has been implanted. (For three
thousand years, generation after generation, Jew culture has been abusing their children with dreadful
thoughts.)
Nine out of ten adult Jews are triggered into thoughts of doom by any criticism of Israel – their
reactions are visceral, and a pure reflex coming out of their brainstem.
Jews cannot be introspective because of what elder Jews have implanted in them in their youth. Their
rational emotional systems have been short-circuited.
I have seen intelligent Jews on this forum flirt with empathy for Palestinians – only to fall back into
mindless reflexive support of whatever Israel does.
Jews Are Feeling Guilty: They Should Be. Their Influence Has Been Cancerous to America
Gilad Atzmon Wed, Nov 6, 2019
It has become an institutional Jewish habit to examine how much Jews are hated by their host nations
and how fearful Jews are of their neighbours. Jewish press outlets reported yesterday that "9 out of 10
US Jews worry about anti-Semitism."
. . .
As Haartez writer Ari Shavit wrote back in 2003: "The war in Iraq was conceived by 25 neoconservative
intellectuals, most of them Jewish " Maybe some Jews now understand that the Zionist shift from a
'promised land' to the Neocon 'promised planet' doesn't reflect well on the Jews as a group.
Any separation of one group from another is a tribe. Any identity whatsoever is a tribe – because
identity sets you apart. The moment you define yourself you are tribal, because definitions distinguish
one thing from another.
The issue is that some people are not particularly tribal (i.e. Westerners) and they are open to
multiculturalism – i.e. proposition nations. However, proposition nations are very much non-tribalist places
and need non-tribalism to survive.
If tribalists talk multiculturalism and proposition nations (i.e. use deception) while practicing
tribalism, they quickly overwhelm these societies – which is where the US is today with regards to Jewish
tribalists.
What does a Jewish tribalist elite do next? And what does a (subjected) majority do next?
Michael Oren, repeated my 2011 predictions this week in the Atlantic and described a horrific scenario
for the next, and likely last, Israeli conflict.
The purpose of Oren's Atlantic article was to create alarm in the DC political corridors .."warning' that
if the US doesnt 'soon help Israel' with its Iran enemy there will be chaos and dead bodies galore .
Its propaganda but 'true' propaganda 'if' Israel were to attack Iran on their own but they wont .they aren't
capable of it alone.
They are running this same propaganda articles/warnings in Europe, saying Europe needs to 'do something'
about Iran Now!
Its basically a blackmail and scare ploy because they don't think Trump will do it for them .and of course
if Israel starts a war it will be because Trump/US deserted them like he/we did the Kurds and they were
'forced' to try and defend the world against Iran 'all alone' and Israel isn't to blame for the mess lol.
What Israel will do is try to start a war on Hezbollah 'first, as Hezbollah would be their most immediate
and dangerous threat , severely crippling Israel right at the onset of any war with Iran.
They will claim that Iran directed attacks on Israel and so the US should step in because its an attack by
Iran.
If we had anyone in DC that wasn't bought off by Jewish 'benjamin's ' they would be laughing their asses
off at this typical Jewish tactic.
Everyone understands that a minor Iranian miscalculation could lead to total war. One in which nuclear
bombs would rain down on Iran leaving its cities, economy, and security in ruins.
The sociopath, Ayatollah Khameni is detached from reality and may be willing to take such risks.
However, there is no reason to believe that The Iranian military or civilian population will embrace
certain suicide. It is quite likely that the IRGC would decide that it is time for another revolution and
end the theocracy, rather than die following the dubious commands of a deranged Ayatollah.
Kristol, you're drunk. Turn off the computer and go to bed, you shmuck.
That was the goal.
Remember the Zios in Rumsfeld's pentagon stressing how the US must dump 'old Europe"?
Even a non genius like me could figure that out .old Europe might be too much of a 'restraining ' influence
on the US.
The Jews hate Europe anyway ..just like they hate Russia.
Some interesting things popped up this week .Vindman , main testifier against Trump on Ukraine is a
Ukraine Jew, Solderman,Trump's main man on Ukraine is a Jew, also has now testified against Trump, their
attorney is also a Jew ..they all have issued statements about how the plucky "little Ukraine is fighting
against Russia for the US and world" and needs our aid and so on. Exactly the same wording and bullshit spin
the Jews use about Israel "fighting Iran to protect the US and world interest".
Plain to me the Uber Jews are trying to set up the Ukraine as a Israel satellite and weight on Russia's
flank.
I read Vindman's testimony to congress ..something is very off about the guy. he sounded numerous times
like he lost his script. He's, in his own words, a fanatical supporter of Ukraine . I don't like Trump but I
think the Ukraine deal to impeach him is a set up ..and its not coming mainly from the CIA ,its coming from
the Nat Sec Council that Vindman works for.
It is terrifying to think that in the event Israel be run by psychopaths, they might sacrifice another "6
million", while securing themselves a new Zion.
On the other hand, a peaceful transfer of the occupation of Palestine to Patagonia (and elsewhere),
without the trigger of war, would be a possible path to peace in the Middle East (not so ideal for Patagonia
though).
What would it take for either outcome to pass? I fear the former is far more likely than the latter.
I don't like Trump but I think the Ukraine deal to impeach him is a set up ..and its not coming mainly
from the CIA ,its coming from the Nat Sec Council .
The US openly occupies parts of Syria, boasts of taking it resources and supported the
attempts of the Kurds to set up their own little state, until the Turks blew a hissy fit.
And
yet it has the gall to call out what Russia does in the Ukraine as a breach of international
law.
It seems to me an important tenet of the neoliberal ideology is the arbiter (or
auctioneer) role it gives the state and other political institutions with respect to markets.
Markets are the locus of justice and efficiency, but political institutions have the
essential task of organizing them and the competitions that takes place within them,
supposedly at least.
In practice, this translated in a central role of political power not only in privatizing
and breaking state monopolies, but also in the creation, sometimes ex nihilo, of markets
supervised by state or quasi-state agencies (shielded of electoral choices by regulatory or
ideally constitutional provisions) whose role was to organize concurrence in domains
classical liberal economic theory would consider natural monopolies or natural public
properties (education, health service, energy distribution, infrastructure of transportation,
telecommunication, postal and banking service etc.)
What an excellent and deep observation ! Thank you ! This is the essence of the compromises
with financial oligarchy made by failing social democratic parties. Neoliberalism is kind of
Trotskyism for the rich in which the political power is used to shape the society "from above".
As Hayek remarked on his visit to Pinochet's Chile – "my personal preference leans toward
a liberal dictatorship rather than toward a democratic government devoid of liberalism".
George Monblot observed that "Neoliberalism was not conceived as a self-serving racket [of
the financial oligarchy], but it rapidly became one." ( The Guardian, Apr 15, 2016):
Neoliberalism sees competition as the defining characteristic of human relations. It
redefines citizens as consumers, whose democratic choices are best exercised by buying and
selling, a process that rewards merit and punishes inefficiency. It maintains that "the
market" delivers benefits that could never be achieved by planning.
Attempts to limit competition are treated as inimical to liberty. Tax and regulation
should be minimised, public services should be privatised. The organisation of labour and
collective bargaining by trade unions are portrayed as market distortions that impede the
formation of a natural hierarchy of winners and losers. Inequality is recast as virtuous: a
reward for utility and a generator of wealth, which trickles down to enrich everyone. Efforts
to create a more equal society are both counterproductive and morally corrosive. The market
ensures that everyone gets what they deserve.
The free (as in absence of regulation for FIRE) market produces a tiny cadre of winners and
an enormous army of losers (10% vs 90%) – and the losers, looking for revenge, have
turned to Trump. Now entrenched centers of "resistance" (and first of all CIA, the Justice
Department, The Department of State and a part of Pentagon) are trying to reverse the
situation. Failing to understand that they created Trump and each time will reproduce it in
more and more dangerous variant.
Trumpism is the inevitable result of the gap between the utopian ideal of the free (for the
FIRE sector only ) market and the dystopian reality for the majority of the population
("without work, without possibilities, without any means of escape" Pope Francis, "Evangelii
Gaudium")
The situation in which the financial sector generates just 4% of employment, but accounts
for more than 25% of corporate profits is unsustainable. It should be reversed and it will be
reversed.
US military commanders overseeing Syria operations are still waiting for precise
battlefield orders from the White House and Pentagon on their exact mission to protect
oilfields in eastern Syria, according to a defense official directly familiar with the
matter.
Nearly three weeks after President Donald Trump ordered troops out of northern Syria,
publicly declaring he was taking "control" of the oil and sending troops and armored carriers
to protect it from ISIS, US commanders lack clarity on the most basic aspects of their
mission, including how and when troops can fire their weapons and what, exactly, that mission
is.
The lack of precise orders means troops are on the ground while critical details are still
being worked out -- exactly where they will go, when and how they will stay on small bases in
the area, and when they go on patrol.
Perhaps most crucially, there is no clarity about exactly who they are operating against
in the oilfields.
Everything the Trump administration has done in Syria has been horribly confused, so it
makes sense that the latest version of the policy would be baffling to our own troops. U.S.
commanders lack clarity about the mission because it was cooked up to appeal to the president's
desire for plundering other countries' resources. It was thrown together on the spur of the
moment as an excuse to keep U.S. troops in Syria no matter what, and now those troops are stuck
there with no instructions and no idea what they are expected to do. This is the worst kind of
unnecessary military mission, because it is being carried out simply to keep a U.S. foothold in
Syria for its own sake. The "critical details" aren't being worked out so much as a plausible
justification after the fact is being conjured out of thin air. There is no reason for these
troops to be there, and there is nothing that they can do there legally, but the administration
will come up with some bad argument to keep them there anyway.
Meanwhile, Trump is very proud of his clownish, illegal Syria policy:
Trump labors under the delusion that the oil is ours to "distribute." which everyone else
knows to be false. The oil belongs to the Syrian government, and that oil can't be sold and
revenues from those sales cannot be used without the permission of the government that owns it.
Syria's oil resources are not that great, and the infrastructure of many of the fields has been
damaged or destroyed, so if it were legal to loot the spoils there wouldn't be very much to
loot. The president thinks that seizing Syrian oil is worth boasting about, but in reality it
is one of the most absurd and indefensible reasons for deploying troops abroad. In addition to
damaging the country's international standing with allied and friendly governments with this
open thievery, Trump's "take the oil" fixation is a propaganda coup for hostile governments and
groups. As Paul Pillar pointed out last week, it plays into the
hands of jihadist groups and aids them in their recruitment:
Trump's Sunday appearance before the press played right into this theme. Referring back to
the Iraq War, Trump described as his own view at the time that if the United States was going
into Iraq, it should "keep the oil." As for Syria's oil, he said it can help the Kurds but
"it can help us because we should be able to take some also. And what I intend to do,
perhaps, is make a deal with an Exxon Mobil or one of our great companies to go in there and
do it properly." A propagandist for ISIS or al-Qaeda would hardly have written the script
differently.
Keeping troops in Syria to "take the oil" is divorced from genuine American security
interests just like any other unnecessary military intervention. The president is exposing U.S.
military personnel to unnecessary risk, and he is also putting them in legal jeopardy by
ordering them to commit what is essentially the war crime of pillaging. The president has
managed to take a Syria policy that was already incoherent and chaotic and he has made it even
worse.
JQ wrote: 'The EU is inherently social democratic in its structure It is true that the
European social democracies have given some ground, notably with respect to privatisation,
but no genuinely neoliberal party has arisen or seems likely to.'
Back in the real world, here's a study from the LANCET, the medical journal --
To precis it very roughly, 50,000 or so Greeks died because of the EU's imposition of
its austerity policies on Greece. In other words, they died because Merkel in Germany and
Hollande in France were unwilling to tell their electorates they were bailing out German
and French banks, and so the bailout to those banks was carried out through the backdoor of
Greece with 92-93 percent of those funds going straight to commercial financial
institutions in Northern Europe and never touching the Greek economy.
Moreover, this was done at the same time that Mario Draghi at the ECB was initiating his
policy of doing "whatever it takes" in terms of quantitative easing. The entire Greek debt
would turn out to be less than a couple months of ECB money printing.
With blazing clarity, then, Greece tells us just what the EU is when the chips aren't
even down. Thereby, we come to the question at hand: What is neoliberalism?
The core of the neoliberal program is _not_ simply to "remove the state altogether from
'non-core' functions such as the provision of infrastructure services' and 'minimise the
state role in core functions (health, education, income security) through contracting out,
voucher schemes and so on'.
Rather, neoliberalism aims to promote the capability of capital to range globally and
make a profit anywhere it can without such impediments as might be erected by national
politicians and populations -- impediments like policies of redistribution or the
(re)nationalization of basic infrastructure. To this end, neoliberalism embeds and
neutralizes the governments of nation-states within supranational institutions like the
WTO, the IMF, GATT -- and the EU.
_That_ is the core of the neoliberal program. And, again, its very clear that from its
beginnings as the European Coal and Steel Community and the EEC, the EU was carefully
designed by its founders to be a neoliberal organization -- or an ordoliberal one, if we
wish to split hairs, given that many of those responsible subscribed to the German flavor
of neoliberalism.
'Ordoliberalism is the German variant of social liberalism that emphasizes the need for
the state to ensure that the free market produces results close to its theoretical
potential. Ordoliberal ideals became the foundation of the creation of the post-World War
II German social market economy and its attendant Wirtschaftswunder' .
To conclude: the European Union is arguably _the_ most quintessentially neoliberal
organization in the world today. Wolfgang Streek and Quinn Slobodian, among others, give
authoritative accounts of all this and how it's played out.
For those of us who can actually remember political arguments made by Democrats in the
80's and 90's, it's ridiculous to say that neoliberalism in the US never existed except as
a term of abuse.
People bragged about being a new type of sophisticated market loving Democrat in sharp
contrast to old liberal dinosaurs like Tip O'Neill. Cranky Observer mentioned Charles
Peters and the Washington Monthly.
There was also The New Republic -- remember the joke " even the liberal New Republic"
supports conservative policy X? The point was they took pleasure in being Third Way style
neoliberals who were often hawkish on foreign policy and eager to question liberal
Democratic pieties, to the point it became a cliche that Republicans would cite them.
The New Republic and The Washington Monthly were neoliberal the way Commentary was
neoconservative. ( There was also a period where you weren't supposed to believe there were
such people as neocons. It was supposed to be an antisemitic code word.)
I think the idea that neoliberalism never existed in the US except as a term of abuse
from leftists first popped up in the 2016 Democratic primaries. I don't have a cite -- it's
just my recollection.
"... Washington's basic purpose in deploying the US forces in oil and natural gas fields of Deir al-Zor governorate is to deny the valuable source of income to its other main rival in the region, Damascus. ..."
Before the evacuation of 1,000 American troops from northern
Syria to western Iraq, the Pentagon had 2,000 US forces in Syria.
After the drawdown of US
troops at Erdogan's insistence in order for Ankara to mount a ground offensive in northern Syria,
the US has still deployed 1,000 troops, mainly in oil-rich eastern Deir al-Zor province and
at al-Tanf military base.
Al-Tanf military base is strategically located in southeastern Syria on the border between Syria,
Iraq and Jordan, and it straddles on a critically important Damascus-Baghdad highway, which
serves as a lifeline for Damascus.
Washington has illegally occupied 55-kilometer area around
al-Tanf since 2016, and several hundred US Marines have trained several Syrian militant groups there.
It's worth noting that rather than fighting the Islamic State, the purpose of continued presence
of the US forces at al-Tanf military base is to address Israel's concerns regarding the expansion of
Iran's influence in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.
Regarding the oil- and natural gas-rich Deir al-Zor governorate, it's worth pointing out
that Syria used to produce modest quantities of oil for domestic needs before the war – roughly 400,000
barrels per day, which isn't much compared to tens of millions barrels daily oil production in the
Gulf states.
Although Donald Trump crowed in a characteristic blunt manner in a tweet after the withdrawal of
1,000 American troops from northern Syria that Washington had deployed forces in eastern Syria where
there was oil,
the purpose of exercising control over Syria's oil is neither to smuggle oil
out of Syria nor to deny the valuable source of revenue to the Islamic State.
There is no denying the fact that the remnants of the Islamic State militants are still found in
Syria and Iraq but its emirate has been completely dismantled in the region and its leadership is on
the run. So much so that the fugitive caliph of the terrorist organization was killed in the bastion
of a rival jihadist outfit, al-Nusra Front in Idlib, hundreds of kilometers away from the Islamic State
strongholds in eastern Syria.
Much like the "scorched earth" battle strategy of medieval warlords – as in the case of the Islamic
State which early in the year burned crops of local farmers while retreating from its former strongholds
in eastern Syria –
Washington's basic purpose in deploying the US forces in oil and
natural gas fields of Deir al-Zor governorate is to deny the valuable source of income to its other
main rival in the region, Damascus.
After the devastation caused by eight years of proxy war, the Syrian government is in dire need
of tens of billions dollars international assistance to rebuild the country. Not only is Washington
hampering efforts to provide international aid to the hapless country, it is in fact squatting over
Syria's own resources with the help of its only ally in the region, the Kurds.
Although Donald Trump claimed credit for expropriating Syria's oil wealth, it bears mentioning
that "scorched earth" policy is not a business strategy, it is the institutional logic of the deep
state.
President Trump is known to be a businessman and at least ostensibly follows a non-interventionist
ideology; being a novice in the craft of international diplomacy, however, he has time and again been
misled by the Pentagon and Washington's national security establishment.
Regarding Washington's interest in propping up the Gulf's autocrats and fighting their wars in regional
conflicts, it bears mentioning that in April 2016, the Saudi foreign minister
threatened
that the Saudi kingdom would sell up to $750 billion in treasury securities and other
assets if the US Congress passed a bill that would allow Americans to sue the Saudi government in the
United States courts for its role in the September 11, 2001 terror attack – though the bill was eventually
passed, Saudi authorities have not been held accountable; even though 15 out of 19 9/11 hijackers were
Saudi nationals.
Moreover, $750 billion is only the Saudi investment in the United States, if we add its investment
in Western Europe and the investments of UAE, Kuwait and Qatar in the Western economies, the sum total
would amount to trillions of dollars of Gulf's investments in North America and Western Europe.
Furthermore, in order to bring home the significance of the Persian Gulf's oil in the energy-starved
industrialized world, here are a few stats from the OPEC data:
Saudi Arabia has the world's
largest proven crude oil reserves of 265 billion barrels and its daily oil production exceeds 10 million
barrels; Iran and Iraq, each, has 150 billion barrels reserves and has the capacity to produce 5 million
barrels per day, each; while UAE and Kuwait, each, has 100 billion barrels reserves and produces 3
million barrels per day, each; thus, all the littoral states of the Persian Gulf, together, hold 788
billion barrels, more than half of world's 1477 billion barrels of proven oil reserves.
No wonder then, 36,000 United States troops have currently been deployed in their numerous military
bases and aircraft carriers in the oil-rich Persian Gulf in accordance with the Carter Doctrine of
1980, which states: "Let our position be absolutely clear: an attempt by any outside force to gain
control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United
States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military
force."
Additionally, regarding the Western defense production industry's sales of arms to the Gulf Arab
States,
a report
authored
by William Hartung of the US-based Center for International Policy found that the Obama administration
had offered Saudi Arabia more than $115 billion in weapons, military equipment and training during
its eight-year tenure.
Similarly, the top items in Trump's agenda for his maiden visit to Saudi Arabia in May 2017 were:
firstly, he threw his weight behind the idea of the Saudi-led "Arab NATO" to counter Iran's influence
in the region; and secondly, he announced an unprecedented arms package for Saudi Arabia. The package
included between $98 billion and $128 billion in arms sales.
Therefore, keeping the economic dependence of the Western countries on the Gulf Arab States in mind,
during the times of global recession when most of manufacturing has been outsourced to China, it is
not surprising that when the late King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia decided to provide training and arms
to the Islamic jihadists in the border regions of Turkey and Jordan against the government of Bashar
al-Assad in Syria, the Obama administration was left with no other choice but to toe the destructive
policy of its regional Middle Eastern allies, despite the sectarian nature of the proxy war and its
attendant consequences of breeding a new generation of Islamic jihadists who would become a long-term
security risk not only to the Middle East but to the Western countries, as well.
Similarly, when King Abdullah's successor King Salman decided, on the whim of the Crown Prince Mohammad
bin Salman, to invade Yemen in March 2015, once again the Obama administration had to yield to the
dictates of Saudi Arabia and UAE by fully coordinating the Gulf-led military campaign in Yemen not
only by providing intelligence, planning and logistical support but also by selling billions of dollars'
worth of arms and ammunition to the Gulf Arab States during the conflict.
In this reciprocal relationship, the US provides security to the ruling families of the Gulf Arab
states by providing weapons and troops; and in return, the Gulf's petro-sheikhs contribute substantial
investments to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars to the Western economies.
Regarding the Pax Americana which is the reality of the contemporary neocolonial order,
according to a January 2017
infographic
by the New York Times, 210,000 US military personnel were stationed all over the world,
including 79,000 in Europe, 45,000 in Japan, 28,500 in South Korea and 36,000 in the Middle East.
Although Donald Trump keeps complaining that NATO must share the cost of deployment of US troops,
particularly in Europe where 47,000 American troops are stationed in Germany since the end of the Second
World War, 15,000 in Italy and 8,000 in the United Kingdom, fact of the matter is that the cost is
already shared between Washington and host countries.
Roughly, European countries pay one-third of the cost for maintaining US military bases in Europe
whereas Washington chips in the remaining two-third. In the Far Eastern countries, 75% of the cost
for the deployment of American troops is shared by Japan and the remaining 25% by Washington, and in
South Korea, 40% cost is shared by the host country and the US contributes the remaining 60%.
Whereas the oil-rich Gulf Cooperation Countries (GCC) – Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait and Qatar – pay
two-third of the cost for maintaining 36,000 US troops in the Persian Gulf where more than half of
world's proven oil reserves are located and Washington contributes the remaining one-third.
* * *
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.
I am always amazed (and amused) at
how much smarter "journalists" are
than POTUS. If ONLY Mr. Trump would
read more and listen to those who
OBVIOUSLY are sooo much smarter!!!!
Maybe then he wouldn't be cowed and
bullied by Erdogan, Xi, Jung-on,
Trudeau (OK so maybe that one was
too far fetched) to name a few.
Please note the sarcasm. Do I really
need to go in to the success after
success Mr. Trump's foreign policy
has enjoyed? Come on Man.
What a load of BOLOCKS...The ONLY, I
mean The Real and True Reason for
American Armored presence is one
thing,,,,,,,Ready for IT ? ? ? To
Steal as much OIL as Possible, AND
convert the Booty into Currency,
Diamonds or some other intrinsically
valuable commodity, Millions of
Dollars at a Time......17 Years of
Shadows and Ghost Trucks and Tankers
Loading and Off-Loading the Black
Gold...this is what its all
about......M-O-N-E-Y....... Say It
With Me.... Mon-nee, Money Money
Mo_on_ne_e_ey, ......
From the sale of US oil in Syria
receive 30 million. dollars per
month. Image losses are immeasurably
greater. The United States put the
United States as a robbery bandit.
This is American democracy. The
longer the troops are in Syria, the
more countries will switch to
settlements in national currencies.
"Our interests", "strategic
interests" is always about money,
just a euphemism so it doesn't
look as greedy as it is. Another
euphemism is "security' ,meaning
war preparations.
...The military power of the USA
put directly in the service of "the
original TM" PIRATE STATE.
U are
the man Norm! But wait... now things
get a little hazy... in the
classic... 'alt0media fake
storyline' fashion!
"President Trump is known to be a
businessman and at least ostensibly
follows a non-interventionist
ideology; being a novice in the
craft of international diplomacy,
however, he has time and again been
misled by the Pentagon and
Washington's national security
establishment."
Awww! Poor "DUmb as Rocks
Donnie" done been fooled agin!
...In the USA... the military men
are stirring at last... having been
made all too aware that their
putative 'boss' has been operating
on behalf of foreign powers ever
since being [s]elected, that the
State Dept of the once Great
Republic has been in active cahoots
with the jihadis ...
and that those who were sent over
there to fight against the
headchoppers discovered that the
only straight shooters in the whole
mess turned out to be the Kurds who
AGENT FRIMpf THREW UNDER THE BUS
ON INSTRUCTIONS FROM JIHADI HQ!
Good historical rundown of
Uncle Sam's blatant theft of resources in Syria .. has historical precedent too I believe;
the wars in Southeast Asia (the golden triangle and the drug trade). Afghanistan (heroin and
the poppies); imagine, we come and destroy your country and then steal your resources in the
aftermath. Sickening
@joost #33 I like to think that Trump's saying that the US army are going to steal Syria's
oil is very much the same strategy. What better way to turn world opinion against US
occupation of Syria?
Good historical rundown of
Uncle Sam's blatant theft of resources in Syria .. has historical precedent too I believe;
the wars in southeast asia (the golden triangle and the drug trade). Afghanistan (heroin and
the poppies); imagine, we come and destroy your country and then steal your resources in the
aftermath. Sickening
@49 Tim Glover. Exactly, imagine Obama saying that. Trump seems to have a habit of using
reverse psychology on people. This strategy works very well when nobody likes you and you
have the power of Twitter at your disposal.
People tend to overestimate the power of the US president. Every one of them, being democrat
or republican, gets assimilated by the borg. Resistance is futile, unless you are perceived
to be an idiot and do just enough to please your overlords. The Borg likes what he says, "we
are there for the oil" and they are getting reckless, exposing themselves for what they are.
Group think distorts perception and that is their weak spot. The borg will get more open
about their crimes and their true intentions. This breaks global support for the petrodollar
and that will be the end of the "outlaw" US empire.
I am surprised that I've not seen any commentary regarding the US's announcement that they
will continue to steal Syria's oil, and more importantly what anyone - Syria, Russia or
anyone else - might do about this blatant crime.
Clearly this challenges Syria's sovereignty as well as Russia's declared aim to restore
Syrian territory in full.
Any thoughts how this situation might evolve? IMO Russia has to remain a facilitator
rather than an actor. A "no-fly zone" enforced by Syrians and SAA ground troops?
Stripes: Carolina Army Guard troops move into eastern Syria with Bradley Fighting Vehicles
WASHINGTON – National Guard members from North and South Carolina began moving into
eastern Syria with heavy armored vehicles on Thursday as part of the Pentagon's new mission
to secure oil fields wrestled from the Islamic State, a military spokesman said.
Soldiers with the North Carolina-based 4th Battalion, 118th Infantry Regiment and the
South Carolina-based 218th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade were deployed to Deir al-Zour to
protect American-held oil fields around that city, Army Col. Myles Caggins, the spokesmen
for the U.S.-led anti-ISIS mission known as Operation Inherent Resolve, tweeted Thursday.
Caggins' tweet included photos of soldiers loading M2A2 Bradley Fighting Vehicles onto Air
Force C-17 Globemaster cargo jets to be used on the mission. . . .
For now, the new deployment will not include M1 Abrams tanks, the Pentagon official said
Thursday.
here
Why use regulars when we can call up the National Guard?
US hold on the oilfields depends mostly on Iraq. The oilfields of Deir Ezzor are in open
country with few towns and apart from the Euphrates flood plain is sparsely populated.
The only cover for guerrilla style attacks against US or its proxies on the oilfields will
be the occasional dust storm.
Apart from Iraq, syria setting up S-300 at deir Ezzor and taking control of the airspace
would also be a game changer but this may not happen.
Lebanon and Iraq are both undergoing US color revolutions at the moment so its a matter of
waiting for the dust to settle on both these moves to see where US is positioned in the
region.
Yet the US military is overwhelmingly the #1 most trusted US institution among Americans,
despite it forcibly wasting their hard earned money to kill tens of millions of innocents
abroad. At the same time the US is also filled to the brim with draft dodgers.
If anybody thinks Bolton and his chickenhawking buddies isn't representative of the whole
US, think again.
Don Bacon 73 "Really? I thought the protests were like many other protests around the world,
over economic issues."
As was the Syrian 'revolution'. Plenty of small US companies willing to go in. US already
has buyers as they have been shipping oil out of east Syria for some time. Turkey, Israel ect
plus many more willing to buy at a discount. And considering the oilfields are simply stolen,
oil can be sold at a discount.
Read the transcript of Trump's announcement this morning. He explicitly says he is keeping
the oil, and might invite in Exxon to use it. Logistics are sketchy, because who will buy it?
The pipelines will go through Syrian controlled territory. But he also says that a deal might
be possible. It's ridiculous.
Revenue from Syria's oilfields is about a $million/day. That is a small fraction of what it
costs to maintain even one little US military base in Syria.
Try to hold tight to a sense of perspective, folks. Trump is a businessman. Not a very
good one, perhaps, but certainly not so stupid that he cannot see that as an incredibly bad
deal. This "keeping the oil" nonsense is empty posturing intended to appeal to shallow
thinkers who don't know the difference between Syria and Venezuela and who don't really care
what American foreign policy is so long as it is done with an arrogant swagger. Now that may
be the majority of the US population, but these kinds are not even going to remember the
tweet this time next week, much less even care.
"Keeping the oil" is not only tactically, strategically, and logistically
untenable, it is such a baldfaced violation of so many US and international laws, treaties,
and agreements that even America's fig leaf of last resort, Canada, would have to condemn it.
This is just childish posturing to throw the appearance of bravado on America's exit from the
theatre. People functioning at the level of many posters here need to stop taking it so
seriously.
Revenue from Syria's oilfields is about a $million/day. That is a small fraction of what it
costs to maintain even one little US military base in Syria.
Try to hold tight to a sense of perspective, folks.
Posted by: William Gruff | Oct 27 2019 18:18 utc | 45
The point of "keeping the oil" is not to profit from it, but to deny it to the Syrians.
That's what Bibi wants.
@ 53
"Keeping the oil" is also meant to send a political message that you-know-who is still in
charge here, a Carter Doctrine policy that has been in tatters recently.
On the Syrian oil, US apparently was raking in 30 million a month in an operation that was
small enough to be kept from the public. If they take over the oilfields publicly and boost
oil infrastructure, the monthly take will rise considerably.
The oil fields on the east bank of the Euphrates produced the bulk of Syrian oil. If
production there was only 50% of Syrian production, the figures in dollar terms would still
be high.
200,0000 BPD would be just over half Syria pre war oil production, so 200,000 X say $40
per barrel brings the take up to $8 million per day. Not bad when its money for nothing.
William Gruff
Trump has made no effort or even noises to pull out of Tanf. I think he wants to continue
holding the Syrian border where he can. Denying the oil to Syria is a plus for him and that
also has the bonus of partly paying the cost of stationing the US along that border.
Zionism, oil, getting returns on military expenditure seems to be Trump's foreign policy or
as foreign policy is termed in the US 'War Policy"
"Keeping the oil" is also meant to send a political message that you-know-who is still in
charge here, a Carter Doctrine policy that has been in tatters recently.
Posted by: Don Bacon | Oct 27 2019 18:51 utc | 60
Sure, that's also true. The NeoCon warmongers only got convincing very late in the game,
when US Special Forces were already withdrawing from most of Rojava, and could not be
stopped, except for this massively mounted late defence of the oil-fields. As the NeoCons
were resisting from the beginning, what was it that changed Trump's mind? Bibi sounds like
the answer, but I'm open to others.
"So why did Trump state so emphatically that Russia and China love U.S. presence
there???"
Reverse psychology. If Trump can get that narrative to fly then the mindless Russophobic
and Sinophobic brainwash victims in the US will start screaming for the US to get out. After
all, jello-brained Americans believe they must do the opposite of whatever China and Russia
think is good. The USA certainly cannot do anything that China or Russia might approve of,
right? So if they want us to stay then we have to leave.
Russia loves the US stealing Syria's oil. Listen, Russia delivered a beat down to murican
regime change policy the likes of which the world has never seen before. It is epic
humiliation beyond all endurance! The Syrian state is saved and the prospects of a Libya just
a few hours from Russia's border are now gone! The US is scared shittless to attack Iran head
on, so the status quo is returning to this region faster than murica's tiny brain can
process. So what to do? Grab the oil! Be a thug and criminal! No more pretense, just sin
proudly like the evil turd you are! Lol! And Russia can point at that turd and condemn it on
the world stage for the whole world to see. No excuses...no sympathy. Of course that bravado
wont last long. When push comes to shove, murica will fold like the dodgy piece of toilet
paper it is and go home. Be patient and enjoy the Evil Empire's death agony a while
longer...make popcorn...
The Redirection, Mar 5, 2007
Is the Administration's new policy benefitting our enemies in the war on terrorism?
By Seymour M. Hersh
To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in
effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has
cooperated with Saudi Arabia's government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are
intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has
also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of
these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant
vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda. . . here
InsurgeIntel, May 22, 2015
Pentagon report predicted West's support for Islamist rebels would create ISIS
Anti-ISIS coalition knowingly sponsored violent extremists to 'isolate' Assad, rollback 'Shia
expansion'
by Nafeez Ahmed
The newly declassified DIA [Defense Intelligence Agency -- headed by General Flynn!] document
from 2012 confirms that the main component of the anti-Assad rebel forces by this time
comprised Islamist insurgents affiliated to groups that would lead to the emergence of ISIS.
Despite this, these groups were to continue receiving support from Western militaries and
their regional allies. . .
here
Some more history on how Russia's changed the US attitude toward Syria oil shipments to
foreign customers. Specifically, whereas until 2015 US air force pilots were not given
permission to fire on ISIS oil shipments, that policy changed when Russia entered the war.
In September 2015, the Federation Council, Russia's upper house of parliament authorised
the Russian president to use armed forces in Syria.[9][10] Russia acknowledged that Russian
air and missile strikes targeted not only ISIL, but also rebel groups in the Army of Conquest
coalition like al-Nusra Front, al-Qaeda's Syrian branch, and even FSA.
On 30 September 2015, Russia launched its first airstrikes against targets in Rastan,
Talbiseh, and Zafaraniya in Homs province of Syria. Moscow gave the United States a one-hour
advance notice of its operations. The Homs area is crucial to President Bashar al-Assad's
control of western Syria. -- wiki here
CBSNEWS, Nov 23, 2015
U.S. airstrikes against ISIS target oil tanker trucks
Two airstrikes, the most recent over the weekend, have destroyed almost 500 tanker trucks
ISIS uses to smuggle oil and sell it on the black market.
By one estimate, these attacks have destroyed roughly half the trucks ISIS uses to bring in
$1 million a day in revenues.
Until now, the U.S. has not gone after the tankers for fear of killing the civilian drivers.
. . here
That's the first time (and probably the last time) ever that the US military had any
consideration for civilian casualties. But they were ISIS employees so. . .cut 'em some
slack. Still, only half the trucks were destroyed at that time (more were destroyed much
later).
"... The below analysis is provided by " Ehsani " -- a Middle East expert, Syrian-American banker and financial analyst who visits the region frequently and writes for the influential geopolitical analysis blog, Syria Comment . ..."
"... An M1 Abrams tank at the Udairi Range Complex in Kuwait, via Army National Guard/Military Times. ..."
Here's
Why Trump's "Secure Syria's Oil" Plan Will Prove Practically Impossible
by
Tyler Durden
Sat, 10/26/2019 - 23:30
0
SHARES
The below analysis is provided by "
Ehsani
" -- a Middle
East expert, Syrian-American banker and financial analyst who visits the region frequently and writes
for the influential geopolitical analysis blog,
Syria Comment
.
Much has been debated since President Trump tweeted that
"The U.S has secured the oil"
in Syria. Is this feasible? Does it make any sense? The below will
explain how and why
the answer is a resounding
NO
.
Al-Omar and Conoco fields are already secured by Kurdish-led SDF and U.S forces. Some of the oil
from these fields was being sold through third parties to Syria's government by giving it in crude
form and taking back half the quantity as refined product
(the government owns the
refineries).
Syria's government now has access to oil fields inside the 32km zone
(established
by the Turkish military incursion and subsequent withdrawal of Kurdish forces). Such fields can produce
up to 100K barrels a day and will already go a long way in terms of meeting the country's immediate
demand.
So the importance of accessing oil in SDF/U.S hands is not as pressing any longer.
SDF/U.S forces can of course decide to sell the oil to Iraq's Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG)
but Syria's government now has control over the border area connecting Syria to KRG territory through
both Yaaroubia and Al-Mallkiya.
The Syrian government also now has control over supply of electricity. This was made possible by
taking control of the Tishreen and Furat dams.
Operating those fields needs electric power
supply and the state is now the provider.
Securing and operating these fields also entails paying salaries to those operating the fields.
International companies would be very reluctant to get involved without legal backing to operate
the fields.
"Securing the oil" therefore
can only mean preventing the Syrian state from accessing al-Omar/Conoco
only (not oil in the north)
. It's unlikely anything can be sold or transported.
And let's not forget "securing" this oil would need
ready air cover, and all for what?
SDF composition included Arab fighters and tribes who accepted Kurds in leadership since they had
American support and key cities in north. Many of those Arabs are already switching and joining the
Syrian Army.
"Securing" oil for benefit of the Kurds is likely to antagonize the Arab fighters
and tribes in the region.
Preventing rise of ISIS is likely to entail securing support of the region's Arabs and tribes more
than that of the Kurds. This Kurd/Arab issue is yet another reason why President Trump's idea of
"securing" the oil for the benefit of the Kurds just doesn't make sense nearly on every level
.
The psychopaths destroyed the last secular country in the ME. Same
with Lybia. Now all we get are extremists on all sides. Mossad doing
what it knows best, bringing chaos for the psychopaths.
By withdrawing from Northern Kurdistan and by making an exception
for the oil fields, Genius President Trump just told the world a number
of things:
To trust the U.S.A. as an ally is sheer stupidity
The "alternative media" theory that it is all about oil (and
possible gas) has been proven true
The U.S.A. is being ruled by a hobbyist who has no strategic
plans, replacing them with a "random walk" concept
Of course, the European allies (except Turkey) are still refusing
to learn from this experience. "Duck and cover until November 2020"
is their current tactics. Not sure if this is a good idea.
Turkey has learned to go their own ways, but I don't think it is
a good idea to create ever more enemies at one's borders. Greece,
Armenia, the Kurdish regions, Syria, Cyprus, not sure how their stance
is towards Iran. Reminds me of Germany before both World Wars. Won't
end well.
"America/The US", a label, is
actually just a location on a map and is not a reference to the actual
identities of those who start wars for profit.
Also it is hilarious to use that label as if an area of the planet
is or has attacked another area. Land can not attack itself, ever,
just as guns don't kill people, people kill people.
Trump is not claiming posession of oil in syria by leaving some
troops behind. Just as he did not declare war, nor start any EVER.
Every conflct on earth has it's roots with very specific individuals,
none of whom are even related to Trump.
Syria was a conflicting mess before he took office and he is dutifully
attempting to pull US soldiers out of a powder keg of nonsense he
wants no part of. Nor does any sane American want more conflict in
battles we can't afford, in countries we'll never even visit.
Like I said before, Trump can't just abruptly yank all our troops.
It's simply not that simple. And for those pretending he is doing
syria a disservice, I dare any one of you to go there yourselves and
see if you bunch of complete dipshits can do better. Who knows, maybe
you'll find the love of your life, ******* idiots.
First, the US invades Syria in violation of the Geneva Convention
on War making it an international criminal. Then it funds and equips
the most vile terrorists on the planet which leads to the killing
of thousands of innocent Syrians. And now it has decided to stay and
steal oil from Syria. The US is now the Evil American Empire owned
and run by crooks, gangsters and mass murderers. The Republic is dead
along with morality, justice and freedom.
Let's limit the culprits to: The Obama regime... and
not all the US. This is why these devils need to be brought
to trial and their wealth clawed out of their hiding places to
pay reparations to some of the victims.
The US has been an Evil American Empire for a long time, since
at least the Wilson administration, and Republican or Democrat...it
make little difference. World wars, the Fed, IRS, New Deal,
Korea, Vietnam, War OF Terror, assassinations, coups, sanctions,
Big Pharma, Seeds of Death and Big Agri...and the list goes
on and on. Please understand that America is not great and one
day all Americans will have to account for what their country
did in their name. If you believe in the Divine, then know that
their will be a reckoning.
The Obama regime was merely a continuation of the Chimpy Bush
regime, which was merely a continuation of the Clinton regime,
which was merely a continuation of the Pappy Bush regime, which
was merely a continuation... etc.
More chinks in the petrodollar armor will be the outcome of this. The credibility of murica is withering
away as every day passes. Iraqi pressure upon foreign troops there
to leave and/or drawdown further will also make this venture even
more difficult to manage.
The Kurds
may not be the smartest with regards to picking allies, but even they
may by now have learned that sticking to murica any longer will destroy
any semblance of hope for any autonomy status whatsoever once the
occupants have left. Likewise, the Sunni tribes around this area don't
want to become another Pariah group once things revert to normal.
Assad will eventually retake all his territory and
this is speeding up the process of eventual reconciliation in Syria.
They've spent far more on these wars than they've made back by stealing
other countries' resources. Trillions wasted in exchange for mere
billions in profit, to say nothing of the massive loss of life and
destruction incurred.
'The below analysis is provided by "
Ehsani
"
-- a Middle East expert, Syrian-American banker and financial analyst
who visits the region frequently and writes for the influential geopolitical
analysis blog,
Syria Comment
.'
this quote was my first red flag.
so POTUS outsmarts Erdongan, takes out ISIS leader BAGHDADI along
with Erdongan MIT agents meeting with him. sorry, Ehsani, i think
your full of sh*t.
CIA & MOSSAD LLC
friends ISIS is just the excuse the american
an israeli terrorists used and use in order to keep trying to remove
Assad from the Government.
They just can't accept defeat and absolute failure. What's worse
than an american/israeli terrorist destroyed ego?!
All info needs verification. US sources are not trustworthy including
anyone where money originates from the usual fake info instigators/
players.
POTUS is so misled by the deep state MIC /CIA/ FBI et al and their
willing fake media cohorts that he agreed to give the White Helmets
more public money for more fake movies, as has been properly proven
and widely reported.
Either they have taken control of his mind with a chip insert or
they have got his balls to the knife.
The false flags have been discredited systematically and only a
very brainwashed or a very frightened person would believe anything
from the same source until after a thorough scourge is proven successfully
undertaken.
It is evident that even the last hope department has been got at
by the money-power.
If they can do 9/11 and get away with it, as they have, then they
will stop at nothing to remain entrenched.
90% of oil is traded in U.S. dollars if that stops living standards
will drop in the U.S.. We dropped from 97% look how bad its now
with 7% imagine going down to 50% life would be unlivable
here.
...meanwhile, both according to
russia today
as well as the
(otherwise lying rag of a newspaper)
guardian
, the russian
government seems to take a different position to the views expressed
here by "a middle east expert".
russian state media is reporting that US troops are in the process
of taking control of syrian oil fields in the deir el-zour region
and have described such actions as "banditry". the crux of the matter
is this: if the US were not actually illegally taking control of Syrian
oil, then Russia would not be reporting this. Contrary to western
mainstream media, Russian sources have repeatedly shown themselves
to be factual.
Shame the "withdrawl" from Syria is tainted with "securing the oil".
US doesnt need that oil at all. So Orwellian! Unless the Kurds somehow
get rights to it.
Preventing rise of ISIS is likely to entail securing support of the region's Arabs and tribes more than that of the Kurds. This Kurd/Arab issue is yet another reason why President Trump's idea of
"securing" the oil for the benefit of the Kurds just doesn't make sense nearly on every level
.
Trump
is
securing
the
oil
not
for
the
Kurds
or
anything
in
the
middle
east-
his
doing
it
as
a response
to
the
media
backlash
he
received
when
he
announced
he's
abandoning
the
Kurds.
this is nonsense. thinking of the kurds and their interests is the absolutely last thing on trump`s mind: what counts for trump is how he is viewed by his voter base, no more, no less.
As is usually the case in theaters of combat, reality on the ground differs widely from the
sharp and clear lines that are presented to uninformed outside observers. Good case in point is
the state of Syrian oil. I am told by a well-informed source that the Syrian Democratic Forces
led by the Kurds have been selling much of the oil in northeast Syrian territory they
controlled until recently to the Syrian National Oil Company--the Assad government.
Some of that oil has also been sold to the Turks,,,
As we know, in the past, when ISIS controlled some of the Syrian oil, they were trucking it
across the border to Turkey and selling it to Erdogan's minions at a steep discount. The SDF
has continued doing that.
... Those tanker lines that Daesh was running into Turkey were done with the blessing of the
US. It was the resistance and in particular Russia that blew all that up.
What Harper meant to say is that some of the oil goes by tanker TRUCK from Turkey to Iran.
The oil thus trans-shipped to Iran is sold on as refined product to North Korea. The Turks
have been getting it at a very cheap prices from the SDF The Iranians add these products to
domestic production shipped east.
So, an oil-swap deal? Just like the currently defunct gas-swap deal that used to obtain
between Iran and Turkmenistan a few years back. Kurds and Turks acting like middlemen; how
very Middle-eastern!
The SDF/SNOC oil deal was negotiated by Russia 18 months ago. The SDF does NOT sell the oil
to the SNOC. Under the Russian deal, they get a share of the oil. The rest is turned over to
a broker from Raqqa who transports it in tanker trucks to Baniyas and Homs refineries.
If any oil is being diverted to Turkey, the it is the Raqqa brokers doing so. They are the
reportedly the brokers that used to deliver ISIS oil to Turkey via Erdogan's son-in-law.
... it was a deal negotiated by Russia with full agreement of Assad and his government and
the SNOC. My understanding is also that they did not choose the middleman from Raqqa.
Apparently he was the only one with tankers and with drivers who had no problem driving
through areas controlled by SDF, other areas controlled by SAA, and a few risky areas where
Daesh hijackings were a possibility.
Jeffrey Epstein accuser Jennifer Araroz filed an amended complaint Tuesday which names
two accomplices
in the convicted pedophile's alleged sex-trafficking operation
along with more than 20
corporate entities, according to
CNN
.
While Epstein's alleged 'madam' Ghislaine Maxwell has been accused of actively participating
in Epstein's sex crimes, the new complaint asserts that "secretary" Lesley Groff and former executive
assistant Cimberly Espinosa "participated with and assisted Epstein in
maintaining and
protecting his sex trafficking ring,
ensuring that approximately
three girls a day
were made available to him for his sexual pleasure
."
"The co-conspirators provided organizational support to Epstein's sex trafficking ring,
identifying and hiring the recruiters of underage girls
for Epstein's sexual pleasure,
scheduling appointments with these underage girls for Epstein's sexual pleasure
,
intimidating potential witnesses to Epstein's sex trafficking operation, and generally providing
administrative oversight of his sex trafficking operation
and ensuring it remained secret
,"
the complaint continues.
"He raped me, forcefully raped me"
Araoz told
NBC News
in July.
The 32-year-old Epstein accuser says she was 14-years-old when the abuse began. "
I was
terrified, and I was telling him to stop. 'Please stop,'
" Araoz continud.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/CYNnkAJHk_w
Groff's attorney, Michael Bachner, told CNN "As an executive assistant to Epstein, Lesley worked as
part of a professional staff that included in-house attorneys, accountants, an office manager and
other office staff."
"Lesley's job included making appointments for Mr. Epstein as directed by him, taking his messages,
and setting up high-level meetings with CEOs, business executives, scientists, politicians and
celebrities," the statement continues - adding "
At no time during Lesley's employment with
Epstein did she ever engage in any misconduct.
"
Also included in the complaint are the executors of Epstein's estate (one of whom was reportedly
seen
removing a bag of items
the day after Epstein's death).
In August, Araoz
told reporters
that her abuse at the hands of Epstein and his enablers "robbed me of my youth, my
identity, my innocence, my self-worth."
Brunel ready to talk
On Monday, an attorney for Epstein's former confidant, business partner, and model scout
Jean-Luc-Brenel says he's ready to talk to authorities, according to the
Telegraph
.
The Paris prosecutor's office opened a preliminary investigation in August into any possible
Epstein victims in its territory, and Mr Brunel is of potential interest to investigators.
Last month police searched Karin Models, which Mr Brunel founded.
In court filings, Virginia Guiffre, a long-time accuser of Epstein, claimed teenage girls
were brought to the US by Brunel and were "farmed out" by him to have sex with Epstein
.
Ms Guiffre also claims she was forced to have sex with Brunel several times. Brunel denies both
allegations.
His lawyer Corinne Dreyfus-Schmidt said Mr Brunel "firmly contests accusations in the press" and
"will reserve his statements for justice officials."
On Monday Ms Dreyfus-Schmidt, said that her client has notified the Paris prosecutor's office
that
he is at the disposition of judicial officials.
-
Telegraph
According to Epstein accuser Virgina Giuffre Roberts, Brunel "would bring young girls (ranging to
ages as young as twelve) to the United States for sexual purposes and farm them out to his friends,
especially Epstein."
"Brunel would offer the girls "modeling" jobs. Many of the girls came from poor countries or
impoverished backgrounds, and he lured them in with a promise of making good money."
In the 1980s Brunel was featured in a 60 Minutes expose after having gained a reputation for
sleeping with many of his underage models. His name was prominently featured in a series of phone
messages recovered from trash pulls of Epstein's mansion.
"... Citing a "political and humanitarian crisis" committed by Caracas, the White House Office of the Press Secretary issued a "suspension of entry as immigrants and nonimmigrants of persons who threaten Venezuela's democratic institutions." ..."
"... The move comes as the latest effort from the Trump administration to oust Venezuela's president. ' ..."
'US President Donald Trump has moved to suspend Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's
senior officials, relatives, and others who receive financial benefits from entering into
the US in Wednesday press release from the White House.
Citing a "political and humanitarian crisis" committed by Caracas, the White House
Office of the Press Secretary issued a "suspension of entry as immigrants and nonimmigrants
of persons who threaten Venezuela's democratic institutions."
The move comes as the latest effort from the Trump administration to oust Venezuela's
president. '
"... One of the reasons that I doubt Biden's version of the story stems from my experience in Venezuela. After Chavez took power, Venezuelans told me that he had found that a critical subsidiary of the Venezuelan oil company PDVSA was basically a CIA shop. The names of CIA on the Board of Directors were not just ordinary CIA, but were recognizable figures at the very top. ..."
"... To me this is entirely plausible. Control of oil is critical to US global hegemony. And what better way to control foreign oil than to have trusted American asset sit on the BOD? ..."
One of the reasons that I doubt Biden's version of the story stems from my experience in
Venezuela. After Chavez took power, Venezuelans told me that he had found that a critical
subsidiary of the Venezuelan oil company PDVSA was basically a CIA shop. The names of CIA on
the Board of Directors were not just ordinary CIA, but were recognizable figures at the very
top.
To me this is entirely plausible. Control of oil is critical to US global hegemony. And
what better way to control foreign oil than to have trusted American asset sit on the BOD?
This brings us to Hunter Biden's appointment to Ukrainian energy giant Burisma. After the
coup in 2014, why wouldn't Biden want a trusted asset on the board of the biggest natural gas
producer in Ukraine? IOW it was unpublicized standard operating procedure.
"The US served as a benevolent hegemon,
administering the occasional rap on the knuckles
to those acting in bad faith"
". Meanwhile, the system's multilateral institutions,
especially the International Monetary Fund,
helped countries in dire need of funds,
provided they followed the rules."
Behind the escalating global conflict over trade and technology is a larger breakdown of the
postwar rules-based order, which was based on a belief that any country's growth benefits
all. Now that China is threatening to compete directly with the United States, support for
the system that made that possible has disappeared.
By RAGHURAM G. RAJAN
CHICAGO – Another day, another attack on trade. Why is it that every dispute –
whether over intellectual property (IP), immigration, environmental damage, or war
reparations – now produces new threats to trade?
For much of the last century, the United States managed and protected the rules-based
trading system it created at the end of World War II. That system required a fundamental
break from the pre-war environment of mutual suspicion between competing powers. The US urged
everyone to see that growth and development for one country could benefit all countries
through increased trade and investment.
Under the new dispensation, rules were enacted to constrain selfish behavior and coercive
threats by the economically powerful. The US served as a benevolent hegemon, administering
the occasional rap on the knuckles to those acting in bad faith. Meanwhile, the system's
multilateral institutions, especially the International Monetary Fund, helped countries in
dire need of funds, provided they followed the rules....
"The US served as a benevolent hegemon, administering the occasional rap on the knuckles to
those acting in bad faith"
USA foreign policy since 70th was controlled by neocons who as a typical Trotskyites
(neoliberalism is actually Trotskyism for the rich) were/are hell-bent of world domination
and practice gangster capitalism in foreign policy. Bolton attitude to UN is very symptomatic
for the neocons as a whole.
Madeline "not so bright" Allbright was the first swan. As well as Clinton attempts to
bankrupt and subdue Russia and criminal (in a sense of no permission from the UN) attack on
Yugoslavia. Both backfired: Russia became permanently hostile. The fact he and his coterie
were not yet tried by something like Nuremberg tribunal is only due to the USA dominance at
this stage of history.
The truth is that the dissolution of the USSR the USA foreign policy became completely
unhinged. And inside the country the elite became cannibalistic, as there was no external
threat to its dominance in the form of the USSR.
The USA stated to behave like a typical Imperial state (New Rome, or, more correctly,
London) accepting no rules/laws that are not written by themselves (and when it is convenient
to obey them) with the only difference from the classic imperial states that the hegemony it
not based on the military presence/occupation ( like was the case with British empire)
Although this is not completely true as there are 761 US Military Bases across the planet
and only 46 Countries with no US military presence. Of them, seven countries with 13 New
Military Bases were added since 09/11/2001. In 2001 the US had a quarter million troops
posted abroad.
Still as an imperial state that is the center of neoliberal empire the USA relies more on
financial instruments and neoliberal comprador elite inside the country.
With the collapse of neoliberal ideology in 2008 the USA centered neoliberal empire
experiences first cracks. Brexit and election of Trump widened the cracks in a sense of
further legitimizing the ruling neoliberal elite (big middle finger for Hillary was addressed
to the elite as whole)
If oil price exceed $100 per barrel there will yet another crack or even repetition of the
2008 Great Recession on a new level (although we may argue that the Great Recession never
ended and just entered in Summers terms "permanent stagnation" phase)
Although currently with unhinged Trump at the helm the USA empire still going strong in
forcing vassals and competitors to reconsider their desire to challenge the USA. Trump
currently is trying to neutralize the treat from China by rejecting classic neoliberal
globalization mechanism as well as signed treaties like WTO. He might be successful in the
short run.
In the long run the future does not look too bright as crimes committed by the USA during
triumphal period of neoliberalism hangs like albatross around the USA neck.
EU now definitely wants to play its own game as Macron recently stated and which Merkel
tacitly supports. If EU allies with Russia it will became No.1 force in the world with the
USA No. 2. With severe consequences for the USA.
If Russia allied with China the USA No.1 position will hinge of keeping EU vassals in
check and NATO in place. Without them it will became No.2 with fatal consequences for the
dollar as world reserve currency and sudden change of the USA financial position due to the
level of external debt and required devaluation of the dollar.
Looks like 75 year after WWII the world started to self-organize a countervailing force
trying to tame the USA with some interest expressed by such players as EU, Russia, China,
India, Iran, Turkey, Pakistan and even Saudi Arabia. As well as ( in the past; and possibly
in the future as neoliberal counterrevolutions in both countries probably will end badly) by
Brazil and Argentina.
Only Canada, Australia and probably UK can be counted as the reliable parts of the USA
empire. That's not much.
"If Russia allied with China the USA No.1 position "........
Think Italy moving into the Axis in 1937? Or the Soviet German Non Aggression Pact.
Nuclear weapons removes the incentive for large "rearmaments" or not?
Would the Britain to France 1938 relationship describe the US to EU? Thinking in 1939
(1914?) terms Europe is less stitched together than in 1936.
"... Jolie King and Mark Firkin had been arrested relatively recently and charged with espionage. They had been apprehended while flying a drone around a military establishment not far from Tehran. ..."
"... They claim to be innocent civilians who had been flying their drone, taking vids with it and publishing them online in every country they drove through on the overland/sea jaunt from Darwin to London. ..."
"... Although the internet & associated cryptography has likely made such laws irrelevant, I cannot believe that a couple of months ago when the Grace II thing was kicking off any brit or australian could think flying drones around Iranian bases wouldn't get them into trouble. ..."
"... Would anyone care to imagine what would happen to someone on holiday from Iran who got spotted flying a drone around Fort Dietrick or similar? No matter how many posts they had made about doing the same in Chile, Peru, Colombia, Panama & Mexico. Wouldn't that appear as if it were just cover lest something did go wrong? ..."
"... Well don't her specialties line up closely with another brit educated woman caught teaching local Iranians how to stir trouble online in Iran, one Zaghari-Ratcliffe convicted of espionage after now england PM, then secretary of foreign affairs B Johnson, slipped up and admitted she had been training Iranians, in Iran. ..."
"... This attempt to propagandize the arrests of spies may even succeed I suppose as most people just don't follow this stuff closely enough and the praised to the max western media is unlikely to disabuse them of their ignorance. ..."
"... The ruins of Angkor Wat Cambodia are a sacred place and you are warned that no drones are permitted, but you still are flying your drone and that all females must be fully covered, but you don't care, you just think you are untouchables, but you will fly your drone once too often in a restricted area and be caught. ..."
in response of how NK treats journalists, Eva Bartlett of Syria fame did a number of reports from NK and she said she had more
freedom than in many western countries. As long as you dont show fake propaganda and show the NK'ians in favorable ie real light,
they have no problems. They were not asked to take particular shots or taken to particular places but left to do everything themselves.
I remember cops pulling me over for taking pics of barns in south dakota.. Many such events.. I remember cops pulling me over
so many times I can write a book on it. Once for having a white bag on the front seat.. For looking too young.. For looking like
a car bugler because I was under the dash fixing speaker wires.. For having driving lights on before they had those on cars as standard..
For changing lanes to avoid police.. Free country my testicles..
I dunno how many have been following the issue of the 'brit-australian' trio who are in custody in Iran, but there are some oddities
about these cases which suggest MI6/
ASIS are moronic and barefaced
enough to try and propagandise the inevitable result of their own hamfisted stupidity.
No one had heard of Kylie Moore-Gilbert, Jolie King and Mark Firkin a week ago, then John Bolton copped the flick and suddenly
australians & englanders are told that Iran has more than British-Iranian Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe slotted up, that two pom/oz
types and a genuine Australian were also being held.
Jolie King and Mark Firkin had been arrested relatively recently and charged with espionage. They had been apprehended
while flying a drone around a military establishment not far from Tehran.
They claim to be innocent civilians who had been flying their drone, taking vids with it and publishing them online in
every country they drove through on the overland/sea jaunt from Darwin to London. Apparently both are University graduates
who claim they didn't see the harm in doing what they were doing . . . yeah right, I guess it is possible to be that stupid but
it is pretty unlikely. I'm old enough to remember that it wasn't that long ago when going into many of the nations between Oz
and Iran with a ghetto blaster that would allow you to record and which had an AM or FM radio receiver would get you into the
slammer quick smart.
Although the internet & associated cryptography has likely made such laws irrelevant, I cannot believe that a couple of
months ago when the Grace II thing was kicking off any brit or australian could think flying drones around Iranian bases wouldn't
get them into trouble.
Would anyone care to imagine what would happen to someone on holiday from Iran who got spotted flying a drone around Fort
Dietrick or similar? No matter how many posts they had made about doing the same in Chile, Peru, Colombia, Panama & Mexico. Wouldn't
that appear as if it were just cover lest something did go wrong?
But that is nothing cos up until today we have been told that nothing is known about another woman who has been in prison for
a year on 'unknown charges'.
According to
today's graun we still don't know the charges, but we do know she is another pom/oz type, Dr Kylie Moore-Gilbert, a Cambridge-educated
academic who we are told:
"The University of Melbourne's website lists Dr Moore-Gilbert on its "Find an expert" page as a lecturer at the university's
Asia Institute.
It says she "specializes in Middle Eastern politics, with a particular focus on the Arab Gulf states," and that she had
published work on the 2011 Arab uprisings, authoritarian governance, and on the role of new media technologies in political
activism."
Well don't her specialties line up closely with another brit educated woman caught teaching local Iranians how to stir
trouble online in Iran, one Zaghari-Ratcliffe convicted of espionage after now england PM, then secretary of foreign affairs B
Johnson, slipped up and admitted she had been training Iranians, in Iran.
This attempt to propagandize the arrests of spies may even succeed I suppose as most people just don't follow this stuff
closely enough and the praised to the max western media is unlikely to disabuse them of their ignorance.
Would anyone care to imagine what would happen to someone on holiday from Iran who got spotted flying a drone around Fort Dietrick
or similar? No matter how many posts they had made about doing the same in Chile, Peru, Colombia, Panama & Mexico. Wouldn't
that appear as if it were just cover lest something did go wrong?
They were well aware that using drones could get them into trouble, they said so themselves talking about Cambodia, so in no doubt
the same applied to Iran. https://www.instagram.com/p/BngpgAIHqpD/
The ruins of Angkor Wat Cambodia are a sacred place and you are warned that no drones are permitted, but you still are
flying your drone and that all females must be fully covered, but you don't care, you just think you are untouchables, but you
will fly your drone once too often in a restricted area and be caught.
"... After he became vice president in 1940, as Roosevelt was increasingly ill, Wallace promoted a new vision for America's role in the world that suggested that rather than playing catch up with the imperial powers, the United States should work with partners to establish a new world order that eliminated militarism, colonialism and imperialism. ..."
"... In diplomacy, Wallace imagined a multi-polar world founded on the United Nations Charter with a focus on peaceful cooperation. In contrast, in 1941 Henry Luce, publisher of Time Magazine, had called for an 'American century,' suggesting that victory in war would allow the United States to "exert upon the world the full impact of our influence, for such purposes as we see fit and by such means as we see fit." ..."
"... Foreign aid for Wallace was not a tool to foster economic dominance as it was to become, but rather "economic assistance without political conditions to further the independent economic development of the Latin American and Caribbean countries." He held high "the principle of self-determination for the peoples of Africa, Asia, the West Indies, and other colonial areas." He saw the key policy for the United States to be based on "the principles of non-interference in the internal affairs of other nations and acceptance of the right of peoples to choose their own form of government and economic system." ..."
"... The United States should be emulating China, its Belt and Road Initiative and Community of Common Destiny, as a means of revitalizing its political culture and kicking its addiction to a neo-colonial concept of economic development and growth. Rather than relying on militarization and its attendant wars to spark the economy, progressives should demand that the US work in conjunction with nations such as China and Russia in building a sustainable future rather than creating one failed state after another. ..."
This is as good a time as any to point to an alternative vision of foreign policy. One based on the principle of non-interference,
respect for sovereignty, territorial integrity, and, above all, international law. One based on peaceful coexistence and mutual
cooperation. A vision of the world at peace and undivided by arbitrary distinctions. Such a world is possible and even though
there are currently players around the world who are striving in that direction we need look no further than our own history for
inspiration. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you one Henry A. Wallace, for your consideration.
(The following excerpts from an article by Dr. Dennis Etler. Link to the full article provided below.) --
The highest profile figure who articulated an alternative vision for American foreign policy was the politician Henry Wallace,
who served as vice president under Franklin D. Roosevelt from 1940-1944 and ran for president in 1948 as the candidate of the
Progressive Party.
After he became vice president in 1940, as Roosevelt was increasingly ill, Wallace promoted a new vision for America's
role in the world that suggested that rather than playing catch up with the imperial powers, the United States should work with
partners to establish a new world order that eliminated militarism, colonialism and imperialism.
Wallace gave a speech in 1942 that declared a "Century of the Common Man." He described a post-war world that offered "freedom
from want," a new order in which ordinary citizens, rather than the rich and powerful, would play a decisive role in politics.
That speech made direct analogy between the Second World War and the Civil War, suggesting that the Second World War was being
fought to end economic slavery and to create a more equal society. Wallace demanded that the imperialist powers like Britain and
France give up their colonies at the end of the war.
In diplomacy, Wallace imagined a multi-polar world founded on the United Nations Charter with a focus on peaceful cooperation.
In contrast, in 1941 Henry Luce, publisher of Time Magazine, had called for an 'American century,' suggesting that victory in
war would allow the United States to "exert upon the world the full impact of our influence, for such purposes as we see fit and
by such means as we see fit."
Wallace responded to Luce with a demand to create a world in which "no nation will have the God-given right to exploit other
nations. Older nations will have the privilege to help younger nations get started on the path to industrialization, but there
must be neither military nor economic imperialism." Wallace took the New Deal global. His foreign policy was to be based on non-interference
in the internal affairs of other countries and mutual respect for each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty.
Sadly, since then, despite occasional efforts to head in a new direction, the core constituency for US foreign policy has been
corporations, rather than the "common man" either in the United States, or the other nations of the world, and United States foreign
relations have been dominated by interference in the political affairs of other nations. As a result the military was transformed
from an "arsenal for democracy" during the Second World War into a defender of privilege at home and abroad afterwards.
-- - Foreign aid for Wallace was not a tool to foster economic dominance as it was to become, but rather "economic assistance without
political conditions to further the independent economic development of the Latin American and Caribbean countries." He held high
"the principle of self-determination for the peoples of Africa, Asia, the West Indies, and other colonial areas." He saw the key
policy for the United States to be based on "the principles of non-interference in the internal affairs of other nations and acceptance
of the right of peoples to choose their own form of government and economic system."
--
Wallace's legacy suggests that it is possible to put forth a vision of an honest internationalism in US foreign policy that
is in essence American. His approach was proactive not reactive. It would go far beyond anything Democrats propose today, who
can only suggest that the United States should not start an unprovoked war with Iran or North Korea, but who embrace sanctions
and propagandist reports that demonize those countries.
Rather than ridiculing Trump's overtures to North Korea, they should go further to reduce tensions between the North and the
South by pushing for the eventual withdrawal of troops from South Korea and Japan (a position fully in line with Wallace and many
other politicians of that age).
Rather than demonizing and isolating Russia (as a means to score political points against Trump), progressives should call for
a real détente, that recognizes Russia's core interests, proposes that NATO withdraw troops from Russia's borders, ends sanctions
and reintegrates Russia into the greater European economy. They could even call for an end to NATO and the perpetuation of the
dangerous global rift between East and West that it perpetuates.
Rather than attempt to thwart China's rise, and attack Trump for not punishing it enough, progressives should seek to create new
synergies between China and the US economically, politically and socioculturally.
-- -
In contrast to the US policy of perpetual war and "destroying nations in order to save them," China's BRI proposes an open plan
for development that is not grounded in the models of French and British imperialism. It has proposed global infrastructure and
science projects that include participants from nations in Africa, Asia, South and Central America previously ignored by American
and European elites -- much as Wallace proposed an equal engagement with Latin America. When offering developmental aid and investment
China does not demand that free market principles be adopted or that the public sector be privatized and opened up for global
investment banks to ravish.
-- The United States should be emulating China, its Belt and Road Initiative and Community of Common Destiny, as a means of revitalizing
its political culture and kicking its addiction to a neo-colonial concept of economic development and growth. Rather than relying
on militarization and its attendant wars to spark the economy, progressives should demand that the US work in conjunction with
nations such as China and Russia in building a sustainable future rather than creating one failed state after another.
This is a Marxist critique of neoliberalism. Not necessary right but they his some relevant
points.
Notable quotes:
"... The ideology of neoliberal capitalism was the promise of growth. But with neoliberal capitalism reaching a dead end, this promise disappears and so does this ideological prop. ..."
"... The ex ante tendency toward overproduction arises because the vector of real wages across countries does not increase noticeably over time in the world economy, while the vector of labor productivities does, typically resulting in a rise in the share of surplus in world output. ..."
"... While the rise in the vector of labor productivities across countries, a ubiquitous phenomenon under capitalism that also characterizes neoliberal capitalism, scarcely requires an explanation, why does the vector of real wages remain virtually stagnant in the world economy? The answer lies in the sui generis character of contemporary globalization that, for the first time in the history of capitalism, has led to a relocation of activity from the metropolis to third world countries in order to take advantage of the lower wages prevailing in the latter and meet global demand. ..."
"... The current globalization broke with this. The movement of capital from the metropolis to the third world, especially to East, South, and Southeast Asia to relocate plants there and take advantage of their lower wages for meeting global demand, has led to a desegmentation of the world economy, subjecting metropolitan wages to the restraining effect exercised by the third world's labor reserves. Not surprisingly, as Joseph Stiglitz has pointed out, the real-wage rate of an average male U.S. worker in 2011 was no higher -- indeed, it was marginally lower -- than it had been in 1968. 5 ..."
"... This ever-present opposition becomes decisive within a regime of globalization. As long as finance capital remains national -- that is, nation-based -- and the state is a nation-state, the latter can override this opposition under certain circumstances, such as in the post-Second World War period when capitalism was facing an existential crisis. But when finance capital is globalized, meaning, when it is free to move across country borders while the state remains a nation-state, its opposition to fiscal deficits becomes decisive. If the state does run large fiscal deficits against its wishes, then it would simply leave that country en masse , causing a financial crisis. ..."
"... The state therefore capitulates to the demands of globalized finance capital and eschews direct fiscal intervention for increasing demand. It resorts to monetary policy instead since that operates through wealth holders' decisions, and hence does not undermine their social position. But, precisely for this reason, monetary policy is an ineffective instrument, as was evident in the United States in the aftermath of the 2007–09 crisis when even the pushing of interest rates down to zero scarcely revived activity. 6 ..."
"... If Trump's protectionism, which recalls the Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1931 and amounts to a beggar-my-neighbor policy, does lead to a significant export of unemployment from the United States, then it will invite retaliation and trigger a trade war that will only worsen the crisis for the world economy as a whole by dampening global investment. Indeed, since the United States has been targeting China in particular, some retaliatory measures have already appeared. But if U.S. protectionism does not invite generalized retaliation, it would only be because the export of unemployment from the United States is insubstantial, keeping unemployment everywhere, including in the United States, as precarious as it is now. However we look at it, the world would henceforth face higher levels of unemployment. ..."
"... The second implication of this dead end is that the era of export-led growth is by and large over for third world economies. The slowing down of world economic growth, together with protectionism in the United States against successful third world exporters, which could even spread to other metropolitan economies, suggests that the strategy of relying on the world market to generate domestic growth has run out of steam. Third world economies, including the ones that have been very successful at exporting, would now have to rely much more on their home market ..."
"... In other words, we shall now have an intensification of the imperialist stranglehold over third world economies, especially those pushed into unsustainable balance-of-payments deficits in the new situation. By imperialism , here we do not mean the imperialism of this or that major power, but the imperialism of international finance capital, with which even domestic big bourgeoisies are integrated, directed against their own working people ..."
"... In short, the ideology of neoliberal capitalism was the promise of growth. But with neoliberal capitalism reaching a dead end, this promise disappears and so does this ideological prop. To sustain itself, neoliberal capitalism starts looking for some other ideological prop and finds fascism. ..."
"... The first is the so-called spontaneous method of capital flight. Any political formation that seeks to take the country out of the neoliberal regime will witness capital flight even before it has been elected to office, bringing the country to a financial crisis and thereby denting its electoral prospects. And if perchance it still gets elected, the outflow will only increase, even before it assumes office. The inevitable difficulties faced by the people may well make the government back down at that stage. The sheer difficulty of transition away from a neoliberal regime could be enough to bring even a government based on the support of workers and peasants to its knees, precisely to save them short-term distress or to avoid losing their support. ..."
"... The third weapon consists in carrying out so-called democratic or parliamentary coups of the sort that Latin America has been experiencing. Coups in the old days were effected through the local armed forces and necessarily meant the imposition of military dictatorships in lieu of civilian, democratically elected governments. Now, taking advantage of the disaffection generated within countries by the hardships caused by capital flight and imposed sanctions, imperialism promotes coups through fascist or fascist-sympathizing middle-class political elements in the name of restoring democracy, which is synonymous with the pursuit of neoliberalism. ..."
"... And if all these measures fail, there is always the possibility of resorting to economic warfare (such as destroying Venezuela's electricity supply), and eventually to military warfare. Venezuela today provides a classic example of what imperialist intervention in a third world country is going to look like in the era of decline of neoliberal capitalism, when revolts are going to characterize such countries more and more. ..."
"... Despite this opposition, neoliberal capitalism cannot ward off the challenge it is facing for long. It has no vision for reinventing itself. Interestingly, in the period after the First World War, when capitalism was on the verge of sinking into a crisis, the idea of state intervention as a way of its revival had already been mooted, though its coming into vogue only occurred at the end of the Second World War. 11 Today, neoliberal capitalism does not even have an idea of how it can recover and revitalize itself. And weapons like domestic fascism in the third world and direct imperialist intervention cannot for long save it from the anger of the masses that is building up against it. ..."
The ideology of neoliberal capitalism was the promise of growth.
But with neoliberal capitalism reaching a dead end, this promise disappears and so does this
ideological prop.
Harry Magdoff's The Age of
Imperialism is a classic work that shows how postwar political decolonization does not
negate the phenomenon of imperialism. The book has two distinct aspects. On the one hand, it
follows in V. I. Lenin's footsteps in providing a comprehensive account of how capitalism at
the time operated globally. On the other hand, it raises a question that is less frequently
discussed in Marxist literature -- namely, the need for imperialism. Here, Magdoff not only
highlighted the crucial importance, among other things, of the third world's raw materials for
metropolitan capital, but also refuted the argument that the declining share of raw-material
value in gross manufacturing output somehow reduced this importance, making the simple point
that there can be no manufacturing at all without raw materials. 1
Magdoff's focus was on a period when imperialism was severely resisting economic
decolonization in the third world, with newly independent third world countries taking control
over their own resources. He highlighted the entire armory of weapons used by imperialism. But
he was writing in a period that predated the onset of neoliberalism. Today, we not only have
decades of neoliberalism behind us, but the neoliberal regime itself has reached a dead end.
Contemporary imperialism has to be discussed within this setting.
Globalization and
Economic Crisis
There are two reasons why the regime of neoliberal globalization has run into a dead end.
The first is an ex ante tendency toward global overproduction; the second is that the
only possible counter to this tendency within the regime is the formation of asset-price
bubbles, which cannot be conjured up at will and whose collapse, if they do appear, plunges the
economy back into crisis. In short, to use the words of British economic historian Samuel
Berrick Saul, there are no "markets on tap" for contemporary metropolitan capitalism, such as
had been provided by colonialism prior to the First World War and by state expenditure in the
post-Second World War period of dirigisme . 2
The ex ante tendency toward overproduction arises because the vector of real wages
across countries does not increase noticeably over time in the world economy, while the vector
of labor productivities does, typically resulting in a rise in the share of surplus in world
output. As Paul Baran and Paul Sweezy argued in Monopoly Capital , following the lead of
Michał Kalecki and Josef Steindl, such a rise in the share of economic surplus, or a shift
from wages to surplus, has the effect of reducing aggregate demand since the ratio of
consumption to income is higher on average for wage earners than for those living off the
surplus. 3
Therefore, assuming a given level of investment associated with any period, such a shift would
tend to reduce consumption demand and hence aggregate demand, output, and capacity utilization.
In turn, reduced capacity utilization would lower investment over time, further aggravating the
demand-reducing effect arising from the consumption side.
While the rise in the vector of labor productivities across countries, a ubiquitous
phenomenon under capitalism that also characterizes neoliberal capitalism, scarcely requires an
explanation, why does the vector of real wages remain virtually stagnant in the world economy?
The answer lies in the sui generis character of contemporary globalization that, for the
first time in the history of capitalism, has led to a relocation of activity from the
metropolis to third world countries in order to take advantage of the lower wages prevailing in
the latter and meet global demand.
Historically, while labor has not been, and is still not, free to migrate from the third
world to the metropolis, capital, though juridically free to move from the latter to the
former, did not actually do so , except to sectors like mines and plantations, which
only strengthened, rather than broke, the colonial pattern of the international division of
labor. 4
This segmentation of the world economy meant that wages in the metropolis increased with labor
productivity, unrestrained by the vast labor reserves of the third world, which themselves had
been caused by the displacement of manufactures through the twin processes of
deindustrialization (competition from metropolitan goods) and the drain of surplus (the
siphoning off of a large part of the economic surplus, through taxes on peasants that are no
longer spent on local artisan products but finance gratis primary commodity exports to
the metropolis instead).
The current globalization broke with this. The movement of capital from the metropolis to
the third world, especially to East, South, and Southeast Asia to relocate plants there and
take advantage of their lower wages for meeting global demand, has led to a desegmentation of
the world economy, subjecting metropolitan wages to the restraining effect exercised by the
third world's labor reserves. Not surprisingly, as Joseph Stiglitz has pointed out, the
real-wage rate of an average male U.S. worker in 2011 was no higher -- indeed, it was
marginally lower -- than it had been in 1968. 5
At the same time, such relocation of activities, despite causing impressive growth rates of
gross domestic product (GDP) in many third world countries, does not lead to the exhaustion of
the third world's labor reserves. This is because of another feature of contemporary
globalization: the unleashing of a process of primitive accumulation of capital against petty
producers, including peasant agriculturists in the third world, who had earlier been protected,
to an extent, from the encroachment of big capital (both domestic and foreign) by the
postcolonial dirigiste regimes in these countries. Under neoliberalism, such protection
is withdrawn, causing an income squeeze on these producers and often their outright
dispossession from their land, which is then used by big capital for its various so-called
development projects. The increase in employment, even in countries with impressive GDP growth
rates in the third world, falls way short of the natural growth of the workforce, let alone
absorbing the additional job seekers coming from the ranks of displaced petty producers. The
labor reserves therefore never get used up. Indeed, on the contrary, they are augmented
further, because real wages continue to remain tied to a subsistence level, even as
metropolitan wages too are restrained. The vector of real wages in the world economy as a whole
therefore remains restrained.
Although contemporary globalization thus gives rise to an ex ante tendency toward
overproduction, state expenditure that could provide a counter to this (and had provided a
counter through military spending in the United States, according to Baran and Sweezy) can no
longer do so under the current regime. Finance is usually opposed to direct state intervention
through larger spending as a way of increasing employment. This opposition expresses itself
through an opposition not just to larger taxes on capitalists, but also to a larger fiscal
deficit for financing such spending. Obviously, if larger state spending is financed by taxes
on workers, then it hardly adds to aggregate demand, for workers spend the bulk of their
incomes anyway, so the state taking this income and spending it instead does not add any extra
demand. Hence, larger state spending can increase employment only if it is financed either
through a fiscal deficit or through taxes on capitalists who keep a part of their income
unspent or saved. But these are precisely the two modes of financing state expenditure that
finance capital opposes.
Its opposing larger taxes on capitalists is understandable, but why is it so opposed to a
larger fiscal deficit? Even within a capitalist economy, there are no sound economic
theoretical reasons that should preclude a fiscal deficit under all circumstances. The root of
the opposition therefore lies in deeper social considerations: if the capitalist economic
system becomes dependent on the state to promote employment directly , then this fact
undermines the social legitimacy of capitalism. The need for the state to boost the animal
spirits of the capitalists disappears and a perspective on the system that is epistemically
exterior to it is provided to the people, making it possible for them to ask: If the state can
do the job of providing employment, then why do we need the capitalists at all? It is an
instinctive appreciation of this potential danger that underlies the opposition of capital,
especially of finance, to any direct effort by the state to generate employment.
This ever-present opposition becomes decisive within a regime of globalization. As long as
finance capital remains national -- that is, nation-based -- and the state is a nation-state,
the latter can override this opposition under certain circumstances, such as in the post-Second
World War period when capitalism was facing an existential crisis. But when finance capital is
globalized, meaning, when it is free to move across country borders while the state remains a
nation-state, its opposition to fiscal deficits becomes decisive. If the state does run large
fiscal deficits against its wishes, then it would simply leave that country en masse ,
causing a financial crisis.
The state therefore capitulates to the demands of globalized finance capital and eschews
direct fiscal intervention for increasing demand. It resorts to monetary policy instead since
that operates through wealth holders' decisions, and hence does not undermine their
social position. But, precisely for this reason, monetary policy is an ineffective instrument,
as was evident in the United States in the aftermath of the 2007–09 crisis when even the
pushing of interest rates down to zero scarcely revived activity. 6
It may be thought that this compulsion on the part of the state to accede to the demand of
finance to eschew fiscal intervention for enlarging employment should not hold for the United
States. Its currency being considered by the world's wealth holders to be "as good as gold"
should make it immune to capital flight. But there is an additional factor operating in the
case of the United States: that the demand generated by a bigger U.S. fiscal deficit would
substantially leak abroad in a neoliberal setting, which would increase its external debt
(since, unlike Britain in its heyday, it does not have access to any unrequited colonial
transfers) for the sake of generating employment elsewhere. This fact deters any fiscal effort
even in the United States to boost demand within a neoliberal setting. 7
Therefore, it follows that state spending cannot provide a counter to the ex ante
tendency toward global overproduction within a regime of neoliberal globalization, which makes
the world economy precariously dependent on occasional asset-price bubbles, primarily in the
U.S. economy, for obtaining, at best, some temporary relief from the crisis. It is this fact
that underlies the dead end that neoliberal capitalism has reached. Indeed, Donald Trump's
resort to protectionism in the United States to alleviate unemployment is a clear recognition
of the system having reached this cul-de-sac. The fact that the mightiest capitalist
economy in the world has to move away from the rules of the neoliberal game in an attempt to
alleviate its crisis of unemployment/underemployment -- while compensating capitalists
adversely affected by this move through tax cuts, as well as carefully ensuring that no
restraints are imposed on free cross-border financial flows -- shows that these rules
are no longer viable in their pristine form.
Some Implications of This Dead End
There are at least four important implications of this dead end of neoliberalism. The first
is that the world economy will now be afflicted by much higher levels of unemployment than it
was in the last decade of the twentieth century and the early years of the twenty-first, when
the dot-com and the housing bubbles in the United States had, sequentially, a pronounced
impact. It is true that the U.S. unemployment rate today appears to be at a historic low, but
this is misleading: the labor-force participation rate in the United States today is lower than
it was in 2008, which reflects the discouraged-worker effect . Adjusting for this lower
participation, the U.S. unemployment rate is considerable -- around 8 percent. Indeed, Trump
would not be imposing protection in the United States if unemployment was actually as low as 4
percent, which is the official figure. Elsewhere in the world, of course, unemployment
post-2008 continues to be evidently higher than before. Indeed, the severity of the current
problem of below-full-employment production in the U.S. economy is best illustrated by capacity
utilization figures in manufacturing. The weakness of the U.S. recovery from the Great
Recession is indicated by the fact that the current extended recovery represents the first
decade in the entire post-Second World War period in which capacity utilization in
manufacturing has never risen as high as 80 percent in a single quarter, with the resulting
stagnation of investment. 8
If Trump's protectionism, which recalls the Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1931 and amounts to a
beggar-my-neighbor policy, does lead to a significant export of unemployment from the
United States, then it will invite retaliation and trigger a trade war that will only worsen
the crisis for the world economy as a whole by dampening global investment. Indeed, since the
United States has been targeting China in particular, some retaliatory measures have already
appeared. But if U.S. protectionism does not invite generalized retaliation, it would only be
because the export of unemployment from the United States is insubstantial, keeping
unemployment everywhere, including in the United States, as precarious as it is now. However we
look at it, the world would henceforth face higher levels of unemployment.
There has been some discussion on how global value chains would be affected by Trump's
protectionism. But the fact that global macroeconomics in the early twenty-first century will
look altogether different compared to earlier has not been much discussed.
In light of the preceding discussion, one could say that if, instead of individual
nation-states whose writ cannot possibly run against globalized finance capital, there was a
global state or a set of major nation-states acting in unison to override the objections of
globalized finance and provide a coordinated fiscal stimulus to the world economy, then perhaps
there could be recovery. Such a coordinated fiscal stimulus was suggested by a group of German
trade unionists, as well as by John Maynard Keynes during the Great Depression in the 1930s.
9
While it was turned down then, in the present context it has not even been discussed.
The second implication of this dead end is that the era of export-led growth is by and large
over for third world economies. The slowing down of world economic growth, together with
protectionism in the United States against successful third world exporters, which could even
spread to other metropolitan economies, suggests that the strategy of relying on the world
market to generate domestic growth has run out of steam. Third world economies, including the
ones that have been very successful at exporting, would now have to rely much more on their
home market.
Such a transition will not be easy; it will require promoting domestic peasant agriculture,
defending petty production, moving toward cooperative forms of production, and ensuring greater
equality in income distribution, all of which need major structural shifts. For smaller
economies, it would also require their coming together with other economies to provide a
minimum size to the domestic market. In short, the dead end of neoliberalism also means the
need for a shift away from the so-called neoliberal development strategy that has held sway
until now.
The third implication is the imminent engulfing of a whole range of third world economies in
serious balance-of-payments difficulties. This is because, while their exports will be sluggish
in the new situation, this very fact will also discourage financial inflows into their
economies, whose easy availability had enabled them to maintain current account deficits on
their balance of payments earlier. In such a situation, within the existing neoliberal
paradigm, they would be forced to adopt austerity measures that would impose income deflation
on their people, make the conditions of their people significantly worse, lead to a further
handing over of their national assets and resources to international capital, and prevent
precisely any possible transition to an alternative strategy of home market-based growth.
In other words, we shall now have an intensification of the imperialist stranglehold over
third world economies, especially those pushed into unsustainable balance-of-payments deficits
in the new situation. By imperialism , here we do not mean the imperialism of this or
that major power, but the imperialism of international finance capital, with which even
domestic big bourgeoisies are integrated, directed against their own working people.
The fourth implication is the worldwide upsurge of fascism. Neoliberal capitalism even
before it reached a dead end, even in the period when it achieved reasonable growth and
employment rates, had pushed the world into greater hunger and poverty. For instance, the world
per-capita cereal output was 355 kilograms for 1980 (triennium average for 1979–81
divided by mid–triennium population) and fell to 343 in 2000, leveling at 344.9 in 2016
-- and a substantial amount of this last figure went into ethanol production. Clearly, in a
period of growth of the world economy, per-capita cereal absorption should be expanding,
especially since we are talking here not just of direct absorption but of direct and indirect
absorption, the latter through processed foods and feed grains in animal products. The fact
that there was an absolute decline in per-capita output, which no doubt caused a decline in
per-capita absorption, suggests an absolute worsening in the nutritional level of a substantial
segment of the world's population.
But this growing hunger and nutritional poverty did not immediately arouse any significant
resistance, both because such resistance itself becomes more difficult under neoliberalism
(since the very globalization of capital makes it an elusive target) and also because higher
GDP growth rates provided a hope that distress might be overcome in the course of time.
Peasants in distress, for instance, entertained the hope that their children would live better
in the years to come if given a modicum of education and accepted their fate.
In short, the ideology of neoliberal capitalism was the promise of growth. But with
neoliberal capitalism reaching a dead end, this promise disappears and so does this ideological
prop. To sustain itself, neoliberal capitalism starts looking for some other ideological prop
and finds fascism. This changes the discourse away from the material conditions of people's
lives to the so-called threat to the nation, placing the blame for people's distress not on the
failure of the system, but on ethnic, linguistic, and religious minority groups, the
other that is portrayed as an enemy. It projects a so-called messiah whose sheer
muscularity can somehow magically overcome all problems; it promotes a culture of unreason so
that both the vilification of the other and the magical powers of the supposed leader
can be placed beyond any intellectual questioning; it uses a combination of state repression
and street-level vigilantism by fascist thugs to terrorize opponents; and it forges a close
relationship with big business, or, in Kalecki's words, "a partnership of big business and
fascist upstarts." 10
Fascist groups of one kind or another exist in all modern societies. They move center stage
and even into power only on certain occasions when they get the backing of big business. And
these occasions arise when three conditions are satisfied: when there is an economic crisis so
the system cannot simply go on as before; when the usual liberal establishment is manifestly
incapable of resolving the crisis; and when the left is not strong enough to provide an
alternative to the people in order to move out of the conjuncture.
This last point may appear odd at first, since many see the big bourgeoisie's recourse to
fascism as a counter to the growth of the left's strength in the context of a capitalist
crisis. But when the left poses a serious threat, the response of the big bourgeoisie typically
is to attempt to split it by offering concessions. It uses fascism to prop itself up only when
the left is weakened. Walter Benjamin's remark that "behind every fascism there is a failed
revolution" points in this direction.
Fascism Then and Now
Contemporary fascism, however, differs in crucial respects from its 1930s counterpart, which
is why many are reluctant to call the current phenomenon a fascist upsurge. But historical
parallels, if carefully drawn, can be useful. While in some aforementioned respects
contemporary fascism does resemble the phenomenon of the 1930s, there are serious differences
between the two that must also be noted.
First, we must note that while the current fascist upsurge has put fascist elements in power
in many countries, there are no fascist states of the 1930s kind as of yet. Even if the fascist
elements in power try to push the country toward a fascist state, it is not clear that they
will succeed. There are many reasons for this, but an important one is that fascists in power
today cannot overcome the crisis of neoliberalism, since they accept the regime of
globalization of finance. This includes Trump, despite his protectionism. In the 1930s,
however, this was not the case. The horrors associated with the institution of a fascist state
in the 1930s had been camouflaged to an extent by the ability of the fascists in power to
overcome mass unemployment and end the Depression through larger military spending, financed by
government borrowing. Contemporary fascism, by contrast, lacks the ability to overcome the
opposition of international finance capital to fiscal activism on the part of the government to
generate larger demand, output, and employment, even via military spending.
Such activism, as discussed earlier, required larger government spending financed either
through taxes on capitalists or through a fiscal deficit. Finance capital was opposed to both
of these measures and it being globalized made this opposition decisive . The
decisiveness of this opposition remains even if the government happens to be one composed of
fascist elements. Hence, contemporary fascism, straitjacketed by "fiscal rectitude," cannot
possibly alleviate even temporarily the economic crises facing people and cannot provide any
cover for a transition to a fascist state akin to the ones of the 1930s, which makes such a
transition that much more unlikely.
Another difference is also related to the phenomenon of the globalization of finance. The
1930s were marked by what Lenin had earlier called "interimperialist rivalry." The military
expenditures incurred by fascist governments, even though they pulled countries out of the
Depression and unemployment, inevitably led to wars for "repartitioning an already partitioned
world." Fascism was the progenitor of war and burned itself out through war at, needless to
say, great cost to humankind.
Contemporary fascism, however, operates in a world where interimperialist rivalry is far
more muted. Some have seen in this muting a vindication of Karl Kautsky's vision of an
"ultraimperialism" as against Lenin's emphasis on the permanence of interimperialist rivalry,
but this is wrong. Both Kautsky and Lenin were talking about a world where finance capital and
the financial oligarchy were essentially national -- that is, German, French, or British. And
while Kautsky talked about the possibility of truces among the rival oligarchies, Lenin saw
such truces only as transient phenomena punctuating the ubiquity of rivalry.
In contrast, what we have today is not nation-based finance capitals, but
international finance capital into whose corpus the finance capitals drawn from
particular countries are integrated. This globalized finance capital does not want the world
to be partitioned into economic territories of rival powers ; on the contrary, it wants the
entire globe to be open to its own unrestricted movement. The muting of rivalry between major
powers, therefore, is not because they prefer truce to war, or peaceful partitioning of the
world to forcible repartitioning, but because the material conditions themselves have changed
so that it is no longer a matter of such choices. The world has gone beyond both Lenin and
Kautsky, as well as their debates.
Not only are we not going to have wars between major powers in this era of fascist upsurge
(of course, as will be discussed, we shall have other wars), but, by the same token, this
fascist upsurge will not burn out through any cataclysmic war. What we are likely to see is a
lingering fascism of less murderous intensity , which, when in power, does not
necessarily do away with all the forms of bourgeois democracy, does not necessarily physically
annihilate the opposition, and may even allow itself to get voted out of power occasionally.
But since its successor government, as long as it remains within the confines of the neoliberal
strategy, will also be incapable of alleviating the crisis, the fascist elements are likely to
return to power as well. And whether the fascist elements are in or out of power, they will
remain a potent force working toward the fascification of the society and the polity, even
while promoting corporate interests within a regime of globalization of finance, and hence
permanently maintaining the "partnership between big business and fascist upstarts."
Put differently, since the contemporary fascist upsurge is not likely to burn itself out as
the earlier one did, it has to be overcome by transcending the very conjuncture that produced
it: neoliberal capitalism at a dead end. A class mobilization of working people around an
alternative set of transitional demands that do not necessarily directly target neoliberal
capitalism, but which are immanently unrealizable within the regime of neoliberal capitalism,
can provide an initial way out of this conjuncture and lead to its eventual transcendence.
Such a class mobilization in the third world context would not mean making no truces with
liberal bourgeois elements against the fascists. On the contrary, since the liberal bourgeois
elements too are getting marginalized through a discourse of jingoistic nationalism typically
manufactured by the fascists, they too would like to shift the discourse toward the material
conditions of people's lives, no doubt claiming that an improvement in these conditions is
possible within the neoliberal economic regime itself. Such a shift in discourse is in
itself a major antifascist act . Experience will teach that the agenda advanced as part of
this changed discourse is unrealizable under neoliberalism, providing the scope for dialectical
intervention by the left to transcend neoliberal capitalism.
Imperialist
Interventions
Even though fascism will have a lingering presence in this conjuncture of "neoliberalism at
a dead end," with the backing of domestic corporate-financial interests that are themselves
integrated into the corpus of international finance capital, the working people in the third
world will increasingly demand better material conditions of life and thereby rupture the
fascist discourse of jingoistic nationalism (that ironically in a third world context is not
anti-imperialist).
In fact, neoliberalism reaching a dead end and having to rely on fascist elements revives
meaningful political activity, which the heyday of neoliberalism had precluded, because most
political formations then had been trapped within an identical neoliberal agenda that appeared
promising. (Latin America had a somewhat different history because neoliberalism arrived in
that continent through military dictatorships, not through its more or less tacit acceptance by
most political formations.)
Such revived political activity will necessarily throw up challenges to neoliberal
capitalism in particular countries. Imperialism, by which we mean the entire economic and
political arrangement sustaining the hegemony of international finance capital, will deal with
these challenges in at least four different ways.
The first is the so-called spontaneous method of capital flight. Any political formation
that seeks to take the country out of the neoliberal regime will witness capital flight even
before it has been elected to office, bringing the country to a financial crisis and thereby
denting its electoral prospects. And if perchance it still gets elected, the outflow will only
increase, even before it assumes office. The inevitable difficulties faced by the people may
well make the government back down at that stage. The sheer difficulty of transition away from
a neoliberal regime could be enough to bring even a government based on the support of workers
and peasants to its knees, precisely to save them short-term distress or to avoid losing their
support.
Even if capital controls are put in place, where there are current account deficits,
financing such deficits would pose a problem, necessitating some trade controls. But this is
where the second instrument of imperialism comes into play: the imposition of trade sanctions
by the metropolitan states, which then cajole other countries to stop buying from the
sanctioned country that is trying to break away from thralldom to globalized finance capital.
Even if the latter would have otherwise succeeded in stabilizing its economy despite its
attempt to break away, the imposition of sanctions becomes an additional blow.
The third weapon consists in carrying out so-called democratic or parliamentary coups of the
sort that Latin America has been experiencing. Coups in the old days were effected through the
local armed forces and necessarily meant the imposition of military dictatorships in lieu of
civilian, democratically elected governments. Now, taking advantage of the disaffection
generated within countries by the hardships caused by capital flight and imposed sanctions,
imperialism promotes coups through fascist or fascist-sympathizing middle-class political
elements in the name of restoring democracy, which is synonymous with the pursuit of
neoliberalism.
And if all these measures fail, there is always the possibility of resorting to economic
warfare (such as destroying Venezuela's electricity supply), and eventually to military
warfare. Venezuela today provides a classic example of what imperialist intervention in a third
world country is going to look like in the era of decline of neoliberal capitalism, when
revolts are going to characterize such countries more and more.
Two aspects of such intervention are striking. One is the virtual unanimity among the
metropolitan states, which only underscores the muting of interimperialist rivalry in the era
of hegemony of global finance capital. The other is the extent of support that such
intervention commands within metropolitan countries, from the right to even the liberal
segments.
Despite this opposition, neoliberal capitalism cannot ward off the challenge it is facing
for long. It has no vision for reinventing itself. Interestingly, in the period after the First
World War, when capitalism was on the verge of sinking into a crisis, the idea of state
intervention as a way of its revival had already been mooted, though its coming into vogue only
occurred at the end of the Second World War. 11
Today, neoliberal capitalism does not even have an idea of how it can recover and revitalize
itself. And weapons like domestic fascism in the third world and direct imperialist
intervention cannot for long save it from the anger of the masses that is building up against
it.
Samuel Berrick Saul, Studies in British Overseas Trade, 1870–1914
(Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1960).
Paul A. Baran and Paul M. Sweezy, Monopoly Capital (New York:
Monthly Review Press, 1966).
One of the first authors to recognize this fact and its significance was Paul Baran in
The Political Economy of
Growth (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1957).
For the role of such colonial transfers in sustaining the British balance of payments and the
long Victorian and Edwardian boom, see Utsa Patnaik, "Revisiting the 'Drain,' or Transfers
from India to Britain in the Context of Global Diffusion of Capitalism," in Agrarian
and Other Histories: Essays for Binay Bhushan Chaudhuri , ed. Shubhra Chakrabarti and
Utsa Patnaik (Delhi: Tulika, 2017), 277-317.
Federal Reserve Board of Saint Louis Economic Research, FRED, "Capacity Utilization:
Manufacturing," February 2019 (updated March 27, 2019), http://fred.stlouisfed.org .
This issue is discussed by Charles P. Kindleberger in The World in Depression,
1929–1939 , 40th anniversary ed. (Oakland: University of California Press,
2013).
Joseph Schumpeter had seen Keynes's The Economic Consequences of the Peace as
essentially advocating such state intervention in the new situation. See his essay, "John
Maynard Keynes (1883–1946)," in Ten Great Economists (London: George Allen
& Unwin, 1952).
Utsa Patnaik is Professor Emerita at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning,
Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Her books include Peasant Class Differentiation (1987),
The Long Transition (1999), and The Republic of Hunger and Other Essays (2007). Prabhat Patnaik
is Professor Emeritus at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru
University, New Delhi. His books include Accumulation and Stability Under Capitalism (1997),
The Value of Money(2009), and Re-envisioning Socialism(2011).
The question why the USA intelligence agencies were "unaware" about Epstein activities is an interesting one. Similar question can
be asked about Hillary "activities" related to "Clinton cash".
Actually the way the USA elite deal with scandals is to ostracize any whistleblower and silence any media that tryt to dig the story.
Open repression including physical elimination is seldom used those days as indirect methods are quite effective.
Notable quotes:
"... Either we root out every last source of rot by investigating, indicting and jailing every wrong-doer and everyone who conspired to protect the guilty in the Epstein case, or America will have sealed its final fall. ..."
"... If you doubt this, then please explain how 1) the NSA, CIA and FBI didn't know what Jeffrey Epstein was up to, and with whom; 2) Epstein was free to pursue his sexual exploitation of minors for years prior to his wrist-slap conviction and for years afterward; 3) Epstein, the highest profile and most at-risk prisoner in the nation, was left alone and the security cameras recording his cell and surroundings were "broken." ..."
"... America's ruling class has crucified whistleblowers , especially those uncovering fraud in the defense (military-industrial-security) and financial (tax evasion) sectors and blatant violations of public trust, civil liberties and privacy. ..."
"... Needless to say, a factual accounting of corruption, cronyism, incompetence, self-serving exploitation of the many by the few, etc. is not welcome in America. Look at the dearth of investigative resources America's corporate media is devoting to digging down to the deepest levels of rot in the Epstein case. ..."
Either we root out every last source of rot by investigating, indicting and jailing every wrong-doer and everyone who conspired
to protect the guilty in the Epstein case, or America will have sealed its final fall.
When you discover rot in an apparently sound structure, the first question is: how far has the rot penetrated? If the rot
has reached the foundation and turned it to mush, the structure is one wind-storm from collapse.
How deep has the rot of corruption, fraud, abuse of power, betrayal of the public trust, blatant criminality and insiders protecting
the guilty penetrated America's key public and private institutions? It's difficult to tell, as the law-enforcement and security
agencies are themselves hopelessly compromised.
If you doubt this, then please explain how 1) the NSA, CIA and FBI didn't know what Jeffrey Epstein was up to, and with whom;
2) Epstein was free to pursue his sexual exploitation of minors for years prior to his wrist-slap conviction and for years afterward;
3) Epstein, the highest profile and most at-risk prisoner in the nation, was left alone and the security cameras recording his cell
and surroundings were "broken."
If this all strikes you as evidence that America's security and law-enforcement institutions are functioning at a level that's
above reproach, then 1) you're a well-paid shill who's protecting the guilty lest your own misdeeds come to light or 2) your
consumption of mind-bending meds is off the charts.
How deep has the rot gone in America's ruling elite? One way to measure the depth of the rot is to ask how whistleblowers
who've exposed the ugly realities of insider dealing, malfeasance, tax evasion, cover-ups, etc. have fared.
America's ruling class has crucified whistleblowers , especially those uncovering fraud in the defense (military-industrial-security)
and financial (tax evasion) sectors and blatant violations of public trust, civil liberties and privacy.
Needless to say, a factual accounting of corruption, cronyism, incompetence, self-serving exploitation of the many by the
few, etc. is not welcome in America. Look at the dearth of investigative resources America's corporate media is devoting to digging
down to the deepest levels of rot in the Epstein case.
The closer wrong-doing and wrong-doers are to protected power-elites, the less attention the mass media devotes to them.
... ... ...
Here are America's media, law enforcement/security agencies and "leadership" class: they speak no evil, see no evil and
hear no evil, in the misguided belief that their misdirection, self-service and protection of the guilty will make us buy the narrative
that America's ruling elite and all the core institutions they manage aren't rotten to the foundations.
Either we root out every last source of rot by investigating, indicting and jailing every wrong-doer and everyone who conspired
to protect the guilty in the Epstein case, or America will have sealed its final fall.
There is nothing new about empires taking hostages and using them to put pressure on
whatever rebel group needs to reminded "who is boss". The
recent arrest in Italy of Alexander Korshunov , the director for business development at
Russia's United Engine Corporation (UEC), is really nothing new but just the latest in a long
string of kidnappings. And, as
I already mentioned in distant 2017 , that kind of thuggery is not a sign of strength but,
in fact, a sign of weakness. Remember Michael Ledeen's immortal words about how ""
Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country
and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business "? Well, you could
say that this latest spat of kidnappings is indicative of the same mindset and goal, just on a
much smaller, individual, scale. And, finally, it ain't just Russia, we all know about the
kidnapping of Huawei's CFO
Meng Wanzhou by the Canadian authorities .
By the way, you might wonder how can I speak of "kidnapping" when, in reality, these were
legal arrests made by the legitimate authorities of the countries in which these arrests were
made? Simple! As I mentioned last
week , words matter and to speak of an "arrest" in this case wrongly suggest
that 1) some crime was committed (when in reality there is ZERO evidence of that,
hence the talk of "conspiracy" to do something illegal) 2) that this crime was investigated and
that the authorities have gathered enough evidence to justify an arrest and 3) that the accused
will have a fair trial. None of that applies to the cases of Viktor Bout , Konstantin Iaroshenko , Marina Butina or, for that
matter, Meng Wanzhou or Wang
Weijing . The truth is that these so-called "arrests" are simple kidnappings, the goal is
hostage taking with the goal to either 1) try to force Russia (and China) to yield to US
demands or 2) try to "get back" at Russia (and China) following some humiliating climb down by
the US Administration (this was also the real reason behind the uncivilized seizure of Russian
diplomatic buildings in the USA).
This is not unlike what the Gestapo and the SS liked to do during WWII and their kidnapping
of hostages was also called "arrest" by the then state propaganda machine. By the way, the
Bolsheviks also did a lot of that during the civil war, but on a much larger scale. In reality,
both in the case of the Nazi authorities and in the case of the imperial USA, as soon as a
person is arrested he/she is subjected to solitary confinement and other forms of psychological
torture (Manning or Assange anybody?!) in order to either make them break or to at least show
Russia and China that the US, being the World Hegemon gets to seize anybody worldwide, be it
by a CIA kidnapping
team or by using local colonial law enforcement authorities (aka local police forces).
US politicians love to "send messages" and this metaphor is used on a daily basis by US
officials in all sorts of circumstances. Here the message is simple: we can do whatever the
hell we want, and there ain't nothing you can do about it!
But is that last statement really true?
Well, in order to reply to this we should look at the basic options available to Russia
(this also applies to China, but here I want to focus on the Russian side of the issue). I
guess the basic list of options is pretty straightforward:
Frankly, in the case of the USA, options one and two are useless: the AngloZionist leaders
have long given up any hope of not being hated and despised by 99% of mankind and they have
long dropped any pretense of legality, nevermind morality: they don't give a damn what anybody
thinks. Their main concern is to conceal their immense weakness, but they fail to do so time
and time again. Truly, when wannabe "empires" can't even bring an extremely weakened country
such as Venezuela to heel, there ain't much they can do to boot their credibility. If anything,
this thuggery is nothing more than the evidence of a mind-blowing
weakness of the Empire.
But that weakness in no way implies that Russia and China have good options. Sadly, they
don't.
Russia can engage in various types of sanctions, ranging from the petty bureaucratic
harassment of US representations, diplomats, businessmen and the like to economic and political
retaliations. But let's not kid ourselves, there is very little Russia can do to seriously hurt
the USA with such retaliations. Many would advocate retaliation in kind, but that poses a
double problem for the Kremlin:
some are more equal than
others " and that that which is "allowed" to the World Hegemon is categorically forbidden
to everybody else. Thus if Russia retaliates in kind, there will be an explosion of
hysterical protests not only by the western legacy corporate and state ziomedia, but also
from the 5 th columnist in the Russian "liberal" press.
And yes, unlike the USA, Russia does have a vibrant, diverse and pluralistic media and each
time when Putin agrees to a press conference (especially one several hours long) he knows that
he will be asked the tough, unpleasant, questions. But since he, unlike most western leaders,
can intelligently answer them he does not fear them. As for Dmitrii Peskov and Maria Zakharova,
they have heard it all a gazillion during the past years, including often the most ridiculously
biased, mis-informed and outright ridiculous "questions" (accusations, really) from the western
presstitute corps in Russia.
So yes, Russia could, in theory, retaliate by arresting US citizens in Russia (or by staging
Cold War type provocations) or by kidnapping them abroad (Russia does have special forces
trained for this kind of operation). But this is most unlikely to yield any meaningful results
and it would create a PR nightmare for the Kremlin.
ORDER IT NOW
The truth is that in most of these cases we always come down to the fundamental dichotomy:
on one hand we have a rogue state gone bonkers with imperial hubris, arrogance and crass
ignorance (say, the USA and/or Israel) while on the other we have states which try to uphold a
civilized international order (Russia, China, Iran, etc.). This is by logical necessity a
lop-sided struggle in which the thugs will almost always have the advantage.
I see that not everyone believes in an eye for an eye. Bless your religion sir. If I had the
power to call down blessings, which I don't, I'd have to make that a double order. You are
twice blessed for saying, out loud, publicly and all, that the Soviet Union did not fall, nor
did anyone push it over. It was not about the price of oil or the cost of wheat or even the
darkness that lurks in the depths of mens souls. It was dismantled by its own chief executive
officers and it fell apart precisely because its officials still did their jobs. People have
all sorts of strong feelings about this, understandably so, yet is it well to stick to the
truth. I agree with you on this matter thought it's difficult to endure such provocative and
insulting evils. In past struggles with Europe, Russia has proven itself capable and willing
to make the sacrifices necessary to achieve its aims. A determined stance on the part of the
leaders puts a burden on the people. But as well, it empowers them to. In this way they
succeed.
Captain Hook to Captain Kumar of the runaway oil tanker lol peter pan clowns running the
State Department.
"This is Brian Hook . . . I work for secretary of state Mike
Pompeo and serve as the US Representative for Iran," Mr Hook wrote to Akhilesh Kumar on
August 26, according to several emails seen by the Financial Times. "I am writing with good
news."
"With this money you can have any life you wish and be well-off in old age," Mr Hook wrote
in a second email to Mr Kumar that also included a warning. "If you choose not to take this
easy path, life will be much harder for you."
@utu Jean-Luc Brunel is Jewish. He had a nasty reputation for drugging young women and
raping them once they became helpless. His "modeling agency" had offices in Paris, N.Y., and
Tel Aviv. He's in Israel right now, laying low.
While details on Epstein death are not interesting (he ended like a regular pimp) the corruption of high level officials his case
revealed in more troubling.
Notable quotes:
"... Epstein was released, and various lawsuits were filed against him and settled out of court, presumably in exchange for silence. The media was quiet or complimentary as Epstein worked his way back into high society. ..."
"... What would I do if I were Epstein? I'd try to get the President, the Attorney-General, or the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York to shut down the investigation before it went public. I'd have all my friends and all my money try to pressure them. If it failed and I were arrested, it would be time for the backup plan -- the Deal. I'd try to minimize my prison time, and, just as important, to be put in one of the nicer federal prisons where I could associate with financial wizards and drug lords instead of serial killers, black nationalists, and people with bad breath. ..."
"... What about the powerful people Epstein would turn in to get his deal? They aren't as smart as Epstein, but they would know the Deal was coming -- that Epstein would be quite happy to sacrifice them in exchange for a prison with a slightly better golf course. What could they do? There's only one good option -- to kill Epstein, and do it quickly, before he could start giving information samples to the U. S. Attorney. ..."
"... Trying to kill informers is absolutely routine in the mafia, or indeed, for gangs of any kind. ..."
"... Famous politicians, unlike gangsters, don't have full-time professional hit men on their staffs, but that's just common sense -- politicians rarely need hit men, so it makes more sense to hire them on a piecework basis than as full-time employees. How would they find hit men? You or I wouldn't know how to start, but it would be easy for them. Rich powerful people have bodyguards. Bodyguards are for defense, but the guys who do defense know guys who do offense. And Epstein's friends are professional networkers. One reporter said of Ghislaine Maxwell, "Her Rolodex would blow away almost anyone else's I can think of -- probably even Rupert Murdoch's." They know people who know people. Maybe I'm six degrees of separation from a mafia hit man, but not Ghislaine Maxwell. I bet she knows at least one mafioso personally who knows more than one hit man. ..."
"... Or, if you can hire a New York Times reporter for $30,000 ( as Epstein famously did a couple of years ago), you can spend $200,000 on a competent hit man to make double sure. Government incompetence does not lend support to the suicide theory; quite the opposite. ..."
"... Statutory rape is not a federal crime ..."
"... At any time from 2008 to the present, Florida and New York prosecutors could have gone after Epstein and easily convicted him. The federal nonprosecution agreement did not bind them. And, of course, it is not just Epstein who should have been prosecuted. Other culprits such as Prince Andrew are still at large. ..."
"... Why isn't anybody but Ann Coulter talking about Barry Krischer and Ric Bradshaw, the Florida state prosecutor and sheriff who went easy on Epstein, or the New York City police who let him violate the sex offender regulations? ..."
"... Krischer refused to use the evidence the Palm Beach police gave him except to file a no-jail-time prostitution charge (they eventually went to Acosta, the federal prosecutor, instead, who got a guilty plea with an 18-month sentence). Bradshaw let him spend his days at home instead of at jail. ..."
"... In New York State, the county prosecutor, Cyrus Vance, fought to prevent Epstein from being classified as a Level III sex offender. Once he was, the police didn't enforce the rule that required him to check in every 90 days. ..."
"... Trafficking is a federal offense, so it would have to involve commerce across state lines. It also must involve sale and profit, not just personal pleasure. ..."
"... Here, the publicity and investigative lead is what is most important, because these are reputable and rich offenders for whom publicity is a bigger threat than losing in court. They have very good lawyers, and probably aren't guilty of federal crimes anyway, just state crimes, in corrupt states where they can use clout more effectively. Thus, killing potential informants before they tell the public is more important than killing informants to prevent their testimony at trial, a much more leisurely task. ..."
"... Geoffrey Berman, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, is the only government official who is clearly trustworthy, because he could have stopped the 2019 Epstein indictment and he didn't. I don't think Attorney-General Barr could have blocked it, and I don't think President Trump could have except by firing Berman. ..."
"... "It was that heart-wrenching series that caught the attention of Congress. Ben Sasse, the Republican senator from Nebraska, joined with his Democratic colleagues and demanded to know how justice had been so miscarried. ..."
"... President Trump didn't have anything personally to fear from Epstein. He is too canny to have gotten involved with him, and the press has been eagerly at work to find the slightest connection between him and Epstein and have come up dry as far as anything but acquaintanceship. But we must worry about a cover-up anyway, because rich and important people would be willing to pay Trump a lot in money or, more likely, in political support, if he does a cover-up. ..."
"... he sealing was completely illegal, as the appeals court politely but devastatingly noted in 2019, and the documents were released a day or two before Epstein died. Someone should check into Judge Sweet's finance and death. He was an ultra-Establishment figure -- a Yale man, alas, like me, and Taft School -- so he might just have been protecting what he considered good people, but his decision to seal the court records was grossly improper. ..."
"... Did Epstein have any dealings in sex, favors, or investments with any Republican except Wexner? ..."
"... Dershowitz, Mitchell, Clinton, Richardson, Dubin, George Stephanopolous, Lawrence Krauss, Katie Couric, Mortimer Zuckerman, Chelsea Handler, Cyrus Vance, and Woody Allen, are all Democrats. Did Epstein ever make use of Republicans? Don't count Trump, who has not been implicated despite the media's best efforts and was probably not even a Republican back in the 90's. Don't count Ken Starr– he's just one of Epstein's lawyers. Don't count scientists who just took money gifts from him. (By the way, Epstein made very little in the way of political contributions , though that little went mostly to Democrats ( $139,000 vs. $18,000 . I bet he extracted more from politicians than he gave to them. ..."
"... What role did Israeli politician Ehud Barak play in all this? ..."
"... Remember Marc Rich? He was a billionaire who fled the country to avoid a possible 300 years prison term, and was pardoned by Bill Clinton in 2001. Ehud Barak, one of Epstein's friends, was one of the people who asked for Rich to be pardoned . Epstein, his killers, and other rich people know that as a last resort they can flee the country and wait for someone like Clinton to come to office and pardon them. ..."
"... "intelligence" is also the kind of excuse people make up so they don't have to say "political pressure." ..."
"... James Patterson and John Connolly published Filthy Rich: A Powerful Billionaire, the Sex Scandal that Undid Him , and All the Justice that Money Can Buy: The Shocking True Story of Jeffrey Epstein . Conchita Sarnoff published TrafficKing: The Jeffrey Epstein Case. I never heard of these before 2019. Did the media bury them? ..."
"... There seems to have been an orchestrated attempt to divert attention to the issue of suicides in prison. Subtle differences in phrasing might help reveal who's been paid off. National Review had an article, "The Conspiracy Theories about Jeffrey Epstein's Death Don't Make Much Sense." The article contains no evidence or argument to support the headline's assertion, just bluster about "madness" and "conspiracy theories". Who else publishes stuff like this? ..."
"... The New York Times was, to its credit, willing to embarrass other publications by 2019. But the Times itself had been part of the cover-up in previous years . Who else was? ..."
"... Not one question involving Maurene Comey, then? She was one of the SDNY prosecutors assigned to this case, and her name has been significantly played down (if at all visible) in the reportage before or after Epstein's death. That she just "happened" to be on this case at all is quite an eyebrow raiser especially with her father under the ongoing "Spygate" investigation ..."
"... As important as it is to go on asking questions about the life and death of Jeffrey Epstein, I have to admit that personally I'm just not interested. I've always found people of his social class to be vaguely repulsive even without the sordid sex allegations. Just their demanding personalities, just the thought of them hanging around in their terrycloth jogging suits, sneering at the world with their irrefrangible arrogance, is enough to make me shudder. I want nothing of their nightmare world; and when they die, I couldn't care less. ..."
"... We are supposed to have faith in this rubbish? The cameras malfunctioned. He didn't have a cellmate. The guards were tired and forced to work overtime. ..."
"... One tiny mention of Jewish magnate Les Wexner but no mention how he & the Bronfmans founded the 'Mega Group' of ultra-Zionist billionaires regularly meeting as to how they could prop up the Jewish state by any & all means, Wexner being the source of many Epstein millions, the original buyer of the NYC mansion he transferred to Epstein etc the excellent Epstein series by Whitney Webb on Mint Press covering all this https://www.mintpressnews.com/author/whitney-webb/ ..."
"... ex-OSS father Donald Barr had written a 'fantasy novel' on sex slavery with scenes of rape of underage teens, 'Space Relations', written whilst Don Barr was headmaster of the Dalton school, which gave Epstein his first job, teaching teens ..."
The Jeffrey Epstein case is notable for the ups and downs in media coverage it's gotten over the years. Everybody, it seems, in
New York society knew by 2000 that Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell were corrupting teenage girls, but the press wouldn't cover
it. Articles by New York in 2002 and
Vanity Fair in 2003 alluded to it gently,
while probing Epstein's finances more closely. In 2005, the Palm Beach police investigated. The county prosecutor, Democrat Barry
Krischer, wouldn't prosecute for more than prostitution, so they went to the federal prosecutor, Republican Alexander Acosta, and
got the FBI involved. Acosta's office prepared an indictment, but before it was filed, he made a deal: Epstein agreed to plead guilty
to a state law felony and receive a prison term of 18 months. In exchange, the federal interstate sex trafficking charges would not
be prosecuted by Acosta's office. Epstein was officially at the county jail for 13 months, where the county officials under Democratic
Sheriff Ric Bradshaw gave him scandalously
easy treatment , letting him spend his days outside, and letting him serve a year of probation in place of the last 5 months
of his sentence. Acosta's office complained, but it was a county jail, not a federal jail, so he was powerless.
Epstein was released, and various lawsuits were filed against him and settled out of court, presumably in exchange for silence.
The media was quiet or complimentary as Epstein worked his way back into high society. Two books were written about the affair, and
fell flat. The FBI became interested again around 2011 (
a little known fact
) and maybe things were happening behind the scenes, but the next big event was in 2018 when the Miami Herald published a
series of investigative articles rehashing what had happened.
In 2019 federal prosecutors indicted Epstein, he was put in jail, and
he mysteriously died. Now, after much complaining in the press about how awful jails are and how many people commit suicide, things
are quiet again, at least until the Justice Department and
the State of Florida finish their
investigation a few years from now. (For details and more links, see " Investigation: Jeffrey Epstein
"at Medium.com and " Jeffrey Epstein " at Wikipedia
.)
I'm an expert in the field of "game theory", strategic thinking. What would I do if I were Epstein? I'd try to get the President,
the Attorney-General, or the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York to shut down the investigation before it went public.
I'd have all my friends and all my money try to pressure them. If it failed and I were arrested, it would be time for the backup
plan -- the Deal. I'd try to minimize my prison time, and, just as important, to be put in one of the nicer federal prisons where
I could associate with financial wizards and drug lords instead of serial killers, black nationalists, and people with bad breath.
That's what Epstein would do. What about the powerful people Epstein would turn in to get his deal? They aren't as smart as Epstein,
but they would know the Deal was coming -- that Epstein would be quite happy to sacrifice them in exchange for a prison with a slightly
better golf course. What could they do? There's only one good option -- to kill Epstein, and do it quickly, before he could start
giving information samples to the U. S. Attorney.
Trying to kill informers is absolutely routine in the mafia, or indeed, for gangs of any kind. The reason people call such talk
"conspiracy theories" when it comes to Epstein is that his friends are WASPs and Jews, not Italians and Mexicans. But WASPs and Jews
are human too. They want to protect themselves. Famous politicians, unlike gangsters, don't have full-time professional hit men on
their staffs, but that's just common sense -- politicians rarely need hit men, so it makes more sense to hire them on a piecework
basis than as full-time employees. How would they find hit men? You or I wouldn't know how to start, but it would be easy for them.
Rich powerful people have bodyguards. Bodyguards are for defense, but the guys who do defense know guys who do offense. And Epstein's
friends are professional networkers.
One reporter said
of Ghislaine Maxwell, "Her Rolodex would blow away almost anyone else's I can think of -- probably even Rupert Murdoch's." They know
people who know people. Maybe I'm six degrees of separation from a mafia hit man, but not Ghislaine Maxwell. I bet she knows at least
one mafioso personally who knows more than one hit man.
In light of this, it would be very surprising if someone with a spare $50 million to spend to solve the Epstein problem didn't
give it a try. A lot of people can be bribed for $50 million. Thus, we should have expected to see bribery attempts. If none were
detected, it must have been because prison workers are not reporting they'd been approached.
Some
people say that government incompetence is always a better explanation than government malfeasance. That's obviously wrong --
when an undeserving business gets a contract, it's not always because the government official in charge was just not paying attention.
I can well believe that prisons often take prisoners off of suicide watch too soon, have guards who go to sleep and falsify records,
remove cellmates from prisoners at risk of suicide or murder, let the TV cameras watching their most important prisoners go on the
blink, and so forth. But that cuts both ways.
Remember, in the case of Epstein, we'd expect a murder attempt whether the warden of
the most important federal jail in the country is competent or not. If the warden is incompetent, we should expect that murder attempt
to succeed. Murder becomes all the more more plausible. Instead of spending $50 million to bribe 20 guards and the warden, you just
pay some thug $30,000 to walk in past the snoring guards, open the cell door, and strangle the sleeping prisoner, no fancy James
Bond necessary. Or, if you can hire a New York Times reporter for $30,000 (
as Epstein famously did a couple of years ago), you can spend $200,000 on a competent hit man to make double sure. Government
incompetence does not lend support to the suicide theory; quite the opposite.
Now to my questions.
Why is nobody blaming the Florida and New York state prosecutors for not prosecuting Epstein and others for statutory rape?
Statutory rape is not a federal crime, so it is not something the Justice Dept. is supposed to investigate or prosecute. They
are going after things like interstate sex trafficking. Interstate sex trafficking is generally much harder to prove than statutory
rape, which is very easy if the victims will testify.
At any time from 2008 to the present, Florida and New York prosecutors could have gone after Epstein and easily convicted him.
The federal nonprosecution agreement did not bind them. And, of course, it is not just Epstein who should have been prosecuted. Other
culprits such as Prince Andrew are still at large.
Note that if even if the evidence is just the girl's word against Ghislaine Maxwell's or Prince Andrew's, it's still quite possible
to get a jury to convict. After all, who would you believe, in a choice between Maxwell, Andrew, and Anyone Else in the World? For
an example of what can be done if the government is eager to convict, instead of eager to protect important people, see
the 2019 Cardinal
Pell case in Australia. He was convicted by the secret testimony of a former choirboy, the only complainant, who claimed Pell
had committed indecent acts during a chance encounter after Mass before Pell had even unrobed. Naturally, the only cardinal to be
convicted of anything in the Catholic Church scandals is also the one who's done the most to fight corruption. Where there's a will,
there's a way to prosecute. It's even easier to convict someone if he's actually guilty.
Why isn't anybody but Ann Coulter talking about Barry Krischer and Ric Bradshaw, the Florida state prosecutor and sheriff who went
easy on Epstein, or the New York City police who let him violate the sex offender regulations?
Krischer refused to use the evidence the Palm Beach police gave him except to file a no-jail-time prostitution charge (they eventually
went to Acosta, the federal prosecutor, instead, who got a guilty plea with an 18-month sentence). Bradshaw let him spend his days
at home instead of at jail.
In New York State, the county prosecutor, Cyrus Vance, fought to prevent Epstein from being classified
as a Level III sex offender. Once he was, the
police didn't enforce the
rule that required him to check in every 90 days.
How easy would it have been to prove in 2016 or 2019 that Epstein and his people were guilty of federal sex trafficking?
Not easy, I should think. It wouldn't be enough to prove that Epstein debauched teenagers. Trafficking is a federal offense, so
it would have to involve commerce across state lines. It also must involve sale and profit, not just personal pleasure.
The 2019 indictment
is weak on this. The "interstate commerce" looks like it's limited to Epstein making phone calls between Florida and New York. This
is why I am not completely skeptical when former U.S. Attorney Acosta says that the 2008 nonprosecution deal was reasonable. He had
strong evidence the Epstein violated Florida state law -- but that wasn't relevant. He had to prove violations of federal law.
Why didn't Epstein ask the Court, or the Justice Dept., for permission to have an unarmed guard share his cell with him?
Epstein had no chance at bail without bribing the judge, but this request would have been reasonable. That he didn't request a
guard is, I think, the strongest evidence that he wanted to die. If he didn't commit suicide himself, he was sure making it easy
for someone else to kill him.
Could Epstein have used the safeguard of leaving a trove of photos with a friend or lawyer to be published if he died an unnatural
death?
Well, think about it -- Epstein's lawyer was Alan Dershowitz. If he left photos with someone like Dershowitz, that someone could
earn a lot more by using the photos for blackmail himself than by dutifully carrying out his perverted customer's instructions. The
evidence is just too valuable, and Epstein was someone whose friends weren't the kind of people he could trust. Probably not even
his brother.
Who is in danger of dying next?
Prison workers from guard to warden should be told that if they took bribes, their lives are now in danger. Prison guards may
not be bright enough to realize this. Anybody who knows anything important about Epstein should be advised to publicize their information
immediately. That is the best way to stay alive.
This is not like a typical case where witnesses get killed so they won't testify.
It's not like with gangsters. Here, the publicity and investigative lead is what is most important, because these are reputable and
rich offenders for whom publicity is a bigger threat than losing in court. They have very good lawyers, and probably aren't guilty
of federal crimes anyway, just state crimes, in corrupt states where they can use clout more effectively. Thus, killing potential
informants before they tell the public is more important than killing informants to prevent their testimony at trial, a much more
leisurely task.
What happened to Epstein's body?
The Justice Dept. had better not have let Epstein's body be cremated. And they'd better give us convincing evidence that it's
his body. If I had $100 million to get out of jail with, acquiring a corpse and bribing a few people to switch fingerprints and DNA
wouldn't be hard. I find it worrying that the government has not released proof that Epstein is dead or a copy of the autopsy.
"Beyond its isolation, the wing is infested with rodents and cockroaches, and inmates often have to navigate standing water
-- as well as urine and fecal matter -- that spills from faulty plumbing, accounts from former inmates and lawyers said. One lawyer
said mice often eat his clients' papers."
" Often have to navigate standing water"? "Mice often eat his clients' papers?" Really? I'm skeptical. What do the
vermin eat -- do inmates leave Snickers bars open in their cells? Has anyone checked on what the prison conditions really like?
Is it just a coincidence that Epstein made a new will two days before he died?
I can answer this one. Yes, it is coincidence, though it's not a coincidence that he rewrote the will shortly after being denied
bail. The will leaves everything to a trust, and it is the trust document (which is confidential), not the will (which is public),
that determines who gets the money. Probably the only thing that Epstein changed in his will was the listing of assets, and he probably
changed that because he'd just updated his list of assets for the bail hearing anyway, so it was a convenient time to update the
will.
Did Epstein's veiled threat against DOJ officials in his bail filing backfire?
Epstein's lawyers wrote in his bail request,
"If the government is correct that the NPA does not, and never did, preclude a prosecution in this district, then the government
will likely have to explain why it purposefully delayed a prosecution of someone like Mr. Epstein, who registered as a sex offender
10 years ago and was certainly no stranger to law enforcement. There is no legitimate explanation for the delay."
I see this as a veiled threat. The threat is that Epstein would subpoena people and documents from the Justice Department relevant
to the question of why there was a ten-year delay before prosecution, to expose the illegitimate explanation for the delay. Somebody
is to blame for that delay, and court-ordered disclosure is a bigger threat than an internal federal investigation.
Who can we trust?
Geoffrey Berman, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, is the only government official who is clearly trustworthy,
because he could have stopped the 2019 Epstein indictment and he didn't. I don't think Attorney-General Barr could have blocked it,
and I don't think President Trump could have except by firing Berman. I do trust Attorney-General Barr, however, from what I've
heard of him and because he instantly and publicly said he would have not just the FBI but the Justice Dept. Inspector-General investigate
Epstein's death, and he quickly fired the federal prison head honcho. The FBI is untrustworthy, but Inspector-Generals are often
honorable.
Someone else who may be a hero in this is Senator Ben Sasse.
Vicki Ward
writes in the Daily Beast :
"It was that heart-wrenching series that caught the attention of Congress. Ben Sasse, the Republican senator from Nebraska,
joined with his Democratic colleagues and demanded to know how justice had been so miscarried.
Given the political sentiment, it's unsurprising that the FBI should feel newly emboldened to investigate Epstein -- basing
some of their work on Brown's excellent reporting."
Will President Trump Cover Up Epstein's Death in Exchange for Political Leverage?
President Trump didn't have anything personally to fear from Epstein. He is too canny to have gotten involved with him, and the
press has been eagerly at work to find the slightest connection between him and Epstein and have come up dry as far as anything but
acquaintanceship. But we must worry about a cover-up anyway, because rich and important people would be willing to pay Trump a lot
in money or, more likely, in political support, if he does a cover-up.
Why did Judge Sweet order Epstein documents sealed in 2017. Did he die naturally in 2019?
Judge Robert Sweet in 2017 ordered all documents in an Epstein-related case sealed. He died in May 2019 at age 96, at home in
Idaho. The sealing was completely illegal, as the appeals court politely but devastatingly noted in 2019, and the documents were
released a day or two before Epstein died. Someone should check into Judge Sweet's finance and death. He was an ultra-Establishment
figure -- a Yale man, alas, like me, and Taft School -- so he might just have been protecting what he considered good people, but
his decision to seal the court records was grossly improper.
Did Epstein have any dealings in sex, favors, or investments with any Republican except Wexner?
Dershowitz, Mitchell, Clinton, Richardson, Dubin, George Stephanopolous, Lawrence Krauss, Katie Couric, Mortimer Zuckerman,
Chelsea Handler, Cyrus Vance, and Woody Allen, are all Democrats. Did Epstein ever make use of Republicans? Don't count Trump, who
has not been implicated despite the media's best efforts and was probably not even a Republican back in the 90's. Don't count Ken
Starr– he's just one of Epstein's lawyers. Don't count scientists who just took money gifts from him. (By the way, Epstein made very
little in the way of
political contributions
, though that little went mostly to Democrats (
$139,000 vs. $18,000
. I bet he extracted more from politicians than he gave to them.
What role did Israeli politician Ehud Barak play in all this?
Remember Marc Rich? He was a billionaire who fled the country to avoid a possible 300 years prison term, and was pardoned
by Bill Clinton in 2001. Ehud Barak, one of Epstein's friends, was one of the people
who asked for Rich to be pardoned
. Epstein, his killers, and other rich people know that as a last resort they can flee the country and wait for someone like Clinton
to come to office and pardon them.
Acosta said that Washington Bush Administration people told him to go easy on Epstein because he was an intelligence source. That
is plausible. Epstein had info and blackmailing ability with people like Ehud Barak, leader of Israel's Labor Party. But "intelligence"
is also the kind of excuse people make up so they don't have to say "political pressure."
Why did nobody pay attention to the two 2016 books on Epstein?
James Patterson and John Connolly published Filthy Rich: A Powerful Billionaire, the Sex Scandal that Undid Him ,
and All the Justice that Money Can Buy: The Shocking True Story of Jeffrey Epstein . Conchita Sarnoff published TrafficKing:
The Jeffrey Epstein Case. I never heard of these before 2019. Did the media bury them?
Which newspapers reported Epstein's death as "suicide" and which as "apparent suicide"?
More generally, which media outlets seem to be trying to brush Epstein's death under the rug? There seems to have been an
orchestrated attempt to divert attention to the issue of suicides in prison. Subtle differences in phrasing might help reveal who's
been paid off. National Review had an article,
"The Conspiracy
Theories about Jeffrey Epstein's Death Don't Make Much Sense." The article contains no evidence or argument to support the headline's
assertion, just bluster about "madness" and "conspiracy theories". Who else publishes stuff like this?
How much did Epstein corrupt the media from 2008 to 2019?
Even outlets that generally publish good articles must be suspected of corruption. Epstein made an effort to get good publicity.
The New York Times
wrote,
"The effort led to the publication of articles describing him as a selfless and forward-thinking philanthropist with an interest
in science on websites like Forbes, National Review and HuffPost .
All three articles have been removed from their sites in recent days, after inquiries from TheNew York Times .
The National Review piece, from the same year, called him "a smart businessman" with a "passion for cutting-edge science."
Ms. Galbraith was also a publicist for Mr. Epstein, according to several news releases promoting Mr. Epstein's foundations In
the article that appeared on the National Review site, she described him as having "given thoughtfully to countless organizations
that help educate underprivileged children."
"We took down the piece, and regret publishing it," Rich Lowry, the editor of National Review since 1997, said in an email.
He added that the publication had "had a process in place for a while now to weed out such commercially self-interested pieces from
lobbyists and PR flacks.""
Eric Rasmusen is an economist who has held an endowed chair at Indiana University's Kelley School of Business and visiting
positions at Harvard Law School, Yale Law School, the Harvard Economics Department, Chicago's Booth School of Business, Nuffield
College/Oxford, and the University of Tokyo Economics Department. He is best known for his book Games and Information. He has published
extensively in law and economics, including recent articles on the burakumin outcastes in Japan, the use of game theory in jurisprudence,
and quasi-concave functions. The views expressed here are his personal views and are not intended to represent the views of the Kelley
School of Business or Indiana University. His vitae is at http://www.rasmusen.org/vita.htm
.
Not one question involving Maurene Comey, then? She was one of the SDNY prosecutors assigned to this case, and her name has
been significantly played down (if at all visible) in the reportage before or after Epstein's death. That she just "happened"
to be on this case at all is quite an eyebrow raiser especially with her father under the ongoing "Spygate" investigation
Apparently, there will always be many players on the field, and many ways to do damage control.
So the problem was finding a motivated prosecutor in case of Jewish predator with very likely links to intelligence services
of several countries. The motivation was obviously lacking.
Your "expertise" in game theory would be greatly improved if you let yourself consider the Jewish factor.
As important as it is to go on asking questions about the life and death of Jeffrey Epstein, I have to admit that personally
I'm just not interested. I've always found people of his social class to be vaguely repulsive even without the sordid sex allegations.
Just their demanding personalities, just the thought of them hanging around in their terrycloth jogging suits, sneering at the
world with their irrefrangible arrogance, is enough to make me shudder. I want nothing of their nightmare world; and when they
die, I couldn't care less.
More generally, which media outlets seem to be trying to brush Epstein's death under the rug?
Not the National Enquirer:
Jeffrey Epstein Murder Cover-up Exposed!
Death Scene Staged to Look Like Suicide
Billionaire's Screams Ignored by Guards!
Fatal Attack Caught on Jail Cameras!
Autopsy is Hiding the Truth!
I don't hold AG Barr in the high regard this piece does. While I'm not suggesting he had anything to do with Epstein's
death I do think he's corrupt. I doubt he will do anything that leads to the truth. As for him relieving the warden of
his duties, I would hope that was to be expected, wasn't it? I mean he only had two attempts on Epstein's life with the second
being a success. Apparently the first didn't jolt the warden into some kind of action as it appears he was guilty of a number
of sins including 'Sloth.'
As for the publications that don't like conspiracy theories –like the National Review
-- they are a hoot. We are supposed to have faith in this rubbish? The cameras malfunctioned. He didn't have a cellmate. The
guards were tired and forced to work overtime. There was no camera specifically in the cell with Epstein.
In the end I think Epstein probably was allowed to kill himself but I'm not confident in that scenario at all. And yes the media
should pressure Barr to hav e a look in the cell and see exactly how a suicide attempt might have succeeded or if it was a long-shot
at best, given the materiel and conditions.
19. Why is the non-prosecution agreement ambiguous ("globally" binding), when it was written by the best lawyers in the country
for a very wealthy client? Was the ambiguity bargained-for? If so, what are the implications?
20. With "globally" still being unresolved (to the bail judge's first-paragraph astonishment), why commit suicide now?
21. The "it was malfeasance" components are specified. For mere malfeasance to have been the cause, all of the components would
have to be true; it would be a multiplicative function of the several components. Is no one sufficiently quantitative to estimate
the magnitude?
22. What is the best single takeaway phrase that emerges from all of this? My nomination is: "In your face." The brazen, shameless,
unprecedented, turning-point, in-your-faceness of it.
ER the answer is easy to you list of questions .. there is no law in the world when violations are not prosecuted and fair open
for all to see trials are not held and judges do not deliver the appropriate penalties upon convictions. .. in cases involving
the CIA prosecution it is unheard of that a open for all to see trial takes place.
This is why we the governed masses need a parallel government..
such an oversight government would allow to pick out the negligent or wilful misconduct of persons in functional government
and prosecute such persons in the independent people's court.. Without a second government to oversee the first government there
is no democracy; democracy cannot stand and the governed masses will never see the light of a fair day .. unless the masses have
oversight authority on what is to be made into law, and are given without prejudice to their standing in America the right to
charge those associated to government with negligent or wilful misconduct.
There are big questions this article is not asking either
The words 'Mossad' seems not to appear above, and just a brief mention of 'Israel' with Ehud Barak
One tiny mention of Jewish magnate Les Wexner but no mention how he & the Bronfmans founded the 'Mega Group' of ultra-Zionist
billionaires regularly meeting as to how they could prop up the Jewish state by any & all means, Wexner being the source of many
Epstein millions, the original buyer of the NYC mansion he transferred to Epstein etc the excellent Epstein series by Whitney
Webb on Mint Press covering all this https://www.mintpressnews.com/author/whitney-webb/
Was escape to freedom & Israe,l the ultimate payoff for Epstein's decades of work for Mossad, grooming and abusing young teens,
filmed in flagrante delicto with prominent people for political blackmail?
Is it not likely this was a Mossad jailbreak covered by fake 'suicide', with Epstein alive now, with US gov now also in possession
of the assumed Epstein sexual blackmail video tapes?
We have the Epstein 'death in jail' under the US Attorney General Bill Barr, a former CIA officer 1973-77, the CIA supporting
him thru night law school, Bill Barr's later law firm Kirkland Ellis representing Epstein
Whose Jewish-born ex-OSS father Donald Barr had written a 'fantasy novel' on sex slavery with scenes of rape of underage
teens, 'Space Relations', written whilst Don Barr was headmaster of the Dalton school, which gave Epstein his first job, teaching
teens
So would a crypto-Jewish 'former' CIA officer who is now USA Attorney General, possibly help a Mossad political blackmailer
escape to Israel after a fake 'jail suicide'?
An intriguing 4chan post a few hours after Epstein's 'body was discovered', says Epstein was put in a wheelchair and driven
out of the jail in a van, accompanied by a man in a green military uniform – timestamp is USA Pacific on the screencap apparently,
so about 10:44 NYC time Sat.10 Aug
FWIW, drone video of Epstein's Little St James island from Friday 30 August, shows a man who could be Epstein himself, on the
left by one vehicle, talking to a black man sitting on a quad all-terrain unit
Close up of Epstein-like man between vehicles, from video note 'pale finger' match-up to archive photo Epstein
The thing that sticks out for me is that Epstein was caught, charged, and went to jail previously, but he didn't die .
The second time, it appears he was murdered. I strongly suspect that the person who murdered Epstein was someone who only met
Epstein after 2008, or was someone Epstein only procured for after 2008. Otherwise, this person would have killed Epstein
back when Epstein was charged by the cops the first time.
Either that, or the killer is someone who is an opponent of Trump, and this person was genuinely terrified that Trump would
pressure the Feds to avoid any deals and to squeeze all the important names out of Epstein and prosecute them, too.
The author professes himself "expert in the field of "game theory", strategic thinking," but he doesn't say how his 18 questions
were arrived at to the exclusion of hundreds of others. Instead, the column includes several casual assumptions and speculation.
For example:
"Probably the only thing that Epstein changed in his will was the listing of assets, and he probably changed that because
he'd just updated his list of assets for the bail hearing anyway, so it was a convenient time to update the will."
"President Trump didn't have anything personally to fear from Epstein."
"I do trust Attorney-General Barr, however, from what I've heard of him and because he instantly and publicly said he would
have not just the FBI but the Justice Dept. Inspector-General investigate Epstein's death, and he quickly fired the federal
prison head honcho. The FBI is untrustworthy, but Inspector-Generals are often honorable."
As to this last, isn't "quickly [firing] the federal prison head honcho" consistent with a failure-to-prevent-suicide deflection
strategy? And has Mr. Rasmusen not "heard" of the hiring of Mr. Epstein by Mr. Barr's father? Or of the father's own Establishment
background?
I hope to be wrong, but my own hunch is that these investigations, like the parallel investigations of the RussiaGate hoax,
will leave the elite unscathed. I also hope that in the meantime we see more rigorous columns here than this one.
...Also, subsequently, it should have been a top priority to arrest Ghislaine Maxwell but the government, justice and media
lack interest . Apparently, they don't know where she is, and they're not making any special efforts to find out.
"... etanyahu bet the farm on Trump and Trump failed to deliver. They were countered at every turn by patient and scrupulous opponents who read the board better and didn't respond muscularly to repeated provocations. They let events come to them and waited for the moment of over-commitment. ..."
"... "Iraqi Intelligence: 'The Israeli drones that have been attacking our nation in the past few weeks are operating out of a base in YPG/SDF held areas in Syria and these operations are co-financed by Saudi Arabia. Israeli military personnel are on the ground in Northern Syria.'" ..."
Magnier on Nuttyahoo's escalating provocations encapsulates the most recent series of
events, although he doesn't attempt to link the actions to the upcoming elections. Hezbollah
threatened direct retaliation against Occupied Palestine; Iraq chose to blame the Outlaw US
Empire; Syria remained silent; the G-7 said nothing. The recent proposal by Iran to refurbish
one pipeline and build another to Syria's coastline would certainly become a Zionist target.
So, for the project to have the proper security, Occupied Palestine needs to be liberated.
Nasrallah isn't known as a bluffer, while Nuttyahoo's prone to be too aggressive. Do the
Zionists see the current situation as possibly the final time they have some sort of an
advantage as Magnier seems to imply and attack since they know the Outlaw US Empire won't?
But, in spite of the whole US paleo-conservative spectre, along with "alt-right", always
telling us it is Israel who forces the US to wage war in the ME...now, Israeli politics and
experts, say the last attacks on Irak, Syria and Lebanon have been made only as electoral
maneuver by Netanyahu and not only, but have stated that it is the US who wants Israel doing
their dirty job in the ME...This, reported by Al Manar ....not a Jewish source....
In his speech on August 25, the secretary general of Hezbollah made a double promise: the
Resistance will now attack the drones of Israel and attack the Israeli troops not in Shebaa
but in Lebanon itself. For those Israeli generals who experienced the 2006 war and the ups
and downs of Syria, these are not just warnings. These soldiers even seem to have been
sensitive to Nasraláh's warning that Netanyahu's attacks are intended to win votes
for the next election and avoid imprisonment. "The current threat to Israel, which is even
more serious than terrorism, missiles and Iran, is the collapse of the interior of Israel,"
warned former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak.
"By the way, Netanyahu's air operations against Syria, Lebanon and Iraq pursue internal
political goals, which is very unfortunate", said Moshe Yaalon, a leader of the Blue and
White opposition coalition and former Israeli Minister of Military Affairs, according to
the agency Palestinian Maa.
"The threat of the collapse of the interior of Israel is even more serious than the
missiles and Iran. The destruction of democracy and corruption within government apparatus
will lead us to collapse", said Ehud Barak in a video posted on his Twitter page.
"The attack on Syria was not a preventive action and will harm Israel," Barak told
Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot, having apparently understood the warning issued by
Nasralá.
Other Israeli experts share this opinion. Yaari Ehud, an Israeli journalist and expert
in the Middle East said on Channel 12 of Israeli television that Netanyahu and his security
cabinet "perpetrated these attacks on behalf of the US" and run the risk of "exposing
Israel." "In fact, the missions that Americans refuse to do, they entrust them to Israel.
We have been commissioned to do the dirty work at the risk of jeopardizing our security,
"he added before saying", Tel Aviv will pay for it."
Who is lying? The Israelis or the Americans? Or both?
Mangier writes a follow-up to his post that I criticized @29. I think that his latest post
also falls well short of his vaunted reputation.
Magnier's interpretation of events lauds Netanyahu's chess playing. He compares
inconsequential attacks with past strategic actions (almost gleefully as he describes
those past glories at some length) .
He makes broad, unsupported statements like:
It should be recognized that Israel's assessment of the reaction of Iran's allies in
Syria and Iraq is spot on.
And repeats that Israel is hitting "hundreds" of sites FOUR TIMES. Making it
seem as though the Israeli campaign is much greater than it really is. AFAICT those attacks
have actually been spread out over more than a year.
Yet it's all preliminary to this gem:
Netanyahu forced Hezbollah's leader to threaten Israel ...
Forced?Really? AFAICT the red lines in Lebanon have been clear
for a long time. Each side will defend theirs.
Which leaves me scratching my head as to why Magnier isn't using his platform to point out
Netanyahu's irresponsible, self-serving actions. Netanyahu will NOT pay a price for his
craven machinations - which could mean Israeli dead and injured and/or another war in Lebanon
- when even "critics" like Magnier dress them up as heroic acts of patriotism.
Netanyahu's widening of Israel's war with Iran and its proxies into Lebanon and Iraq -- and
perhaps beyond -- and his acknowledgement of that wider war raise questions for both
nations.
Israel today has on and near her borders hostile populations in Gaza, Syria, Lebanon,
Iran, and Iraq. Tens of millions of Muslims see her as an enemy to be expelled from the
region.
While there is a cold peace with Egypt and Jordan, the Saudis and Gulf Arabs are
temporary allies as long as the foe is Iran.
Is this pervasive enmity sustainable?
As for America, have we ceded to Netanyahu something no nation should ever cede to
another, even an ally: the right to take our country into a war of their choosing but not
of ours?
On a not completely different subject-that of the Empire's demise- there is a Tom Luongo
article at Strategic Culture, which is pretty good. https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/08/27/first-many-cauldrons-form-middle-east/
It ends
"So, the cauldron around Israel is forming. With the Saudis in deep trouble, Egypt refusing
to go along with any of Trump's plans – Arab NATO, the Kushner Deal of the Century
– the game board has fundamentally shifted against them.
"N etanyahu bet the farm on Trump and Trump failed to deliver. They were countered at
every turn by patient and scrupulous opponents who read the board better and didn't respond
muscularly to repeated provocations. They let events come to them and waited for the moment
of over-commitment.
"Now the counter attack will commence, I suspect, with brutal precision"
I don't quite agree with his assessment and conclusions. He is grossly underestimating the
axis of resistance and their will to push back. Also, Israelis are overestimating the
American support, no matter what. Not if it is going to cost them American lives. Hitting a
few ammo depots in isolation is one thing, but getting Americans to die for Israeli
intransigence is another. Not much stomach for that here in US, no matter how much they push
the special relationship.
Israelis are playing backgammon while Iran and axis playing chess, being a grandmaster at
that. Check mate will be ugly.
@177 Israel shouldn't take American support for granted. According to this article some
Evangelicals are starting to have second thought...
"Why do we have pro-abortion, pro-LGBTQ values, and we do not have more freedom to protect
our faith? We are persecuted now," Yanko says about evangelical Christians like herself.
"[Jews] say, 'We've got America. We control America.' That's what I know."
"Iraqi Intelligence: 'The Israeli drones that have been attacking our nation in the
past few weeks are operating out of a base in YPG/SDF held areas in Syria and these
operations are co-financed by Saudi Arabia. Israeli military personnel are on the ground in
Northern Syria.'"
Is it a feint to get SAA to cease Idlib Dawn and drive the Zionists out, or are Zionist
drones really being flown from there? Regardless, it's time to end the Kurd's games, drive
out the Outlaw US Empire and all other illegal forces and reclaim Syrian sovereignty. Iraq
must do the same.
Over the past several days, Israel has attempted to prevent attacks by Iranian forces
and their allies by striking targets in Syria, Gaza, Lebanon and Iraq.
Really? AFAIK, Israel hasn't described specific attacks that were thwarted.
Snyder then uses Iraqi and Hezbollah's anger at Israel's acts of war (cause, um ...
that's what they are) as examples of pre-crime hatred that justifies
Netanyahu's Israel's attacks.
Netanyahu's self-serving deviousness has blown up his face. Hasbara media assets are busy
trying to recover the high ground. IMO their attempt to do so will fail miserably as it's
transparent and thus digs the hole deeper. Leading to the question: Will Netanyahu accept
defeat at the polls or will he continue with the dirty tricks (at the risk of war)?
<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
The above should be read in conjunction with my criticism of Magnier @29 and @148.
"... The trojan horse for the return of neoliberalism in Venezuela, Juan Guaidó, stated that he's going to borrow money from the IMF to fund his government, which would make all Venezuelans indebted to this predatory institution. Guaidó spends the money, the poor and working people work to pay taxes that pay off the principal and the interest. ..."
"... The IMF was created in New Hampshire in 1945 to internationalize and standardize capitalism and its rules in an increasingly globalized and U.S.-dominated world. ..."
"... Its primary function is acting as an international lender-of-last-resort to indebted countries. IMF member states decide which countries will receive loans, but the member states with the largest say are the ones that own the largest share of the IMF's funds, which have always been the United States and its allies. ..."
"... This is why the IMF's standard "structural adjustment program" is based on the so-called Washington Consensus, a set of 10 economic policies entirely concocted by U.S. think tanks, the IMF, the World Bank and the Treasury Department. The Washington Consensus is as follows: ..."
Think about who gets rich off of the Venezuela regime-change agenda. It's the same people
that said we had to invade Iraq in order to prevent nuclear apocalypse. It's the same people
who said the world would stop turning on its axis if we didn't carpet bomb Libya and
Syria.
Transcript -- This video was produced as part of a MintPress News and Grayzone collaboration -- Of all the reasons to
plot an elaborate and risky coup, there's one reason that always stands out: profit. Money
makes the world go around and in far more ways than we might think. Here are the top five
special interest groups and institutions that seek to benefit from the U.S. backed coup in
Venezuela.
Number 1: The International Monetary Fund (IMF), which wants to saddle the
Venezuelan people with enormous debt to the IMF
The trojan horse for the return of neoliberalism in Venezuela, Juan Guaidó, stated
that he's going to borrow money from the IMF to fund his government, which would make all
Venezuelans indebted to this predatory institution. Guaidó spends the money, the poor
and working people work to pay taxes that pay off the principal and the interest.
The IMF was created in New Hampshire in 1945 to internationalize and standardize capitalism
and its rules in an increasingly globalized and U.S.-dominated world.
Its primary function is acting as an international lender-of-last-resort to indebted
countries. IMF member states decide which countries will receive loans, but the member states
with the largest say are the ones that own the largest share of the IMF's funds, which have
always been the United States and its allies.
This is why the IMF's standard "structural adjustment program" is based on the so-called
Washington Consensus, a set of 10 economic policies entirely concocted by U.S. think tanks, the
IMF, the World Bank and the Treasury Department. The Washington Consensus is as follows:
In exchange for a loan, often with a high-interest rate that many would call predatory, the
IMF overhauls the protective and redistributive policies of a country for neoliberal policies,
making the target country ripe for finance capital investment and profit-making.
Number
2: The Oil Industry, out to control the oil reserves
There's little doubt that the oil industry is pushing the U.S. to overthrow the Maduro
government, especially when National Security Advisor John Bolton openly states this on
national television.
Bolton was himself once part of the oil industry, serving as the director of Diamond
Offshore Drilling, Inc. in 2007. He's no stranger to advocating for the interests of the
fossil-fuel industry.
Venezuela has the world's largest oil reserves by far and Washington won't let that wealth
go unexploited, or worse, be shared among its enemies like the Maduro government, Russia,
China, or Iran.
And with so many politicians, Republican and Democratic, bought off by industry players --
companies like ExxonMobil, Koch Industries, and Chevron -- it's impossible to imagine anyone in
Washington successfully advocating for Venezuela maintaining ownership over its own sovereign
natural resources.
Number 3: The Military-Industrial Complex, working to military
dominance and arm another U.S. puppet
One of the most bizarre things about America is that we've created one of the world's
largest private industries around arms dealing. And like any industry, whether it be JDAM bombs
or beef, private businesses often resort to lobbying Congress to squeeze political favors out
of the government in the form of subsidies -- or in the case of the military industrial
complex, a foreign policy of endless war, one based on elusive ideas like combating terrorism
or defending democracy.
You can see that wherever the U.S. goes, expensive construction projects follow. Behind
every multi-billion dollar base construction, some private contractor is there reaping the
profits.
Once our military presence is firmly established, the weapons sales begin. And we all know
no U.S. ally or puppet state is complete without a full fleet of Lockheed Martin F-16s -- then
they'll be able to fend off all of those pesky leftist rebels with freedom missiles.
With Venezuela's neighbors, Colombia and Brazil, growing closer to NATO and accepting U.S.
military presence in their countries, we can only assume Venezuela is Washington's next
target.
As the strategic approach of regime change evolves, new industries arise to meet these
needs.
After the massive anti-war protests following the invasion of Iraq, outright invasion and
occupation are no longer viable strategies, owing to negative public opinion. So Washington
sought to disguise war propaganda using humanitarian rhetoric.
Number 4: "Humanitarian"
NGOs to create and implement the alibi
Privately owned NGOs dedicated to human rights and promoting "American style" democracy have
played a much larger role in regime-change operations in recent years. They serve as soft-power
institutions that attempt to subtly sway a population against its own government through
propaganda laced with words like freedom, democracy, and human rights.
These NGOs are given the full blessing of the U.S. government and the two often work in
tandem. Don't believe me? Take it from former CIA case officer Phillip Agee.
The US Agency for International Development's (USAID) regime-change arm, the National
Endowment for Democracy (NED), funded opposition groups in Nicaragua, Venezuela (during the
2002 coup), Haiti, Ukraine, and most recently China and North Korea. And whenever U.S. foreign
policy sets its sights on a certain target, private industries usually develop to help meet
that goal as well as make a quick buck along the way.
For example, Thor Halvorssen -- the first cousin of Leopoldo Lopez, the founder of Juan
Guaidó's party, Popular Will -- calls himself a human-rights activist. He founded the
notorious Human Rights Foundation (HRF) and makes a living giving speeches and TV appearances
talking about why the governments of Venezuela or North Korea are not legitimate and need to be
overthrown.
Unsurprisingly, HRF is funded by the conservative Sarah Scaife Foundation, which is itself
funded by think tanks like the top neoconservative think tank, the American Enterprise
Institute, as well as the Heritage Foundation. HRF is also funded by the Donors Capital Fund
and the Diana Davis Spencer Foundation, which are also funded by the American Enterprise
Institute. It's one big web of moving money that all leads back to the same cast of
characters.
The crisis in Venezuela has been a huge gift for people like Halvorssen, who use the U.S.'s
war on Venezuela to promote themselves and their organizations.
Number 5: Think Tanks
selling reports that tell the MIC what it wants to hear
Like NGOs, think tanks also play an important role in giving regime change a sense of
legitimacy -- in their case, intellectual legitimacy. Think tanks rely on donations to operate
and many find willing donors among the capitalist class. These fat cats pay for fancy looking
reports meant to justify their desired goal, the delegitimization of socialist governments and
the legitimization of coup governments that uphold the Washington Consensus.
The Cato Institute has been deeply involved in overthrowing the Venezuelan government. In
2008, Cato awarded Venezuelan opposition leader, Yon Goicoechea, the Milton Friedman Prize for
Advancing Liberty and $500,000 for his role in disrupting a constitutional referendum in
Venezuela. That money was used to finance the political rise of Juan Guaidó, and his
clique known as Generation 2007.
These seemingly independent research groups have intimate networks that they leverage to
amplify the message their donors have given them. Here's an article in the Washington
Post written by a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute saying the U.S.'s failure to
intervene in Venezuela has caused the Maduro government to destabilize the region.
Whether it was the bank bailouts following the 2008 crisis, or the lack of action on climate
disaster, in America it seems the government always puts the interests of the rich ahead of the
poor and working class, and the situation in Venezuela is no exception.
As the U.S. continues to attack the Maduro government, keep these special interests in mind.
Think about who gets rich off of the regime-change agenda. It's the same people that said we
had to invade Iraq in order to prevent nuclear apocalypse. It's the same people who said the
world would stop turning on its axis if we didn't carpet bomb Libya and Syria.
Now they're trying to get us to support war in Venezuela. You won't be any freer or more
prosperous after the Maduro government is toppled. It's just war propaganda.
Top photo | A worker counts Venezuelan bolivar notes at a parking lot in Caracas, Venezuela
May 29, 2018. Marco Bello | Reuters
Kei Pritsker is a journalist and activist located in Washington DC. Kei focuses on
international politics and economics. He previously worked as a producer at RT America.
Jeffrey Epstein used his tangled web of shell companies as a "brazen and powerful organization"
to operate a sex-trafficking ring, according to three new civil lawsuits filed against his $578
million estate.
The new litigation was filed against the estate, its executors and the shell companies
themselves, asking for unspecified damages for medical and psychological expenses, trauma,
humiliation and other injuries suffered as recently as 2017, according to
Bloomberg
.
Among the companies named in all three suits are
one that owned Epstein's Manhattan
mansion until 2011
;
his money-management firm, Financial Trust Co.; and HBRK
Associates Inc., which allegedly helped arrange travel for Epstein's accusers between New York
and Florida
. A Richard Kahn was listed as the registered agent for HBRK in New York
state corporate filings in 2008.
Two of the complaints name as a defendant
the company that once owned Little St.
James
, the smaller of Epstein's private islands in the Caribbean.
Little St.
James was one of the locations from which Epstein ran a "
complex commercial sex trafficking
and abuse ring
,
" according to the lawsuits.
...
The defendants include the executors,
Darren Indyke and Richard Kahn
,
lawyers who were directors for a nonprofit Epstein had in the U.S. Virgin Islands called
Gratitude America. -
Bloomberg
Two of the women, "Katlyn Doe" and "Lisa Doe" claim to have met Epstein when they were
seventeen. The third, "Priscilla Doe" says she was 20. The three say Epstein used a "
vast
enterprise
" of associates working "in concert and at his direction, for the purpose of
harming teenage girls through sexual exploitation, abuse and trafficking. Notably, the new suits
claim that all of this happened
after his deal with federal prosecutors in Florida in
2007.
Katlyn and Priscilla claim they were flown to Florida so that Epstein could continue to sexually
abuse them
while he was on work release from jail
. Katlyn claims he promised to
pay for medical treatment, while he manipulated Lisa and Priscilla by promising to advance their
dance careers - which he did not do, according to the lawsuits.
Epstein's complicit associates include
"chefs, butlers, receptionists, schedulers,
secretaries, flight attendants, pilots, housekeepers, maids, sex recruiters, drivers and other
staff members,
" according to the suits.
Katlyn also alleges that in 2013
Epstein paid her $10,000 to marry an associate
in order for him to become a legal resident of the United States - stiffing her on another $10,000
she says she was promised upon their divorce. She says she agreed to come to Florida after Epstein
promised her a job at his office, and that
HRBK coordinated her travel
. She added
that Epstein forced her to "engage in sexual encounters" with him and another young female at the
headquarters of his Florida Science Foundation.
According to University of Oregon law professor Susan Gary, Epstein's death shouldn't serve as
an impediment to their civil claims.
"
They're still in a good position
," said Gary, adding that the challenge "is
proving as required by law that he injured them and they should get benefits for their injury."
After Epstein served 13 months in a Palm Beach jail,
he settled over two dozen lawsuits
with accusers who say he lured them when they were teenagers to his mansion, where they were
coerced into sex and paid to recruit others
.
Three of those cases, filed by clients of Brad Edwards,
settled for a total of $5.5
million
. Edwards is the lawyer for the women who filed the complaints Tuesday in
federal court in New York.
The plaintiffs aren't named because of the "sensitive sexual
nature" of the cases
, the suits say.
Late Tuesday, Edwards submitted arguments on behalf of VE, another client who last week sued
Epstein's estate and three of the same companies targeted by the latest suits, asking the court
to allow her to proceed anonymously.
"
Epstein's vast wealth and far reaching connections make it clear that retaliation
could be employed against individuals pursuing claims against the estate
" and could
deter witnesses, according to the filing. VE's anonymity will serve society as well, which "
has
an interest in eradicating the predatory practices of powerful men against vulnerable,
susceptible women.
" -
Bloomberg
According to Katlyn Doe, Epstein would often remind her of his "extraordinary power to reward
and punish."
Meanwhile, plaintiff Lisa Doe says she met Epstein in 2002 when she was 17, when he told her he
was "close personal friends with some of the most influential names in dance," and would help her
with her career if she taught a dance-based exercise class at the home of a wealthy New York man.
Instead,
Epstein forced her to engage in sexual encounters and derailed her career
aspirations
.
Lastly, Priscilla Doe says that an Epstein "recruiter" asked her if she wanted to give the
financier a massage in his Manhattan mansion in 2006 when she was 20-years-old.
An associate of his taught her the "exact way" he liked to receive oral sex
and Epstein "forced himself on her and took her virginity," according to the complaint. While
Epstein was receiving massages, the suit says, he took calls from four people, referred to in
the suit as "Important Business Person" 1, 2, 3 and 4.
The plaintiff says she was forced to "engage in commercial sex" on each of more than
20 trips to the Virgin Islands between 2006 and 2012
. -
Bloomberg
According to the lawsuits, "Each of the employees and associates were paid through companies
believed to have been funded by Jeffrey Epstein and, regardless of such funding, were disciples of
Jeffrey Epstein, constantly informing plaintiff and other victims of Jeffrey Epstein's power and
ability to improve or destroy a victim's life depending on her level of cooperation
The last good FBI agent was Ted Gunderson. That's why Van Decamp
gave the documentary that Bush Administration had buried to him.
We almost lost this documentary forever, but some heroic
individuals and fate kept it alive, hoping people would give a
****. It all ties to somebody controlling our politicians with
honeypots. Remember when NWO was a conspiracy theory people
laughed about? Not funny any more.
This is Gunderson after the
FBI. He KNEW. This is all honeypot. The Satanism is for leverage
and not real. People get detoured into that.
"He also investigated a
child
molestation trial
in Manhattan Beach, California. In a 1995
conference in
Dallas
,
Gunderson warned about the supposed proliferation of secret
occultist groups, and He also investigated a
child
molestation trial
in Manhattan Beach, California. In a 1995
conference in
Dallas
,
Gunderson warned about the supposed proliferation of secret
occultist groups, and the danger posed by the
New
World Order
, an alleged
shadow
government
that would be controlling the United States
government.
[8]
He
also claimed that a "slave auction" in which children were sold by
Saudi agents to men had been held in
Las
Vegas
, that four thousand ritual human sacrifices are
performed in
New
York City
every year, and that the 1995
bombing
of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building
in
Oklahoma
City
was carried out by the US government.
[8]
Gunderson
believed that in the United States there is a secret widespread
network of groups who kidnap children and infants, and subject
them to
ritual
abuse
and subsequent human sacrifice.
[9]
[10]
)
,
Conspiracy of Silence
, a documentary listed for viewing
in TV Guide Magazine was to be aired on the Discovery Channel, on
May 3 1994. This documentary exposed a network of religious
leaders and Washington politicians who flew children to Washington
D.C. for sex orgies. Many children suffered the indignity of
wearing nothing but their underwear and a number displayed on a
piece of cardboard hanging from their necks when being auctioned
off to foreigners in Las Vegas, Nevada, and Toronto, Canada.
"At the last minute before airing, unknown congressmen
threatened the TV Cable industry with restrictive legislation if
this documentary was aired. Almost immediately,
the rights to
the documentary were purchased by unknown persons who ordered all
copies destroyed.
A copy of this videotape was furnished anonymously to former
Nebraska state senator and attorney John De Camp who made it
available to retired
FBI Agent Ted L. Gunderson
. While
the video quality is not top grade, this tape is a blockbuster in
what is revealed by its participants involved."
Can you imagine what these heroic men would think of this
exposed Mossad honeypot? Its all exposed now, just needs to be
linked together.
So the Jews have another South America pedophile scandal
to their discredit.
We haven't forgotten the child
prostitution business run by Arie Scher and George
Schteinberg in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, during the 1990s
.
It was exposed in the early summer of 2000 by an infuriated
teenage girl who found a nude photo of herself online, after
Schteinberg had PROMISED her that he'd never show it to
anyone.
Schteinberg was arrested and given a slap on the wrist (they
went easy on him because he was Jewish) while Arie Scher
escaped to Israel, one step ahead of the authorities.
The Israeli government took away Scher's diplomat license
for five years (because he got caught being naughty,
presumably; properly trained Jews don't get caught, of
course).
When the five years were past, Israel proposed to send Scher
to Australia to replace Amir Laty, who'd made himself
unwelcome by committing espionage and by being very rude to
certain Australian women.
Somehow or other, the Australian public found out that the
spy was being replaced by a pedophile as Israel's official
ambassador to their country, and they got up in arms about
it. This persuaded Scher to decline the post, perhaps
keeping the cushy administrative job the Israeli government
gave him during the previous five years
So, looks like there were running another operation like
this in Brazil during the 90s (never heard of that one before)
Case 1:19-cv-07772 Document 1 Filed 8/20/2019 Page 1 of 52
PRISCILLA DOE, Plaintiff,
vs.
DARREN K. INDYKE AND
RICHARD D. KAHN AS JOINT
PERSONAL REPRESENTATIVES OF THE
ESTATE OF JEFFREY E. EPSTEIN,
NINE EAST 71st STREET, CORPORATION,
FINANCIAL TRUST COMPANY, INC.,
NES, LLC, MAPLE,INC., LSJ,LLC,
HBRK ASSOCIATES, INC., JEGE, INC.,
Defendants.
64. In 2006, Jeffrey Epstein told Plaintiff she was going on a
trip with him to his island in the Unites States Virgin Islands.
65. On that trip was Jeffrey Epstein, Jean Luc Bruenel,
Ghislaine Maxwell, Associate 2, Associate 8, and two other victims
in addition to Plaintiff.
66. It was there that Ghislaine Maxwell taught Plaintiff the
"proper way to give a blow job," describing to her the exact way
that Jeffrey Epstein liked to be sexually serviced orally.
Case 1:19-cv-07772 Document 1 Filed 8/20/2019 Page 15 of 52
1) Authorities will NOT pursue, question or
charge any of Epstein's clients or associates (the very people the
entire trafficking operation catered to).
2) Authorities will NOT "follow the money."
3) Authorities will not arrest and prosecute any government
employee who obstructed justice or participated in this scheme.
The elites will have to get rid of people and evidence. The
Clintons know too much and are oftened named. Nail gun sale at
Home Depot. Those 2 geriatric fcuks must go.
They are a huge liability on countless fronts. That will leave
Chelsea to answer for any Clinton foundation questions, and she
has been involved. She can play stupid and elicit sympathy. The
Clintons are a huge problem.
Wexner is related to Mossad and the very beginnings of the
teaming up of Mossad with Dulles' CIA, after WWII, the OSS, the
Irgun and the Stern gruppe, who did the King David Hotel bombing.
The Boss of Wexner is Henry Kissinger the 'republican free
trader in favor of democracy'.
The Bosses of soldiers raping Kissinger in his Vietnam creation
are the Rockefellers.
Kissinger ordered the Phoenix program mass murdering Vietnamese
nationalist by the tens of thousands, which is a mere one feat in
his massive killing career, like Churchill,
Kissinger who ran the Republican president Richard Nixon like
fc*king a goat.
By the way, there are pictures in circulation of Republican
president Ronald Reagan being deeply ejaculated into the manhole,
enjoying that greatly (vehemently denied by his daughter at his
funeral, pffffffff),
the same anecdotes exist of Prince Philip, husband of fake
Queen Elisabeth, who requested to be manly penetrated by crew,
when he was onboard visiting the British fleet.
And it it was no accident that the Monica Lewinsky/ Clinton sex
scandal erupted into public view precisely at the moment
Clinton had scheduled meetings with Netanyahu and Palestinian
leader Yasir Arafat to revive the peace process by pressuring
Netanyahu.
This likely could be tied to Franklin child sex ring scandal and
Mossad will be there too. Watch this free documentary before
Jootube takes it down. Men died for you to know this. The show was
yanked before it could be played mainstream. Extremely disturbing
but VERY important. This was the last time they slipped through
your fingers and this type of thing will be what destroys this
evil.
Yeah and since Sir Pedo's death was termed a suicide, then one
would think his will dealy in US VI was planned, as was his death
and me thinks a good lawyer would negate the will, trust, etc by
simply terming this transfer of assets a fraudulent conveyance and
yank it back where those abused can take a slice.
"For the US its better to wreck Venezuela's economy than to allow it to flourish and expand
its influence.."
Not necessarily. The US is gambling that it will beat Venezuela. But if it doesn't, if
Venezuela simply outlasts the imperialist sanctions, it will emerge much stronger.
In recent years there has been a drift towards compromise with the US in Venezuela. Chavez
was always very generous towards his opponents and this has continued. As a result the old
Creole ruling class has been relatively undisturbed. It has retained its power over the
media, for example and left in a position to sabotage the economy through its control of
supermarkets, banks and commerce. It has retained its landholdings and maintained its
agribusiness.
And now, in cahoots with the imperialists, it has come out against the government and
chavismo. Its racist, neo fascist propensities and its contempt for its own countrymen and
women- the poor and the working class- have been revealed. While the people are fighting to
defend themselves against imperialism, Guido and the Venezuelan right, the capitalist class
have made their positions very obvious. Given any sort of opportunity they will smash the
social security and food security networks that keep the poor from starvation. They will
privatise- Honduras style- and death squads will roam the working class districts torturing
and killing.
In short the people of Venezuela have been shown exactly what to expect if the US wins. And
the allies of the US have been revealed to be the country's worst enemies: traitors and
Quislings.
In the end, if the US does not replace the Maduro government, it will find itself much
worse off. All its Fifth Columnist friends will be in exile or hiding. All their wealth will
have been distributed to the poor or nationalised.
And the US will have one more sworn and permanent enemy, the people of Venezuela.
U.S. Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo, President Trump and National Security Advisor John Bolton at the NATO
Foreign Ministerial in Brussels, Belgium on July 12, 2018. [State Department photo/ Public Domain]
Matt Lee
reports
on the Trump administration obsessive
use of sanctions:
Call it the diplomacy of coercion.
The Trump administration is aggressively pursuing economic sanctions as a primary foreign policy tool to an extent
unseen in decades, or perhaps ever. Many are questioning the results even as officials insist the penalties are
achieving their aims.
It is true that the Trump administration is using economic coercion as its default approach to almost everything, but
there doesn't appear to be any diplomacy involved. There is such a thing as "coercive diplomacy," but there is no
evidence that Trump and his officials understand the first thing about it. An administration that genuinely wanted to
secure lasting diplomatic agreements with other states would apply pressure only as a means to a specific, achievable
goal, but with this administration they are waging purely destructive economic wars that the targeted states cannot end
without capitulating. The "maximum pressure" description implies an unwillingness to relieve pressure short of the other
side's surrender.
It is not just that it is a "combination of more sticks and fewer carrots." The Trump administration's policies are
all punishment and no reward. In the case of Iran, it could hardly be otherwise when the administration chose to
penalize Iran with sanctions for daring to comply with a multilateral nonproliferation agreement. Iran behaved
constructively and acceded to the demands of the P5+1 four years ago, and in return for their cooperation they have been
subjected to a grueling economic war despite fully complying with their commitments. When our government punishes
another state for doing what previous administrations wanted them to do, no amount of punishment could force that state
to trust our government a second time.
The administration approaches each case in the same way: they impose penalties, they make threats, they offer no
incentives, and they make outrageous, far-fetched demands that no government would ever accept. Trump handles the trade
wars in much the same way that he handles the "maximum pressure" campaigns against intransigent governments, and he
fails every time because he can't conceive of a mutually beneficial agreement and therefore refuses to compromise.
Trump's "diplomacy" is no diplomacy at all, but a series of insults, sanctions, tariffs, and threats that achieve
nothing except to cause disruption and pain. Unsurprisingly, a pressure campaign that is aimed at toppling a government
or forcing it to give up everything it has cannot be successful on its own terms as long as the targeted government
chooses to resist, and the stakes for the targeted government will always higher than they are for the administration.
In a contest of wills, the party that is fighting to preserve itself has the advantage.
Someday, when everybody in the world hates America, these economic atrocities will come
back to the USA with violence. You can't do these things to people and not expect
retaliation. When people are hungry from sanctions and can't get medicine for their
children, they will fight back. Wouldn't you? But, it won't affect Wash., just innocent
people, like the innocent people abroad suffering from Wash. policy. Americans will reap
what Wash. sows.
Is Big Necessarily Bad?
Antitrust cannot be used as a cudgel based on size. There are other ways of whacking at corporate excess.
By
Marshall Auerback
•
August 19, 2019
Teddy Roosevelt with trust-busting stick, circa 1904. (Image: Library of Congress/Wikimedia Commons)
When it comes to relations between consenting adults, size may not matter (or so one
hears). But it's a different story in regard to companies and the politically fraught area of antitrust law.
Today, a number of
policymakers
,
economists
,
and
legal scholars
connect a host of
problems -- excessive wealth inequality, wage stagnation, political dysfunction, market distortions -- directly to the
corporate
"curse of bigness
," which they argue is a product of lax antitrust
enforcement. But they may be misdiagnosing the cause of these diseases and, in so doing, offering up the wrong cure.
Instead of moving toward a new antitrust paradigm, we might do better to consider a
more robust utility system of regulation that is "function-centric," rather than size-centric. In other words,
regulation that restricts the range of corporate activities (e.g., structural separation so as to prevent companies like
Amazon and Google from owning both the platform as well as participating as a seller on that platform), or the prices
such companies can charge (as regulators often do for utilities or railways). These considerations would be "size
neutral": they would apply independently of corporate size per se. Regulation, rather than antitrust, also better
addresses other issues like privacy protection (via a national model that could replicate
California's Consumer Privacy Act of 2018
),
labor abuses (it shouldn't matter whether workers are employed by Apple or mom-and-pop sweatshops), and controlling
"fake news" dissemination (by placing social media companies under the purview of the Federal Communications
Commission).
"Break 'em up" has great historical resonance in the United States. Yet one of the
nation's earliest trust-busters, President Theodore Roosevelt,
argued that
"the remedy for [corporate] abuse was not mindlessly breaking up big firms, but preventing specific abuses by means of a
strong national regulation of interstate corporations." Likewise, in the early days of the New Deal, his cousin,
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, initially embraced the antitrust philosophy of
Supreme Court Justice Louis
Brandeis
(who, like many of today's modern trust-busters, prioritized power
and business structure over consumer welfare). Ultimately though, frustrated that the incessant focus on corporate
concentration was hindering World War II efforts to mobilize greater industrial production, FDR
concluded
that
optimal outcomes were more likely to be achieved via "prudent government oversight and using antitrust laws to police
abuses -- not to break up every big company simply because it's big."
Advertisement
After World War II, historian Richard Hofstadter
noted a gradual public acceptance of big
business
. In large part, this was due "to the emergence of countervailing
bigness in government and labor" that ultimately led to the "big three tripartite" model among government, business, and
unions exemplified in the Treaty of Detroit agreement between General Motors and the United Auto Workers (UAW).
From the 1950s through the 1970s, "Tripartism" was exceptionally successful at
promoting economic growth and high wages (the wage growth was explicitly linked to rising productivity in the Treaty of
Detroit). Big unions flourished alongside growing conglomerates that emerged as the new face of corporate consolidation
(a prime example being International Telephone and Telegraph -- ITT). Equally significant, as the economist Thomas Piketty
observed in his sweeping account of rising inequality,
Capital in
the Twenty-first Century
, a new wave of corporate consolidation did not
exacerbate prevailing inequalities. To the contrary, this period coincided
with a diminution of wealth inequality
, as
relative wealth gains for the top tier stabilized for the first time in decades.
That all changed in the 1980s with the rise of Ronald Reagan's market fundamentalist
agenda. His presidency was characterized by a
sustained attack on unions
, cuts in public
services, and the ascendancy of the doctrine of "shareholder capitalism," used to legitimize the establishment of
SEC Rule 10b-18
. That rule engendered an
explosion in share buybacks (until it was introduced, companies buying back their own shares was considered a form of
stock manipulation). Rather than focusing on job-creating investment, corporate cash flow was thus directed toward stock
repurchases to fatten executive compensation.
The legacy of Reagan's market fundamentalism persists today. It is the most cogent
explanation we have for growing wealth inequality, wage stagnation, and reduced emphasis on corporate R&D.
This period also coincided with the rise of the
"Bork Doctrine,"
when, citing
Robert Bork, the Supreme Court asserted that the main focus of antitrust law should be on economic efficiency and
consumer welfare, as opposed to granting the government broad discretion to shape the economy. That shift in priorities
is a major source of the
neo-Brandeisians'
criticism of Bork's antitrust
philosophy. It reflects their Jeffersonian vision of a social-economic order organized along the lines of small-scale
businesses, with atomistic competition between a large number of equally advantaged units, in theory producing greater
innovation and economic dynamism.
But that's a highly idealized vision that doesn't comport with reality. Our modern
economy isn't comprised of village blacksmiths, yeoman farmers, and cobblers. A crucial component of the economy today
is big business, including many large multinational corporations that operate globally. And it is questionable whether
their size automatically equates to market power (in the sense of having the ability to manipulate prices at will and
exclude competitors), especially in the context of a global economy featuring a multiplicity of competing national
champions. Seldom do we hear calls to break up Detroit's "Big Three," despite global revenues in the hundreds of
billions. Why? Because there is a widespread recognition that these companies face significant challenges in a global
market dominated by similarly large competitors.
On virtually every meaningful indicator, including wages, productivity,
environmental protection, exporting, innovation, employment diversity and tax compliance, large firms as a group
significantly outperform small firms.
That insight parallels the scholarship of Joseph Schumpeter, the intellectual
godfather of the economics of innovation, who showed that R&D spending and productivity increase with scale. Latterly,
Schumpeter's insights have been validated by a recent study from Professors Ann Marie Knott and Carl Vieregger, who
conclude (emphasis added):
Not only do large firms (using the U.S. Small Business Association definition of
greater than 500 employees) conduct 5.75 more R&D in aggregate than small firms, they have 13% higher productivity
with that R&D. However this merely captures the private returns to their R&D. A further benefit of large firm R&D is
that
it generates the spillovers upon which small firm innovation free-rides
.
Size-centric antitrust proposals also ignore the increasing prevalence of economic
network theory, which suggests that social networks like Facebook or search engines such as Google lend themselves to
becoming natural monopolies in order to function optimally. Here again, function-centric regulation -- i.e., separation
between the control of content and distribution -- makes more sense to rectify market abuse. And this could be achieved via
utility-style regulation,
as no less a figure than right-wing populist Steve Bannon has suggested
,
rather than creating a bunch of new mini-Facebooks or Googles via court-mandated break-ups (especially if the owners of
the newly broken-up companies retain full control of algorithms to determine what people see in their News Feeds, what
privacy settings they can use, and even what messages get delivered to news consumers,
as Mark Zuckerberg does today
).
It is also the case that many businesses characterized by minimal levels of corporate
concentration -- construction, education, entertainment, accommodation, food, business services, transportation,
warehousing -- generally experience sub-standard productivity levels, sluggish growth, and low real wages, according to an
INET-funded study
by Professors Lance Taylor
and Özlem Ömer. Working conditions are generally worse, and wages and employment benefits lower, as small business
owners are often the first to protest increased regulation or "burdensome" mandates, such as health care provisions. The
real point is not to beat up on small businesses, but simply to note that the abuses commonly ascribed to big business
are just as, if not more, likely to manifest themselves in smaller industries less prone to corporate concentration.
What about the claim that corporate consolidation
contributes to a
corrosion of American democracy
? It is true that as companies get bigger, it
maximizes their abilities to "pay to play," as Professor Thomas Ferguson asserts in his seminal work,
Golden Rule
. Ferguson says that powerful blocs of business elites, large
and
small, with durable (largely
economic) interests, are a constant feature of American politics. All have an incentive to get bigger in order to
maximize political leverage. That includes smaller businesses that scale up via trade associations to maximize the
impact of their "political investment." But again, what is needed here is not an antitrust remedy, but a change in the
"pay to play" rules so as to ensure that money and corporate scale have less of a polluting impact on the American
polity.
So it may be time to reconsider the simplistic notion that "big is bad." Yes, we want
a dynamic economy and a thriving democracy. But mindlessly breaking up big businesses may not be the best path to get us
there.
Marshall Auerback is a market analyst and a research associate at the
Levy
Economics Institute
at Bard College.
This article was supported by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.
I notice that this entire article only once uses the word "monopoly", which AFAIK was the
entire point of America's antitrust laws. Instead the author chooses to focus on corporate
size. Hence the article's title: "Is Big Necessarily Bad?"
That suggests that he is
either missing the point of the antitrust laws or he's choosing to ignore it so as allow
him to bathe large corporations in a rosy glow.
BTW, as an FYI, I notice that this article was supported by Ewing Marion Kauffman
Foundation. As it happens that particular non-profit was founded by Ewing Marion Kauffman
who also founded Marion Laboratories. As it happens, Marion Laboratories was later bought
by Dow Chemicals, one of the top three chemical corporations.
That being the case, one can kinda see why they might support an article arguing that
big corporations aren't "necessarily bad".
The author might be right about attacking vertical domination, but it seems to me that an
important shortcoming of his analysis is failure to define "bigness," except to cite
someone else's definition as any company with more than 500 employees. Such a low bar
prevents the author from seriously grappling with the issue of "bigness." Any discussion
about whether or not "big is bad" must reckon with the extent to which the bigness in
question creates industry consolidation. Potential oligopoly is seen by most analysts and
economists as the major issue with "bigness." Oligopoly means loss of industry
competition, and it is therefore oligopoly that is rightly the target of antitrust law.
Interesting article cover quite a scope of time. Am an American Ex pat working in Canada.
In Canada to avoid total integration with the US aside from controlling the currency
Canada has very successful Oligopolies . I see that with the US airline Industry.
Oligopolies are mandated to work in concert with Government regulations, to retain their
protected status.Biggest example in Canada is the extremely successful 5 big Banks. Our
government doesn't have lawyers with the expertise to challenge the likes of Google,
Facebook, etc.
Antitrust laws aren't enforced because those corps. who are at fault pay generously for
campaigns to ensure they aren't enforced. Besides, the SCOTUS made rulings in the past
allowing monopolies, which is against the Constitution. But, the Constitution gets in the
way of business and profits, doesn't it?
Size isn't the determining factor. It's competition. You need at least 5 companies in a
product category to ensure that a pricing oligarchy won't be formed. I also agree on
breaking up companies horizontally to ensure that they can't create platform monopolies.
Competition is what drives innovation.
There he goes again! with the charge that Reagan was an unabashed union buster, by way of
what could be taken either as the classic push toward GOP monopolism, or nihilistic
competition, take your pick -- we are not clear what the administration stood for by way
of this article.
Just who would defend the behavior of the Teamsters, which earned
itself a forced trusteeship under NY attorney general Guiliani? Or PATCO, whose strike was
illegal under federal law, which warranted the right to fire airline staff? Much criticism
has been leveled against the reorganization of the trucking industry, whereby the
elimination of freight tariffs and also of the mandate to force deadhead backhauling did
lower wages and effectively bust union organizing. But this deregulation was actually
initiated under Carter, and it did have the longterm effect of enlarging national carriers
-- though that had not done Consolidated Freight much good in this century. Similarly, the
creation of CSX under Reagan only followed a huge history of consolidations, mergers, and
rail closures.
What of the villainous Robert Bork? In "The Antitrust Paradox", he raised the issue
that "mush language" attends many legal rationales for government action, such as the
notion that such and such action be "reasonable". We have heard all this again and again
in field after field of American jurisprudence, and there is no reason for conservatives
to disagree.
To this day, the granddaddy of bad antitrust law is the Leow's Theatre case. Had the
chain simply been allowed to keep both its theaters and some of its block booking system,
provided that fair access, booking, and payment be provided to film production
competitors, the monopolism problem would have been solved. But rest assured, chain
theaters could not avoid a massive pruning in the 50's.
I find it ironic that for all our solicitude for trust busting, corrupt unions escape
scrutiny. The fact that they are largely organized along the lines of the former CPUSSR
(that was progress in 1934),have carte blanche in siphoning dark money into political
campaigns in contravention of most campaign laws, and have spent more effort colluding
with employers in back deals to stifle dissenters within truly independent union forces
than actually fighting corrupt corporate boards, says a lot.
Following the death of Jeffrey Epstein, his seedy network of friends and potential
co-conspirators alike have come into the spotlight.
One associate, considered to be Epstein's closest pal, is modeling maven Jean-Luc Brunel - who
has recently been accused of pimping underage women around the world through his Mc2 and Karin
modeling agencies, while former models have accused the 72-year-old of
drugging and
date-raping girls
,
according to the
Daily
Beast
.
How close were Brunel and Epstein?
Brunel was one of the financier's
most frequent male associates
. The agent
appears
more than 15 times on flight logs from Epstein's private plane
, jetting
everywhere from Paris to New York, often in the presence of young women.
He visited
Epstein nearly 70 times in jail
, according to visitor logs, and several more times
while the financier was on house arrest in Palm Beach. According to one of Epstein's housemen,
Brunel was comfortable enough to whip up his own meals in the financier's kitchen
,
and was one of Epstein's most frequent callers. -
Daily
Beast
Brunel's name appeared in a cache of court documents unsealed earlier this month, having called
and left a message to let Epstein know that he "just did a good one - 18 years" who reportedly told
him "I love Jeffrey."
"He has a teacher for you to teach you how to speak Russian," reads another note from September
2005, which adds "
She is 2 X 8 [16] years old not blonde
. Lessons are free and you
can have 1st today if you call."
Epstein also extended a $1 million letter of credit to Brunel which was used to invest in
Paris-based Elite Models. According to the
Beast,
"The venture, E Management, was first
registered by Epstein's attorney, who listed its address as 457 Madison Avenue -- the same as
Epstein's investment firm, J. Epstein & Co."
Brunel says the venture fell apart after Elite Models learned of Epstein's sex-trafficking
allegations - with the agent even suing Epstein in 2015 for tarnishing their reputation and causing
a "tremendous loss of business."
At least two people say Brunel not only knew about the
sex trafficking,
he was actively participating in it
.
Virginia Roberts (now Giuffre) -- one of the first alleged victims to speak out against Epstein
after he was granted a sweetheart plea deal -- claimed in legal filings that
Brunel was
one
of many powerful men
she was forced to sleep with in her years as Epstein's "sex slave."
She also accused Brunel of using his agency to find foreign girls, obtain visas for
them, and "farm them out to his friends, including Epstein
."
"A lot of the girls came from poor countries or poor backgrounds, and he lured them in with a
promise of making good money," Giuffre said in a 2015 affidavit. "
Jeffrey Epstein has
told me that he has slept with over 1,000 of Brunel's girls, and everything that I have seen
confirms this claim.
" -
Daily
Beast
"
My assumption was that Jean-Luc Brunel got the girls from Eastern Europe (as he
procured many young foreign girls for Epstein). They were young and European looking and sounding
,"
said Guiffre while describing an orgy she says she was forced to participate in on Epstein's 'pedo
island.'
In a 1988
60 Minutes
piece, several American models who worked with Brunel
spoke
of being plied with drugs
and taken to parties with older men
.
"My sense, based upon the allegations, is that Jean-Luc was a predator, his group was a
predator, and they used their tools of power and leverage to force sex from women who otherwise
might not be willing to engage in it," one of the reporters from the
60 Minutes
piece told
the
Daily Beast
.
Former model Thysia Huisman was 18-years-old when
she says Brunel sexually assaulted her
after giving her a spiked drink
.
"
I recall him lying on top of me, me trying to push him off,
" she said in an
interview. "I remember trying to move, but not really being able to. Like almost being paralysed. I
heard the sound of my blouse – a black blouse – ripping. I had a black skirt, too. I felt him –
this is difficult – between my legs. Pushing."
Huisman said the rest was a blur. She woke the next morning in a kimono that wasn't hers,
with soreness on her inner thighs. "I felt we had had sex," she said. "I knew. I know."
She gathered her things and fled while Brunel spoke on the telephone in the living room, she
said. Her modelling work never recovered and she embarked on a career in television, always
behind the camera.
...
"I was really ashamed," she said. Huisman said she began telling her current partner about
the incident eight years ago. He confirmed to the Guardian she then told him she was "molested"
by someone at her modelling agency, and added more details – including Brunel's name – over
time, explaining the full story about two years ago. -
The
Guardian
Another former model, Courtney Soerensen, says Brunel molested her when she was 19-years-old,
and "sabotaged" her career when she rejected him.
"He would get very handsy, start groping me, try to kiss me, try to get me to lay down on the
bed just to 'try it out'" said Soerensen. "He would try to untuck my shirt, wanting to 'see my
abs'.
He would grab my breasts and put his hand on my bottom. There was one time where he
rubbed himself up against me.
"
"
The guy was a vile pig"
says former Brunel photographer and scout Clayton
Nelson. "The girls who slept with him worked. The girls who didn't, he would tell bookers: 'I don't
want her booked for anything'."
Former MC2 bookkeeper Martina Vasquez has also accused Brunel of similar behavior, claiming that
Brunel employed scouts who would recruit teenage models from South America, Europe and the former
USSR. "
The most desirable of those teens were housed in Epstein's Upper East Side
apartments
and loaned out to wealthy clients for up to $100,000 a night, Vasquez alleged.
If they refused to be "molested," she said, they would not be paid.
(Brunel has
denied these claims and says Vasquez was fired from his agency for embezzling company funds.)"
according to the report.
Bloomberg
, meanwhile, reports that MC2 Model Management had a
growing list of
concerned corporate clients by 2014
after Brunel's ties to Epstein came to light.
By 2014, Brunel's business partner Jeff Fuller was concerned that the relationship with
Epstein could be damaging. In a letter reviewed by Bloomberg News,
Fuller told Brunel
that he was getting a "tremendous amount of worries from our clients" about the ties to Epstein
,
then went on to list as clients
Nordstrom Inc., Macy's Inc., Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman
Marcus, J.C. Penney Co., Kohl's Corp., Target Corp., Sears and Belk
. -
Bloomberg
Molesting children is an abominable crime, but using that
information to blackmail country leaders effects many more people.
Using blackmail to gain political control will destroy nations and
its citizens. It will destroy civilization. This Epstink plot will
destroy trust of government. Once trust is destroyed, our world is
destroyed.
Wells
Fargo's Computer Kept Charging 'Overdrawn' Fees On Supposedly Closed Accounts
(startribune.com)
43 Posted by EditorDavid on Sunday August 18, 2019 @02:34PM from the
continuing-relationships dept. The New York Times explains a new issue by describing what
happened when Xavier Einaudi tried to close his Wells Fargo checking account. For weeks
after the date the bank said the accounts would be closed, it kept some of them active.
Payments to his insurer, to Google for online advertising and to a provider of project
management software were paid out of the empty accounts in July. Each time, the bank charged
Einaudi a $35 overdraft fee... By the middle of July, he owed the bank nearly $1,500. "I don't
even know what happened," he said.
Current and former bank employees said Einaudi was charged because of the way Wells
Fargo's computer system handles closed accounts: An account the customer believes to be closed
can stay open if it has a balance, even one below zero. And each time a transaction is
processed for an overdrawn account, Wells Fargo tacks on a fee. The problem has gone
unaddressed by the bank despite complaints from customers and employees , including one in
the bank's debt-collection department who grew concerned after taking in an estimated $100,000
in overdraft fees over eight months...
Most banks program their systems to stop honoring transactions on the specified date, but
Wells Fargo allows accounts to remain open for two more months, according to current and former
employees. Customers usually learn what happened only after their overdrawn accounts are sent
to Wells Fargo's collections department. If the customers do not pay the overdraft fees, they
are reported to a national database like Early Warning Services, which compiles names of
delinquent bank customers. That often means a customer cannot open a new bank account anywhere,
and getting removed from the lists can take hours' worth of phone calls.
It's bizarre. I doubt Wells Fargo has a handful of senators in their pocket or something,
as that would require a level of competence they've never demonstrated in any aspect of their
business, so why are they even still allowed to be a bank?
Wells Fargo's primary business, near as I can tell, is widespread fraud. They may also do
some banking on the side, but that seems like an afterthought. The entirety of their senior
management should be in prison.
Wells Fargo is worse than crooked. They're incompetent, too. Their online bill pay is
straight out of the 19th century.
That's why I closed my account with them about eight years ago . . . . or at least I think I
did.
5th/3rd bank did the same thing to me back in 2009. I closed my bank account when merging
accounts with my wife, but when transferring all of my recurring payments I missed two
magazine yearly payments. 5th/3rd essentially reopened my accounts and charged them, which
were obviously then overdrawn since they had $0 balances. Even after complaining they refused
to rescind the fees.
We then closed my wife's account too and moved over to Chase. I always had the feeling
that Chase would do the same thing to us to
Is that they all seem to work out in favor of the bank over the consumer. It's likely
survivorship bias - all the errors that hurt the bank's financial interests get fixed,
whereas the ones which help the bank don't and hang around forever. Imagine that.
At the very least deceptive. In a sane system, the bank has to give a final balance at a
certain day and it is legally prohibited from doing any transactions on that account
afterwards.
When you close an account, you are terminating your contract with the bank. You walk into
the bank, the bank rep looks at the account, sees how much money is in it at that
instant and cuts you a check for that remaining balance. That zeros out the account, and
the contract you made with the bank when you opened the account expires - it is as if
you never had an account with the bank. If the bank then decides to take "money" out of the
now-closed account, it's their own damn fault. They cannot claw back money from the customer
- there is no longer a contract between them. The customer correctly zeroed out the account
and closed it. Any error is the bank's own fault.
I can see it being a problem if you hold multiple accounts with the bank and you close
just one of them. Then the bank might be able to come up with a legal argument when you're
still liable. But that's why I hold accounts with multiple banks, and I generally close all
my accounts with one bank at once.
You're right legally, but the threat is that they will ruin your credit rating by
reporting you as delinquent to the credit agencies. And your recourse for getting that undone
is difficult at best.
This article contains content that some may find distressing.
Jeffrey Epstein "was" apparently a serial molester of children. He had manipulation down to an art form, as many molesters do.
He seemed to be an expert at figuring out a girl's weak point, whether it was poverty, a deceased family member, or feeling alienated
from her peers.
This is a common ploy. Many molesters seek out children or teens who have lost a parent and use this as a way to build a friendship.
Then, because children don't think like adults, they are manipulated, coerced, or threatened into sexual activity.
The story below could be told a hundred thousand times with only tiny changes. The names and the faces would be different. The
settings might not be a mansion in Manhattan or in Palm Beach but rather a quiet part of a church, a school, or some kind of activity
for teens. The setting could be in the house next door to you, where someone with evil intent befriends a vulnerable young person
with the stated goal of helping them, but an end result that couldn't be further from reality.
How 14-year-old Jennifer Araoz met Jeffrey Epstein
Jennifer Araoz was 14 years old when she first met her future rapist, Jeffrey Epstein. She wrote about how she was manipulated,
first by his recruiter, then by Epstein himself. There are many powerful lessons that we as parents can learn from her story.
During my freshman year, one of Epstein's recruiters, a stranger, approached me on the sidewalk outside my high school. Epstein
never operated alone. He had a ring of enablers and surrounded himself with influential people. I was attending a performing arts
school on the Upper East Side, studying musical theater. I wanted to be an actress and a singer. (
source )
Another
report based on court documents says that the recruiter befriended Jennifer, took her out to eat after school a few times, and
learned more about her, such as the fact that Jennifer's father had died from an AIDs-related illness and her family could barely
scrape by financially.
The recruiter told me about a wealthy man she knew named Jeffrey Epstein. Meeting him would be beneficial, and he could introduce
me to the right people for my career, she said. When I confided that I had recently lost my father and that my family was living
on food stamps, she told me he was very caring and wanted to help us financially. (
source )
The recruiter finally got Jennifer to go with her to meet Epstein. Court documents say that they all three met together for the
first month or so.
The visits during the first month felt benign, at least at the time. On my second visit, Epstein also gave me a digital camera
as a gift. The visits were about one to two hours long and we would spend the time talking. After each visit, he or his secretary
would hand me $300 in cash, supposedly to help my family. (
source )
Epstein claimed he was 'a big AIDS activist' which you can imagine would mean a lot to a 14-year-old whose father died of the
disease.
Soon the visits would take a dark turn.
By the second month of Jennifer's visits to the mansion, the recruiter no longer attended the visits., the manipulation began
in earnest.
But within about a month, he started asking me for massages and instructed me to take my top off. He said he would need to
see my body if he was going to help me break into modeling. I felt uncomfortable and intimidated, but I did as he said. The assault
escalated when, during these massages, he would flip over and sexually gratify himself and touch me inappropriately. For a little
over a year, I went to Epstein's home once or twice a week.
After that day, I never went back. I also quit the performing arts school -- the one I had auditioned for and had wanted so
badly to attend. It was too close to his house, the scene of so many crimes. I was too scared I would see him or his recruiter.
So I transferred to another school in Queens close to my home. Since I was no longer able to pursue my dream of performing arts
I eventually lost interest and dropped out. (
source )
Sure, we can say that she knew things weren't right when he asked her to take her top off. By this point, she was 15 years old.
Old enough to know right from wrong. But if she was getting $300 twice a week and helping her family with it, it's pretty easy to
see how she would want to continue helping her family despite her discomfort. Epstein knew exactly what he was doing.
Epstein's wealth, power, and connections would have made going against him seem like an insurmountable feat for a vulnerable 15-year-old
girl who had recently lost her father. Who would have believed her word against that of this presumed philanthropist?
A few days ago, Jennifer, now 32, filed a massive lawsuit against Epstein's estate, Ghislaine Maxwell, and 3 members of Epstein's
household staff. The complaint alleges that Maxwell and the staff "conspired with each other to make possible and otherwise facilitate
the sexual abuse and rape of Plaintiff."
Some of Epstein's victims recruited new girls for him.
Epstein's indictment explains how he manipulated some of the girls he sexually abused to bring other girls to him.
Prosecutors say he lured underage girls, some as young as 14, to his residences, promising them a cash payment in exchange
for giving him a massage. Instead, he would sexually abuse them -- groping them, making them touch him while he masturbated, and
using sex toys on the minors. Then, he would allegedly ask them to recruit other girls. (
source )
A detailed report in the Miami Herald referred to it as a "sexual pyramid scheme." One of Epstein's accusers, Courtney Wild, reiterates
the theme of the story told by Jennifer Boaz.
"Jeffrey preyed on girls who were in a bad way, girls who were basically homeless. He went after girls who he thought no one
would listen to and he was right,'' said Courtney Wild, who was 14 when she met Epstein. (
source )
Courtney's time spent with Epstein nearly destroyed her.
Before she met Epstein, Courtney Wild was captain of the cheerleading squad, first trumpet in the band and an A-student at
Lake Worth Middle School.
After she met Epstein, she was a stripper, a drug addict and an inmate at Gadsden Correctional Institution in Florida's Panhandle.
Wild still had braces on her teeth when she was introduced to him in 2002 at the age of 14.
She was fair, petite and slender, blonde and blue-eyed. (
source )
She began to recruit other girls for him in Palm Beach.
Wild said Epstein preferred girls who were white, appeared prepubescent and those who were easy to manipulate into going further
each time
"By the time I was 16, I had probably brought him 70 to 80 girls who were all 14 and 15 years old. He was involved in my life
for years," said Wild, who was released from prison in October after serving three years on drug charges.
The girls -- mostly 13 to 16 -- were lured to his pink waterfront mansion by Wild and other girls, who went to malls, house
parties and other places where girls congregated, and told recruits that they could earn $200 to $300 to give a man -- Epstein
-- a massage, according to an unredacted copy of the Palm Beach police investigation obtained by the Herald. (
source )
Epstein had it down to an art form.
Palm Beach police detective Joseph Recarey explains how Epstein insinuated himself into the girls' lives.
"The common interview with a girl went like this: 'I was brought there by so and so. I didn't feel comfortable with what happened,
but I got paid well, so I was told if I didn't feel comfortable, I could bring someone else and still get paid,' '' Recarey said.
During the massage sessions, Recarey said Epstein would molest the girls, paying them premiums for engaging in oral sex and
intercourse, and offering them a further bounty to find him more girls
Epstein could be a generous benefactor, Recarey said, buying his favored girls gifts. He might rent a car for a young girl
to make it more convenient for her to stop by and cater to him. Once, he sent a bucket of roses to the local high school after
one of his girls starred in a stage production. The floral-delivery instructions and a report card for one of the girls were discovered
in a search of his mansion and trash. Police also obtained receipts for the rental cars and gifts, Recarey said.
Epstein counseled the girls about their schooling, and told them he would help them get into college, modeling school, fashion
design or acting. At least two of Epstein's victims told police that they were in love with him, according to the police report.
( source )
You may look at these stories and scorn the victims. After all, they kept going back, didn't they? They liked the money, didn't
they?
But they were children. Many of them were isolated, vulnerable, and without support systems. Many of them felt ashamed but didn't
know how to extricate themselves. They were confused and scared, and Epstein was a pro at taking advantage of these emotions and
doubts.
The girls are not to blame here. The adults are.
Epstein is not the only predator out there.
While this article focuses on how Epstein was able to lure so many victims,
as Dagny Taggert recently wrote , there are
many more people in power out there preying on children. Clergy, priests, teachers, neighbors, musicians, and random people on the
internet are out there preying on and trafficking children.
Dagny wrote:
According to
The National
Center for Victims of Crime , the prevalence of child sexual abuse (CSA) is difficult to determine because it is often not
reported. Experts agree that the incidence is far greater than what is reported to authorities.
Statistics below represent some of the research done on child sexual abuse.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Children's Bureau report Child Maltreatment 2010 found that
9.2% of victimized children were sexually
assaulted (page 24).
1 in 5 girls and 1 in 20 boys is a victim of child sexual abuse;
Self-report studies show that 20% of adult females and 5-10% of adult males recall a childhood sexual assault or sexual
abuse incident;
During a one-year period in the U.S., 16% of youth ages 14 to 17 had been sexually victimized;
Over the course of their lifetime, 28% of U.S. youth ages 14 to 17 had been sexually victimized;
Children are most vulnerable to CSA between the ages of 7 and 13.
According to Darkness to Light , a non-profit committed to empowering adults
to prevent child sexual abuse, only about one-third of child sexual abuse incidents are identified, and even
fewer are reported .
When my children's father passed away, it wasn't too long afterward that I left my corporate job. I volunteered when the company
began layoffs and took a small payment and my retirement fund to start a new life writing freelance. It wasn't long after that when
I started this website.
I wanted to be home when they got back from school every day. I didn't want them to seem like prey to those looking for children
with weak support systems. My own daughters could so easily have had a story like the one Jennifer has told.
I know that what I did is not possible for every family that suffers a loss. I was pretty fortunate to be able to find work from
home that paid enough to allow me to be there.
What you, as a parent, must understand are the things that make your child seem vulnerable.
Loneliness
Social isolation and few, if any, friends
Lack of a support system from parents and caregivers
Spending too much time on their own
Alienation from parents
Some signs that your child could be getting abused or groomed.
Sudden secretiveness regarding their phone or computer (a lot of grooming happens online
Spending a great deal of time alone with another adult
Signs of increased anger or fear
Lack of participation in things that used to bring them happiness
Withdrawal from family and friends
Obviously, these lists are not comprehensive, nor are they sure signs of abuse. What teenager doesn't seem angry and withdrawn
from time to time? But it's vital, no matter how hard they push you away, to stay involved, particularly after a traumatic event.
Teach your kids that some secrets should not be kept.
Predators manipulate children in all sorts of ways. One of the biggest ways is warning them to keep their "relationship" a secret
or else.
Or else what?
They'll hurt Mom or Dad
They'll hurt the child's pet
They'll hurt the child's siblings
They'll cause extreme financial problems for the family
Predators often put a burden on a child where they feel as though they must stay silent to protect the people they love.
Kids need to know that if anyone threatens them if they tell a secret, then they absolutely must tell that secret. Mom and Dad
will be safe and will protect them. People who ask children to keep their presence in their lives a secret are never to be trusted.
And finally, make sure your children know that whatever they tell you, you will believe them and you know it's not their fault.
Craig Murray's sober, reflective note on Epstein begins and ends with corruption as its
main theme. I hope people find the time to read it. He doesn't delve deeply, but at base it
what is known as seigniory rights--the right of the lord to take and rape whomever he wants
with impunity, which is one of the most brutal forms of corruption imaginable. Epstein's
business was to facilitate that form of corruption. Yes, it's illegal and immoral, but the
primary fact is that its corrupt--it has no sanction whatsoever. And it's exactly that sort
of primal corruption that is visited upon the vast majority daily. Passing legislation that
will knowingly result in the poisoning of millions--stunting the brains of the young--which
was just done and signed into law by Trump is what I'm writing about. It's a different form
of rape, but it's rape nonetheless. But it seems that only bothers me, and Craig Murray.
So "it's all the fault of the Jews and the Israelis, no one else is ever involved in sex
trafficking of young "white" girls", sarcasm from me.
Why don't you drop your BS auto-anti-Semitism and look at everyone else documented to have
been involved.
/div>
For those who claim public view of Epsteins corpse,very understandably and necessary ,I
would say,that even then there's possibility of being misled.The film industry manages to
produce props that look very real,human face included.I stood once before a prop representing
the corpse of a shot down horse,even at fifty cm from it I thought it was real.There was no
smell of course,but even that can be staged.The people allowed to view Epsteins cadaver really
would need to put a knife in it,to assure its being real,and then try to pull off the mask that
could be his face.
For those who claim public view of Epsteins corpse,very understandably and necessary ,I
would say,that even then there's possibility of being misled.The film industry manages to
produce props that look very real,human face included.I stood once before a prop representing
the corpse of a shot down horse,even at fifty cm from it I thought it was real.There was no
smell of course,but even that can be staged.The people allowed to view Epsteins cadaver
really would need to put a knife in it,to assure its being real,and then try to pull off the
mask that could be his face.
willie , Aug 12 2019 11:11 utc |
84Taffyboy , Aug 12 2019 11:25 utc |
85
Interesting list, sorry about the length of copy and paste, from Zerohedge then.
In 2016 CBS Las Vegas posted a list of Bill and Hillary Clinton associates alleged to have
died under mysterious circumstances.
Here is that list.
1- James McDougal – Clintons convicted Whitewater partner died of an apparent heart
attack, while in solitary confinement. He was a key witness in Ken Starr's investigation.
2 – Mary Mahoney – A former White House intern was murdered July 1997 at a
Starbucks Coffee Shop in Georgetown .. The murder happened just after she was to go public
w:th her story of sexual harassment in the White House.
3 – Vince Foster – Former White House counselor, and colleague of Hillary
Clinton at Little Rock's Rose Law firm. Died of a gunshot wound to the head, ruled a
suicide.
4 – Ron Brown – Secretary of Commerce and former DNC Chairman. Reported to
have died by impact in a plane crash. A pathologist close to the investigation reported that
there was a hole in the top of Brown's skull resembling a gunshot wound. At the time of his
death Brown was being investigated, and spoke publicly of his willingness to cut a deal with
prosecutors. The rest of the people on the plane also died. A few days later the Air Traffic
controller commited suicide.
5 – C. Victor Raiser, II – Raiser, a major player in the Clinton fund raising
organization died in a private plane crash in July 1992.
6 – Paul Tulley – Democratic National Committee Political Director found dead
in a hotel room in Little Rock , September 1992. Described by Clinton as a "dear friend and
trusted advisor".
7 – Ed Willey – Clinton fundraiser, found dead November 1993 deep in the woods
in VA of a gunshot wound to the head. Ruled a suicide. Ed Willey died on the same day his
wife Kathleen Willey claimed Bill Clinton groped her in the oval office in the White House.
Ed Willey was involved in several Clinton fund raising events.
8 – Jerry Parks – Head of Clinton's gubernatorial security team in Little Rock
.. Gunned down in his car at a deserted intersection outside Little Rock Park's son said his
father was building a dossier on Clinton He allegedly threatened to reveal this information.
After he died the files were mysteriously removed from his house.
9 – James Bunch – Died from a gunshot suicide. It was reported that he had a
"Black Book" of people which contained names of influential people who visited prostitutes in
Texas and Arkansas
10 – James Wilson – Was found dead in May 1993 from an apparent hanging
suicide. He was reported to have ties to Whitewater..
11 – Kathy Ferguson – Ex-wife of Arkansas Trooper Danny Ferguson, was found
dead in May 1994, in her living room with a gunshot to her head. It was ruled a suicide even
though there were several packed suitcases, as if she were going somewhere. Danny Ferguson
was a co-defendant along with Bill Clinton in the Paula Jones lawsuit Kathy Ferguson was a
possible corroborating witness for Paula Jones.
12 – Bill Shelton – Arkansas State Trooper and fiancee of Kathy Ferguson.
Critical of the suicide ruling of his fiancee, he was found dead in June, 1994 of a gunshot
wound also ruled a suicide at the grave site of his fiancee.
13 – Gandy Baugh – Attorney for Clinton's friend Dan Lassater, died by jumping
out a window of a tall building January, 1994. His client was a convicted drug
distributor.
14 – Florence Martin – Accountant & sub-contractor for the CIA, was
related to the Barry Seal, Mena, Arkansas, airport drug smuggling case. He died of three
gunshot wounds.
15 – Suzanne Coleman – Reportedly had an affair with Clinton when he was
Arkansas Attorney General. Died of a gunshot wound to the back of the head, ruled a suicide.
Was pregnant at the time of her death.
16 – Paula Grober – Clinton's speech interpreter for the deaf from 1978 until
her death December 9, 1992. She died in a one car accident.
17 – Danny Casolaro – Investigative reporter, investigating Mena Airport and
Arkansas Development Finance Authority. He slit his wrists, apparently, in the middle of his
investigation.
18 – Paul Wilcher – Attorney investigating corruption at Mena Airport with
Casolaro and the 1980 "October Surprise" was found dead on a toilet June 22, 1993, in his
Washington DC apartment had delivered a report to Janet Reno 3 weeks before his death.
19 – Jon Parnell Walker – Whitewater investigator for Resolution Trust Corp.
Jumped to his death from his Arlington ,Virginia apartment balcony August 15, 1993. He was
investigating the Morgan Guaranty scandal.
20 – Barbara Wise – Commerce Department staffer. Worked closely with Ron Brown
and John Huang. Cause of death: Unknown. Died November 29, 1996. Her bruised, naked body was
found locked in her office at the Department of Commerce.
21 – Charles Meissner – Assistant Secretary of Commerce who gave John Huang
special security clearance, died shortly thereafter in a small plane crash.
22 – Dr. Stanley Heard – Chairman of the National Chiropractic Health Care
Advisory Committee died with his attorney Steve Dickson in a small plane crash. Dr. Heard, in
addition to serving on Clinton 's advisory council personally treated Clinton's mother,
stepfather and brother.
23 – Barry Seal – Drug running TWA pilot out of Mena Arkansas, death was no
accident.
24 – Johnny Lawhorn, Jr. – Mechanic, found a check made out to Bill Clinton in
the trunk of a car left at his repair shop. He was found dead after his car had hit a utility
pole.
25 – Stanley Huggins – Investigated Madison Guaranty. His death was a
purported suicide and his report was never released.
26 – Hershell Friday – Attorney and Clinton fundraiser died March 1, 1994,
when his plane exploded.
27 – Kevin Ives & Don Henry – Known as "The boys on the track" case.
Reports say the boys may have stumbled upon the Mena Arkansas airport drug operation. A
controversial case, the initial report of death said, due to falling asleep on railroad
tracks. Later reports claim the 2 boys had been slain before being placed on the tracks. Many
linked to the case died before their testimony could come before a Grand Jury.
THE FOLLOWING PERSONS HAD INFORMATION ON THE IVES/HENRY CASE:
28 – Keith Coney – Died when his motorcycle slammed into the back of a truck,
7/88.
30 – Gregory Collins – Died from a gunshot wound January 1989.
31 – Jeff Rhodes – He was shot, mutilated and found burned in a trash dump in
April 1989.
32 – James Milan – Found decapitated. However, the Coroner ruled his death was
due to natural causes".
34 – Richard Winters – A suspect in the Ives/Henry deaths. He was killed in a
set-up robbery July 1989.
THE FOLLOWING CLINTON BODYGUARDS ARE ALSO DEAD
35 – Major William S. Barkley, Jr.
36 – Captain Scott J . Reynolds
37 – Sgt. Brian Hanley
38 – Sgt. Tim Sabel
39 – Major General William Robertson
40 – Col. William Densberger
41 – Col. Robert Kelly
42 – Spec. Gary Rhodes
43 – Steve Willis
44 – Robert Williams
45 – Conway LeBleu
46 – Todd McKeehan
And the most recent, Seth Rich, the DC staffer murdered and "robbed" (of nothing) on July
10. Wikileaks founder Assange claims he had info on the DNC email scandal.
Not Included in this list are the 4 heroes killed in Benghazi.
And now you can add multi-millionaire Jeffrey Epstein to the list...
Daniel Benaim and Michael Walid Hanna
explain that the U.S. military presence in the Middle East hasn't changed much at all under
Trump, but there has been a reduction in diplomatic engagement:
For all the headlines, the U.S. military presence in the Middle East is fairly consistent.
Despite the administration's intention, laid out in the 2018 National Defense Strategy, to
refocus the U.S. military on great-power competition, the U.S. footprint in the Middle East
remains relatively constant, and seemingly permanent. Instead, what has changed is the scale
of civilian effort that, in most previous administrations, would have accompanied such a
military presence. The Trump administration has left numerous vacancies for key civilian
positions unfilled for long stretches, slashed aid programs, and focused on high-level
personal relations at the expense of broader ties. Altogether, its approach has not been
typified by either retrenchment or interventionism but by what Barry Posen, writing in
Foreign Affairs, has called "illiberal hegemony" -- military superiority shorn of diplomatic
stewardship.
Benaim and Hanna are right about this, and their article is a welcome corrective to the many
false claims that Trump is "retreating" from the region. The administration's disdain for
diplomacy and aid has been impossible to miss over the last two and a half years, and they have
combined that with more or less continuing the military deployments and missions that they
inherited. What that means in practice is that the U.S. remains entangled in the affairs of the
region, but our government's involvement leans even more heavily towards the military. That
leaves every other kind of engagement underfunded, understaffed, and neglected. Since our
foreign policy is already excessively militarized, this makes a bad problem worse. Benaim and
Hanna note this later in the article:
This approach also exacerbates the long-standing problem of overreliance on the military
as the central tool of U.S. Middle East policy. Even on a diplomat's best days, regional
leaders are well aware of the "consul effect" -- the contrast between well-resourced American
military commanders and their relatively impoverished diplomatic colleagues. Further
marginalizing diplomats costs them influence, access, and bargaining power, while positioning
the military and intelligence communities as the only effective U.S. institutional actors in
the region.
Given the reality that the U.S. military presence hasn't been reduced, and has actually
increased in some places over the last two years, how is it that we keep hearing about U.S.
"retreat" and "withdrawal" as if these were happening? Client states have an incentive to whine
about possible "abandonment" no matter what the U.S. does. Either they complain about an
"abandonment" that has supposedly already happened, or they warn against a possible
"abandonment" that might take place in the future. The whining serves the purpose of putting
pressure on every administration to maintain existing commitments and then to add more. Then
there are pundits and analysts at home that constantly fret about U.S. "withdrawal" as a way of
agitating for increased involvement. Then there are the supporters of the president that want
to pretend that the "withdrawal" is really happening in order to credit the president for doing
something he hasn't done. Add them all up, and you get an unfounded consensus that the U.S. is
"retreating" when virtually nothing has changed. In the case of Trump, there is an additional
factor of taking the president's rhetoric at face value while ignoring what his administration
is doing. Trump boasts about some things that never happened and never will happen, and for
some reason he is blamed/credited for things he never does while his real policies often escape
close scrutiny.
Put simply, U.S. military engagement in the Middle East is largely unchanged and has even
escalated to some degree under Trump, but all other kinds of engagement get short shrift. Far
from disentangling the U.S. from its excessive commitments in the region, Trump has embraced
our worst clients and deepened our government's involvement in the worst way for the sake of
arms sales and whipping up anti-Iranian sentiment. This is the exact opposite of what should be
happening, and it is antithetical to a foreign policy that extricates U.S. forces from the
region.
"Mueller's Inquiry was never a serious search for truth is that at no stage was any independent forensic independence taken from
the DNC's servers, instead the word of the DNC's own security consultants was simply accepted as true. Finally no progress has been
made – or is intended to be made – on the question of who killed Seth Rich, while the pretend police investigation has "lost" his laptop.
"
"... Like the Wolfowitz explanation of the Iraq War, Russiagate is the idea around which varied interests can be organized. Cold Warriors like to hate on Russia. It justifies arms spending and their own importance. Clintonistas need an excuse to distract from her being a loser. The DNC needs an excuse for manipulating the candidate selection in favor of donor interests. "Moderates" need a distraction from their ongoing refusal to address the interests of voters. ..."
So, there we have it. Russiagate as a theory is as completely exploded as the appalling Guardian front page lie published by Kath
Viner and Luke Harding fabricating the "secret meetings" between Paul Manafort and Julian Assange in the Ecuadorean Embassy. But
the political class and the mainstream media, both in the service of billionaires, have moved on to a stage where truth is irrelevant,
and I do not doubt that Russiagate stories will thus persist. They are so useful for the finances of the armaments and security industries,
and in keeping the population in fear and jingoist politicians in power.
Craig Murray is an author, broadcaster and human rights activist. He was British ambassador to Uzbekistan from August 2002 to
October 2004 and rector of the University of Dundee from 2007 to 2010.
michael , August 12, 2019 at 19:53
So far there is as much evidence presented that Martians interfered in the 2016 Election as RUSSIANS!!!
Just a much needed excuse to blow on the dying embers of the Cold War and get the nuclear weapons ready.
I'm still waiting for Robert Mueller to be tried for lying to Congress (when asked who hired him, instead of saying "I have no
idea", he said "Bush!" It is a matter of public record that Reagan hired him, a blatant lie! Is Michael Flynn out of jail yet?)
Drew Hunkins , August 12, 2019 at 14:49
" and I do not doubt that Russiagate stories will thus persist. They are so useful for the finances of the armaments and security
industries, and in keeping the population in fear and jingoist politicians in power "
They are also extremely useful as a scapegoat for the corporate warmongering DNC to camouflage the genuine reasons they lost
to Trump of all people.
Mark Thomason , August 12, 2019 at 10:34
Like the Wolfowitz explanation of the Iraq War, Russiagate is the idea around which varied interests can be organized.
Cold Warriors like to hate on Russia. It justifies arms spending and their own importance. Clintonistas need an excuse to distract
from her being a loser. The DNC needs an excuse for manipulating the candidate selection in favor of donor interests. "Moderates"
need a distraction from their ongoing refusal to address the interests of voters.
"Those whom the gods would destroy they first drive mad".
Larry Mofield , August 12, 2019 at 08:41
If Russia actually wanted to help someone win I think it would be Hilary because Trump is a plain shooter from the hip and
takes nothing off of nobody.
If anything Sanders should had sued the DNC and Hilary for rigging the DNC
Go figure why he has kept his mouth shut.
Bif Webster , August 12, 2019 at 11:13
Putin preferred Obama to his running mates as well. But you won't ever hear that on the corporate "news" media.
Others sued on behalf of Bernie. That case died in south Florida, near Wasserman-Schultz's district yeah, and the excuse was,
"The DNC is a 'private organization" and do what they like, apparently. However, the "judge" did not find it odd that a private
entity can run a public election? And how there's an obvious conflict of interest involved?
Bernie kept his mouth shut because he's inside the Belly of the Beast.
Martin , August 12, 2019 at 11:54
i think there was something of a lawsuit, but the judge decided that the rigging was an inside thing to which no external laws
applied. if you got a non-profit or a company and there's no internal rules that forbid the rigging of votes, rigging is not illegal.
the superdelegates still exist.
Seer , August 12, 2019 at 12:04
He kept his mouth shut because advancing "My Revolution" was more important. And, because he's NOT a Democrat: he's only "allowed"
to run as one: he is therefore a little more constrained. Had he lashed out he'd have NOT been allowed to run again as a Democrat
-- bank on that!
Tulsi Gabbard, on the other hand, is a Democrat, in which case she really couldn't be kicked out: it was she who acted as Bernie's
mouth on this matter.
Trump is a piece of crap. There's nothing straight about him at all. He's a con-man of the highest order. Other than give money
to the rich he's done nothing: and "nothing," is probably the best that could have been hoped for given that he could have started
some wars (he hasn't found one that he feels safe would not undermine his presidency, otherwise he'd be lighting it up). The reason
the guy is so good at firing people is because he's so crappy about firing them.
Oh yeah, I have not cast a single vote for anyone I have mentioned here.
evelync , August 12, 2019 at 13:20
Interesting question, Larry Mofield!
Bernie's not a stupid guy and I believe (as does Cornel West and Noam Chomsky) he's dedicated to policies that serve working people
and sustainability.(as I see it – reversing the NeoLiberal agenda in order to restore a level playing field for working people and also to shift
to a democratic, non imperial foreign policy.)
So why didn't he, let's call him "David", not aim his slingshot at the DNC, let's call it "Goliath"?
Probably because a single stone in a slingshot was hopeless. He was up against a massive corrupt network of hangers on, IMO,
who rabidly shouted down the person who dared to question Clinton's policies.
For an even more recent example of a delusional grandiose, imperial mind set, let's take the 200+ people affiliated with the
JFK School of Government at Harvard. The ones who accepted the School's shameful withdrawal of Chelsea Manning's honorary fellowship
because Pompeo and Morrell attacked it with Cold War rhetoric. Manning's crime? Telling people the truth about horrific wrongdoing
she witnessed in Iraq. When I emailed 200 people at the JFK School a shame-on-you letter I heard back from only one who chastised
(threatened) me for not understanding "National Security" .say what????) Others chimed in to agree with her. (I shared that email
with Robert Parry at the time and he emailed back that he didn't blame me for being outraged. He was such a wonderful person.)
So Bernie had the whole MSNBC related propaganda machine at his throat.
– think Mimi Rocah's recent "he makes my skin crawl" comment, knowing surely, that her words would be applauded over there.
and think all the people who have accepted since 2016 that the Russians cost Hillary Clinton the election in denial over the truth
– a flawed candidate who seemed to consider her constituency the big banks and the polluters and the war machine.
I know lifelong conservative Republicans who liked Bernie in 2016 and like him now because they find him truthful but didn't
trust Clinton and some voted for Trump in order to beat her.
This country is filled with a patronage network of well off established people including Democrats who believe everything's fine
as it is and are willing to shut their eyes to what's not working – the financial crisis of the working class, the racism underlying
the for profit prison system and immigration system, the horrific endless regime change wars and the massive deregulation of banks
on Bill Clinton's watch and much more, including the Climate Crisis.
It's taken almost 3 years to discredit what apparently was a faux "excuse" why Hillary Clinton lost. Too many voters in key
states didn't trust her to serve their interests because she clearly was an apparatchik for the MICIMATT.
Enough of Trump's voters were willing to gamble on this "unknown" character who piggy backed off what Bernie was saying at
the time – too bad he was lying ..
rosemerry , August 12, 2019 at 15:39
The whole suggestion has ignored any words and actions of Pres. Putin, who is careful to keep to the truth. He often stated
that he would accept whoever the US population chose (ie did not even want to lean towards the one claiming to desire better relations,
let alone interfere) because the difference between US administrations was small and policies unlikely to change in 2016. Because
the US constantly causes "régime change" does not mean that Russia does. The quick decision to "blame Russia" immediately after
Trump's win, activated by Obama expelling diplomats and stealing their US property, set the ball rolling and it has not stopped.
T he AP and no doubt other media are setting the stage for claiming that if Trump is reelected in 2020, the Russians again
were responsible. As HItler learned, repeat a lie often enough and it will assume the appearance of truth. It's not surprising
that the Democrats led by Hillary are behind this maneuver. The Dems have been blaming Russia ever since Truman did so in 1945.
Sally Snyder , August 12, 2019 at 08:05
As shown in this article, key Western countries including the United States have put in place a mechanism that is supposed
to protect us from election meddling:
Given the anti-Russia bias that took root and has become pervasive in the West since 2014 and, in particular, since the Hillary
Clinton loss in 2016 which is blamed on Russian-sourced disinformation, it is interesting to see that the G7 has been driven to
take extreme moves to battle what they see as an "evil Russia".
jdd , August 12, 2019 at 07:05
Devastating. A cogent and insightful analysis of Judge Koeltl's decision. Thank you Ambassador Murray.
Michaelevan Hammond , August 12, 2019 at 02:16
What's hilarious is that Binney was able to discern that the download was later split in two and then transmitted state side.
Think of when you download a movie or a file .. it doesn't come in 2 parts, you either download the whole thing or it is an error/fail.
Binney is able to show that the whole thing is one download at 49mbps impossible speed for transatlantic transmission .he absolute
fastest you can achieve over the cable is 29mbps ..plus there are 6-12 NSA monitoring junctions added to the cable to capture
such things and not one had any Russians attempting to "hack"(2001 term). It was all just deflection for Hillary and she may we'll
have selfishly killed the Dems party.
Realist , August 12, 2019 at 00:37
Russiagate is not "dead." It has more lives than a cat bitten by a vampire. It is permanently undead. The antithesis of a dead
parrot.
How many times does Rachel Maddow have to tell you? Anyone who did not vote for Hillary Clinton and refuses to back her never-ending,
constantly metamorphosing coup against Trump has got to be a Putin agent even Mitch McConnell. Check back tomorrow for the latest
Maddowsplaining on this and other bad crazyness.
Seer , August 12, 2019 at 12:07
I agree. The FACT that the US has been sanctioning Russia for the better part of 100 years pretty much tells it all. It's about
the West's ruling elite keeping Their game going: but, nothing lasts forever, and this game is about to run out on them (the perpetual
growth model, which has given them their power, is ending).
Realist , August 12, 2019 at 00:18
Unless he was being sarcastic, MSNBC's Joe Scarborough tweeted that the Russians were probably behind Jeff Epstein's "suiciding"
in the high security NYC federal lockup!
Anyone who truly believes that Epstein actually took his own life probably does still have a severe case of Putin Derangement
Syndrome, aka Russophrenia, Russiagate-itis, -osis or whatever ya wanna call it. Their minds cannot co-exist within both the Deep
State Matrix and objective reality at the same time. Blaming all evil in the world on Russia gives them license to act outside
conventional morality with impunity.
Mark Stanley , August 12, 2019 at 11:32
Yes, they are endeavoring to tip-toe around this one. If Epstein had started squealing, the excrement would really have hit
the fan. After his purported suicide, the smokescreen "conspiracy" word popped up immediately in every mainstream mention of Epstein.
If the populace found out about the deranged sexual practices of too many of the world's elites it would certainly upset the apple
cart–to use an American expression.
Seer , August 12, 2019 at 15:51
This IS VERY DEEP! First three parts of this most excellent four part series is available, starting with this one (Mint Press
also needs supporting).
After reading this I now understand why Trump won't release his tax returns.
Realist , August 12, 2019 at 18:12
Seer,
Probably, because like Romney, he didn't pay any.
Dershowitz's client Leonna Helmsley explained the principle decades ago: "Only the little people pay taxes." Probably as truthful
a description of the American system as you will ever hear. Sadly, it went down the memory hole because the media will never mention
it again. Investigative reporters like David Cay Johnston have to write individually researched books on the subject and hope
that the swamp creatures don't seek retribution against him some dark night.
The most the public is ever going to get in this world is perhaps a brief glimmer of the truth through the hard work and suffering
of individuals like Assange, Manning and a few other brave altruistic souls, but never justice. The system is set up to sacrifice
the lives of millions for the benefit of dozens.
Hoarsewhisperer@ 73 said;"Buying politicians is the most lucrative investment of all..."
Yep, invest a million here and there, get a Billion back.
snake, thanks for the link. What a sordid mess of cretins.
@128: Interesting theory, but, IMO, DJT is just the latest, in a long line, that do the
bidding of the malignant oligarchs, who's vast wealth buys compliance to their needs.
The military is just the enforcement arm of their system..
Images removed. For full text the original source... test
Notable quotes:
"... Maxwell, who was a business partner of Mega Group co-founder Charles Bronfman, aided the successful Mossad plot to plant a trapdoor in U.S.-created software that was then sold to governments and companies throughout the world. That plot’s success was largely due to the role of a close associate of then-President Ronald Reagan and an American politician close to Maxwell, who later helped aid Reagan in the cover-up of the Iran Contra scandal. ..."
"... Years later, Maxwell’s daughter — Ghislaine Maxwell — would join Jeffrey Epstein’s “inner circle” at the same time Epstein was bankrolling a similar software program now being marketed for critical electronic infrastructure in the U.S. and abroad ..."
"... Epstein appears to have ties to Israeli intelligence and has well-documented ties to influential Israeli politicians and the Mega Group. Yet, those entities are not isolated in and of themselves, as many also connect to the organized crime network and powerful alleged pedophiles discussed in previous installments of this series. ..."
"... Associated Press ..."
"... Lauder, then-ambassador to Austria for the Reagan administration, would have been well-positioned to acquire such a passport, particularly for the reason cited by Epstein’s attorneys that Jewish-Americans could be targeted during travel, and in light of Lauder’s very public concerns over threats Jews face from certain terror groups. Furthermore, the passport had been issued in 1987, when Lauder was still serving as an ambassador. ..."
"... Though Epstein’s defense attorney declined to reveal the identity of the “friend” who provided him with the fake Austrian passport, Lauder was both well-positioned to acquire it in Austria and also deeply connected to the Mega Group, which was co-founded by Epstein’s patron Leslie Wexner and to which Epstein has many connections. These connections to both the Austrian government and to Epstein’s mentor make Lauder the most likely person to have acquired the document on Epstein’s behalf. ..."
"... Furthermore, Lauder co-founded the Eastern European broadcasting network CETV with Mark Palmer, a former U.S. diplomat, Kissinger aide and Reagan speechwriter. Palmer is better known for co-founding the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), an organization often described as an accessory to U.S. intelligence, and one whose first president confessed to the Washington Post that “a lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.” A 2001 report in the Evening Standard noted that Epstein once claimed that during the 1980s he worked for the CIA, but Epstein later backed away from that assertion. ..."
"... The Mega Group — a secretive group of billionaires to which Lauder belongs — was formed in 1991 by Charles Bronfman and Leslie Wexner, the latter of whom has received considerable media scrutiny following the July arrest of his former protege Jeffrey Epstein. Media profiles of the group paint it as “a loosely organized club of 20 of the nation’s wealthiest and most influential Jewish businessmen” focused on “philanthropy and Jewishness,” with membership dues upwards of $30,000 per year. Yet several of its most prominent members have ties to organized crime. ..."
"... When Edgar Bronfman died in 2013, long-time ADL Director Abe Foxman said , “Edgar was for many years Chair of our Liquor Industry Division, Chair of our New York Appeal, and one of our most significant benefactors.” Other Mega Group members that are donors and major supporters of the ADL include Ronald Lauder , Michael Steinhardt and the late Max Fisher . As previously mentioned, Roy Cohn’s father was a long-time leader of B’nai B’rith’s influential New England-New York chapter and Cohn was later a celebrated member of its banking and finance lodge. ..."
"... In addition, Mega Group members have also been key players in the pro-Israel lobby in the United States. For instance, Max Fisher of the Mega Group founded the National Jewish Coalition, now known as the Republican Jewish Coalition — the main pro-Israel neoconservative political lobbying group , known for its support of hawkish policies, and whose current chief patrons, Sheldon Adelson and Bernard Marcus, are among Donald Trump’s top donors. ..."
"... Sam Bronfman, as was detailed in Part I of this series, had long-standing deep ties to organized crime, specifically Meyer Lanksy’s organized crime syndicate. Yet, Bronfman’s private ambition, according to those close to him, was to become a respected member of high society. As a consequence, Bronfman worked hard to remove the stain that his mob associations had left on his public reputation in Canada and abroad. He accomplished this by becoming a leader in Canada’s Zionist movement and, by the end of the 1930s, he was head of the Canadian Jewish Congress and had begun to make a name for himself as a philanthropist for Jewish causes. ..."
"... Yet even some of Bronfman’s activism and philanthropy had hints of the mobster-like reputation he tried so hard to shake. For instance, Bronfman was actively involved in the illegal shipping of arms to Zionist paramilitaries in Palestine prior to 1948, specifically as a co-founder of the National Conference for Israeli and Jewish Rehabilitation that smuggled weapons to the paramilitary group Haganah. ..."
"... However, Edgar and Charles Bronfman were hardly the only members of the Mega Group with deep and long-standing ties to the Lansky-led National Crime Syndicate. Indeed, one of the group’s prominent members, hedge fund manager Michael Steinhardt, opened up about his own family ties to Lansky in his autobiography No Bull: My Life in and out the Markets , where he noted that his father, Sol “Red McGee” Steinhardt, was Lansky’s jewel fence of choice and a major player in New York’s criminal underworld. Sol Steinhardt was also his son’s first client on Wall Street and helped him jumpstart his career in finance. ..."
"... One surprise connection to Cohn involves Mega Group member, and former president of U.S. weapons firm General Dynamics, Lester Crown, whose brother-in-law is David Schine, Cohn’s confidant and alleged lover during the McCarthy hearings, whose relationship with Cohn helped bring about the downfall of McCarthyism. ..."
"... Leslie “Les” Wexner, the other Mega Group co-founder, also has ties to organized crime. Wexner’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein have come under scrutiny following the latter’s recent arrest, as Wexner was the only publicly acknowledged client of Epstein’s suspicious hedge fund, the source of much of this wealth, and the previous owner of Epstein’s $56 million Manhattan townhouse, which Wexner transferred to an Epstein-controlled entity for free. ..."
"... The 1996 Times article also noted that, after Wexner bought the residence for $13.2 million in 1989, he spent millions more decorating and furnishing the home, including the addition of the electronic equipment in the “James Bond” bathroom, only to apparently never live in it. ..."
"... Farmer’s account strongly suggests that, given the behavior of his personal security staff at his mansion following Epstein’s alleged assault on Farmer, Wexner was well aware of Epstein’s predatory behavior towards young women. This is compounded by claims made by Alan Dershowitz — a former lawyer for and friend of Epstein’s, who has also been accused of raping underage girls — that Wexner has also been accused of raping underage girls exploited by Epstein on at least seven occasions. ..."
"... The report, titled “ Shapiro Homicide Investigation: Analysis and Hypothesis ,” names Leslie Wexner as linked “with associates reputed to be organized crime figures” and also lists the names of businessman Jack Kessler, former Columbus City Council President and Wexner associate Jerry Hammond, and former Columbus City Council member Les Wright as also being involved in Shapiro’s murder. ..."
"... As to Wexner’s alleged links to organized crime, the report focuses on the close business relationship between Wexner’s The Limited and Francis Walsh, whose trucking company “[had] done an excess of 90 percent of the Limited’s trucking business around the time of Shapiro’s murder,” according to the report. Walsh was named in a 1988 indictment as a “co-conspirator” of Genovese crime family boss Anthony “Fat Tony” Salerno, whose long-time lawyer was Roy Cohn; and the Shapiro murder report stated that Walsh was “still considered associates of the Genovese/LaRocca crime family, and Walsh was still providing truck transportation for The Limited.” ..."
"... According to a source who viewed a copy of the NSA transcript of the conversation, the intelligence officer, speaking in Hebrew, said, ‘The ambassador wants me to go to Mega to get a copy of this letter.’ The source said the supervisor in Tel Aviv rejected the request, saying, ‘This is not something we use Mega for.’” ..."
"... Almost one year to the day after the “Mega” spy scandal broke, the Wall Street Journal was the first outlet to report on the existence of a little-known organization of billionaires that was “informally” called the Mega Group and had been founded years prior in 1991. The report made no mention of the spy scandal that had spread concerns of Israeli espionage in the U.S. only a year prior. However, the group’s distinctive “informal” name and the connections of its members to the Mossad and to high-ranking Israeli politicians, including prime ministers, raise the possibility that “Mega” was not an individual, as the FBI and NSA had believed, but a group. ..."
"... Netanyahu was close enough to Lauder that he personally enlisted Lauder and George Nader to serve as his peace envoys to Syria. ..."
"... Nader, who was connected to the Trump 2016 campaign and Trump ally and Blackwater founder Erik Prince, was recently hit with federal child sex trafficking charges last month, soon after Jeffrey Epstein had been arrested on similar charges. At the time Nader was picked to work with Lauder on Netanyahu’s behalf, he had already been caught possessing large amounts of child pornography on two separate occasions, first in 1984 and later in 1990. ..."
"... Maxwell was also a close associate and friend of Israeli “superspy” Rafi Eitan, who, as previously mentioned, was Jonathan Pollard’s handler and who had previously worked directly with Meyer Lansky. ..."
"... With Inslaw out of the way, Brian sold the software all over the world. Eitan later recruited Robert Maxwell to become another Promis salesman, which he did remarkably well, even succeeding in selling the software to Soviet intelligence and conspiring with Republican Texas Senator John Tower to have the software adopted by the U.S. government laboratory at Los Alamos. Dozens of countries used the software on their most carefully guarded computer systems, unaware that Mossad now had access to everything Promis touched. ..."
"... According to journalist Robert Fisk , Maxwell was also involved in the Mossad abduction of Israeli nuclear weapons whistleblower Vanunu Mordechai. Mordechai had attempted to provide the media with information on the extent of Israel’s nuclear weapons program, which was eventually published by the Sunday Times of London . Yet, Mordechai had also contacted the Daily Mirror with the information, the Mirror being an outlet that was owned by Maxwell and whose foreign editor was a close Maxwell associate and alleged Mossad asset, Nicholas Davies. Journalist Seymour Hersh alleged that Davies had also been involved in Israeli arms deals. ..."
"... Per Fisk, it was Maxwell who contacted the Israeli Embassy in London and told them of Mordechai’s activities. This led to Mordechai’s entrapment by a female Mossad agent who seduced him as part of a “honey trap” operation that led to his kidnapping and later imprisonment in Israel. Mordechai served an 18-year sentence, 12 years of which were in solitary confinement. ..."
"... According to authors Gordon Thomas and Martin Dillon, Maxwell had sealed his own fate when he attempted to threaten top Mossad officials with the exposure of certain operations if they did not help him rescue his media empire from crippling debt and financial difficulties. Many of Maxwell’s creditors , who had grown increasingly displeased with the media mogul, were Israeli and several of them were alleged to be Mossad-connected themselves. ..."
"... Another attendee of the Maxwell yacht party was former Secretary of the Navy and former Henry Kissinger staffer Jon Lehman, who would go on to associate with the controversial neoconservative think tank, Project for a New American Century. Prior to being secretary of the Navy, Lehman had been president of the Abington Corporation, which hired arch-neocon Richard Perle to manage the portfolio of Israeli arms dealers Shlomo Zabludowicz and his son Chaim, who paid Ablington $10,000 month. A scandal arose when those payments continued after both Lehman and Perle joined the Reagan Department of Defense and while Perle was working to persuade the Pentagon to buy arms from companies linked to Zabludowicz. Perle had been part of the Reagan transition team along with Roy Cohn’s long-time friend and law partner Tom Bolan (another Maxwell yacht guest). ..."
"... Even though Jeffrey Epstein appears to have had ties to the Mossad, this series has revealed that the networks to which Epstein was connected were not Mossad-exclusive, as many of the individuals close to Epstein — Lesie Wexner, for instance — were part of a mob-connected class of oligarchs with deep ties to both the U.S. and Israel. ..."
"... Ultimately, the picture painted by the evidence is not a direct tie to a single intelligence agency but a web linking key members of the Mega Group, politicians, and officials in both the U.S. and Israel, and an organized-crime network with deep business and intelligence ties in both nations. ..."
A
s billionaire pedophile and alleged sex-trafficker, Jeffrey Epstein sits in prison, reports
have continued to surface about his reported links to intelligence, his financial ties to
several companies and “charitable” foundations, and his friendships with the rich
and powerful as well as top politicians.
While Part
I and Part
II of this series, “The Jeffrey Epstein Scandal: Too Big to Fail,” have focused
on the widespread nature of sexual blackmail operations in recent American history and their
ties to the heights of American political power and the U.S. intelligence community, one key
aspect of Epstein’s own sex-trafficking and blackmail operation that warrants examination
is Epstein’s ties to Israeli intelligence and his ties to the “informal”
pro-Israel philanthropist faction known as “the Mega Group.”
The Mega Group’s role in the Epstein case has garnered some attention, as
Epstein’s main financial patron for decades, billionaire Leslie Wexner, was a co-founder
of the group that unites several well-known businessmen with a penchant for pro-Israel and
ethno-philanthropy (i.e., philanthropy benefiting a single ethnic or ethno-religious group).
However, as this report will show, another uniting factor among Mega Group members is deep ties
to organized crime, specifically the organized crime network discussed in Part
I of this series, which was largely led by notorious American mobster Meyer Lansky.
By virtue of the role of many Mega Group members as major political donors in both the U.S.
and Israel, several of its most notable members have close ties to the governments of both
countries as well as their intelligence communities. As this report and a subsequent report
will show, the Mega Group also had close ties to two businessmen who worked for Israel’s
Mossad — Robert Maxwell and Marc Rich — as well as to top Israeli politicians,
including past and present prime ministers with deep ties to Israel’s intelligence
community.
One of those businessmen working for the Mossad, Robert Maxwell, will be discussed at length
in this report. Maxwell, who was a business partner of Mega Group co-founder Charles Bronfman,
aided the successful Mossad plot to plant a trapdoor in U.S.-created software that was then
sold to governments and companies throughout the world. That plot’s success was largely
due to the role of a close associate of then-President Ronald Reagan and an American politician
close to Maxwell, who later helped aid Reagan in the cover-up of the Iran Contra scandal.
Years later, Maxwell’s daughter — Ghislaine Maxwell — would join Jeffrey
Epstein’s “inner circle” at the same time Epstein was bankrolling a similar
software program now being marketed for critical electronic infrastructure in the U.S. and
abroad. That company has deep and troubling connections to Israeli military intelligence,
associates of the Trump administration, and the Mega Group.
Epstein appears to have ties to Israeli intelligence and has well-documented ties to
influential Israeli politicians and the Mega Group. Yet, those entities are not isolated in and
of themselves, as many also connect to the organized crime network and powerful alleged
pedophiles discussed in previous installments of this series.
Perhaps the best illustration of how the connections between many of these players often
meld together can be seen in Ronald Lauder: a Mega Group member, former member of the Reagan
administration, long-time donor to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel’s
Likud Party, as well as a long-time friend of Donald Trump and Roy Cohn.
From cosmetics
heir to political player
One often overlooked yet famous client and friend of Roy Cohn is the billionaire heir to the
Estee Lauder cosmetics fortune, Ronald Lauder. Lauder is often described in the press as a
“leading Jewish philanthropist” and is the president of the World Jewish Congress,
yet his many media profiles tend to leave out his highly political past.
In a
statement given by Lauder to New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman in 2018, the
cosmetics heir noted that he has known Trump for over 50 years, going back at least to the
early 1970s. According to Lauder, his relationship with Trump began when Trump was a student at
the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, which Lauder also
attended.
Image deleted: President-elect Trump walks with Ronald Lauder after meeting at Mar-a-Lago, Dec. 28, 2016,
in Palm Beach, Fla. Evan Vucci | AP
Though the exact nature of their early friendship is unclear, it is evident that they shared
many of the same connections, including to the man who would later count them both as his
clients, Roy Cohn. While much has been said of the ties between Cohn and Trump, Cohn was
particularly close to Lauder’s mother, Estee Lauder (born Josephine Mentzer). Estee was
even counted among Cohn’s most high-profile friends in
his New York Times obituary .
A small window into the Lauder-Cohn relationship surfaced briefly in a
2016 article in Politico about a 1981 dinner party held at Cohn’s weekend home
in Greenwich, Connecticut. The party was attended by Ronald Lauder’s parents, Estee and
Joe, as well as Trump and his then-wife Ivana, who had
a weekend home just two miles away. That party was held soon after Cohn had helped Reagan
secure the presidency and had reached the height of his political influence. At the party, Cohn
offered toasts to Reagan and to then-Senator for New York Alfonse D’Amato, who
would later urge Ronald Lauder to run for political office.
Two years later, in 1983, Ronald Lauder — whose only professional experience at that
point was working for his parent’s cosmetics company — was appointed to serve as United
States Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for European and NATO Affairs. Soon after his
appointment, he served on the
Dinner Tribute Committee for a dinner hosted by the Jewish fraternal and strongly pro-Israel
organization B’nai B’rith, the parent organization of the controversial
Anti-Defamation League (ADL), in Roy Cohn’s honor. Cohn’s influential father,
Albert Cohn, was the long-time
president of B’nai B’rith’s powerful New England-New York chapter and Roy
Cohn himself was a member of B’nai B’rith’s Banking and Finance Lodge.
The dinner specifically sought
to honor Cohn for his pro-Israel advocacy and his efforts to “fortify”
Israel’s economy, and its honorary chairmen included media mogul Rupert Murdoch, Donald
Trump and then-head of Bear Stearns Alan Greenberg, all of whom are
connected to Jeffrey Epstein.
During his time as deputy assistant secretary of defense, Lauder was also very active in
Israeli politics and had already become an ally of the then-Israeli representative to the
United Nations and future prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu. Lauder would go on to
be one of the most important individuals in Netanyahu’s rise to power, particularly
during his upset victory in 1996, and a major financier of
Israel’s right-wing Likud Party.
In 1986, the year that Roy Cohn died, Lauder left his post at the Pentagon and became the
U.S. ambassador to Austria, where his tenure was shaped by
his confrontations with the then-Austrian president and former Nazi collaborator, Kurt
Waldheim. Lauder’s interest in Austrian politics has continued well into recent years,
culminating in accusations that he sought
to manipulate Austrian elections in 2012.
After leaving his ambassadorship, Lauder
founded the Ronald S. Lauder Foundation in 1987 and later went on to run for Mayor of New
York against Rudy Giuliani in 1989. Lauder
was encouraged to run by then-Senator Alfonse D’Amato, who had close ties to Roy Cohn
and his long-time law partner Tom Bolan, who was
D’Amato’s adviser . At the aforementioned 1983 B’nai B’rith dinner
honoring Cohn, D’Amato was the featured speaker.
The likely reason was that Giuliani, though once an ally of the “Roy Cohn
machine,” was at the time
deeply disliked by the late Cohn’s associates for prosecuting Cohn’s former law
partner, Stanley Friedman, for racketeering, conspiracy and other charges. Giuliani also had a
history of bitter disagreements with D’Amato. Lauder’s primary campaign, though
unsuccessful, was noted for its viciousness and its cost, as it
burned through more than $13 million.
A few years later, in the early 1990s, Lauder would join a newly formed group that has long
evaded scrutiny from the media but has recently become of interest in connection with the
Jeffrey Epstein scandal: the Mega Group.
Lauder, Epstein and the mysterious Austrian
passport
Before getting to the Mega Group, it is worth noting one particular act apparently
undertaken by Lauder while he was U.S. ambassador to Austria that has recently come to light in
relation to the arrest in early July of Jeffrey Epstein, a finding first reported by journalist
Edward Szall. When police recently discovered an Austrian passport with Epstein’s picture
and a fake name after raiding his Manhattan residence, the source and purpose of the passport
came under media scrutiny.
According to the Associated Press ,
Epstein’s defense lawyers specifically argued that “a friend gave it to him
[Epstein] in the 1980s after some Jewish-Americans were informally advised to carry
identification bearing a non-Jewish name when traveling internationally during a period when
hijackings were more common.” This claim appears to be related to concerns that followed
the hijacking
of Air France Flight 139 in 1976 when Israeli and Jewish hostages were separated from other
hostages based largely on the passports in their possession.
Given that Epstein was unable to meet the conventional qualifications for an Austrian
passport — including long-term residency in Austria (the passport lists him as a resident
of Saudi Arabia) and fluency in German — it appears that the only way to have acquired an
Austrian passport was by unconventional means, meaning assistance from a well-connected
Austrian official or foreign diplomat with clout in Austria.
Image deleted: Ronald Lauder, right, and Austrian Chancellor Viktor Klima pose with students from the
Lauder Chabad School in Vienna, Austria in 1999. Martin Gnedt | AP
Lauder, then-ambassador to Austria for the Reagan administration, would have been
well-positioned to acquire such a passport, particularly for the reason cited by
Epstein’s attorneys that Jewish-Americans could be targeted during travel, and in light
of Lauder’s very public concerns over threats Jews face from certain terror groups.
Furthermore, the passport had been issued in 1987, when Lauder was still serving as an
ambassador.
In addition, Lauder
was well-connected to Epstein’s former patron — former head of Bear Stearns
Alan Greenberg, who had hired Epstein in the late 1970s immediately after the latter was fired
from the Dalton School — and Donald Trump,
another friend of Lauder and Greenberg who began his friendship with Epstein in 1987, the
same year the fake Austrian passport was issued. In 1987, Epstein also began his relationship
with his principal financier, Leslie Wexner, who is also closely associated with Lauder (though
some sources claim that Epstein and Wexner first met in 1985 but that their strong business
relationship was not established until 1987).
Though Epstein’s defense attorney declined to reveal the identity of the
“friend” who provided him with the fake Austrian passport, Lauder was both
well-positioned to acquire it in Austria and also deeply connected to the Mega Group, which was
co-founded by Epstein’s patron Leslie Wexner and to which Epstein has many connections.
These connections to both the Austrian government and to Epstein’s mentor make Lauder the
most likely person to have acquired the document on Epstein’s behalf.
Furthermore, Epstein and the Mega Group’s ties to the Israeli intelligence agency,
Mossad, also suggest Lauder was involved in procuring the passport, in light of his close ties
to the Israeli government and the fact that Mossad
has a history of using ambassadors abroad to procure false, foreign passports for its
operatives.
Lauder himself has been alleged to have ties to Mossad, as he is a long-time funder of IDC
Herzliya, an Israeli university
closely associated with Mossad and their recruiters as well as Israeli military
intelligence. Lauder even founded IDC Herzliya’s
Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy.
Furthermore, Lauder co-founded the Eastern European broadcasting network CETV with Mark
Palmer, a former U.S. diplomat, Kissinger aide and Reagan speechwriter. Palmer is better known
for co-founding the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), an organization often described as
an accessory to U.S. intelligence, and one whose first president confessed to
the Washington Post that “a lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years
ago by the CIA.” A 2001 report in the Evening Standard noted that Epstein
once
claimed that during the 1980s he worked for the CIA, but Epstein later backed away from
that assertion.
The origins of the Mega Group Mafia
The Mega Group — a secretive group of billionaires to which Lauder belongs — was
formed in 1991 by Charles Bronfman and Leslie Wexner, the latter of whom has received
considerable media scrutiny following the July arrest of his former protege Jeffrey Epstein.
Media profiles
of the group paint it as “a loosely organized club of 20 of the nation’s wealthiest
and most influential Jewish businessmen” focused on “philanthropy and
Jewishness,” with membership dues upwards of $30,000 per year. Yet several of its most
prominent members have ties to organized crime.
Mega Group members founded and/or are closely associated with some of the most well-known
pro-Israel organizations. For instance, members Charles Bronfman and Michael Steinhardt
formed
Birthright Taglit with the backing of then- and current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Steinhardt, an atheist, has stated that his motivation in helping to found the group was to
advance his own belief that devotion
to and faith in the state of Israel should serve as “a substitute for [Jewish]
theology.”
Other well-known groups associated with the Mega Group include the World Jewish Congress
— whose past president, Edgar Bronfman, and current president, Ronald Lauder, are both
Mega Group members — and B’nai B’rith, particularly its spin-off known as the
Anti-Defamation League (ADL). The Bronfman brothers were major donors to the ADL, with Edgar
Bronfman serving as the
ADL’s honorary national vice-chair for several years.
Image deleted: Former Israeli president Shimon Peres, second from left, listens to Edgar Bronfman during a
1995 lunch thrown in Peres’ honor. From left are: Laurence Tisch, Chairman, President and
Chief executive officer of CBS; Israeli Ambassador to the United States. Itamar Rabinowitz and
Bronfman. David Karp | AP
When Edgar Bronfman died in 2013, long-time ADL Director Abe Foxman said ,
“Edgar was for many years Chair of our Liquor Industry Division, Chair of our New York
Appeal, and one of our most significant benefactors.” Other Mega Group members that are
donors and major supporters of the ADL include
Ronald Lauder ,
Michael Steinhardt and the late Max
Fisher . As previously mentioned, Roy Cohn’s father was a long-time leader of
B’nai B’rith’s influential New England-New York chapter and Cohn was later a
celebrated member of its banking and finance lodge.
In addition, Mega Group members have also been key players in the pro-Israel lobby in the
United States. For instance, Max Fisher of the Mega Group
founded the National Jewish Coalition, now
known as the Republican Jewish Coalition — the main pro-Israel
neoconservative political lobbying group , known for its support of hawkish policies, and
whose current chief patrons, Sheldon Adelson and Bernard Marcus, are among Donald Trump’s
top donors.
Though the Mega Group has officially existed only since 1991, the use of
“philanthropy” to provide cover for more unscrupulous lobbying or business
activities was pioneered decades earlier by Sam Bronfman, the father of Mega Group members
Edgar and Charles Bronfman. While other North American elites like J.D. Rockefeller had
previously used philanthropic giving as a means of laundering their reputations,
Bronfman’s approach to philanthropy was unique because it was focused on giving
specifically to other members of his own ethno-religious background.
Sam Bronfman, as was detailed in Part
I of this series, had long-standing deep ties to organized crime, specifically Meyer
Lanksy’s organized crime syndicate. Yet, Bronfman’s private ambition, according to
those close to him, was to become a respected member of high society. As a consequence,
Bronfman worked hard to remove the stain that his mob associations had left on his public
reputation in Canada and abroad. He accomplished this by becoming a leader in Canada’s
Zionist movement and, by the end of the 1930s, he
was head of the Canadian Jewish Congress and had begun to make a name for himself as a
philanthropist for Jewish causes.
Yet even some of Bronfman’s activism and philanthropy had hints of the mobster-like
reputation he tried so hard to shake. For instance, Bronfman was actively involved in the
illegal shipping of arms to Zionist paramilitaries in Palestine prior to 1948, specifically as
a co-founder of the National Conference for Israeli and Jewish Rehabilitation that
smuggled weapons to the paramilitary group Haganah.
At the same time Bronfman was abetting the illegal smuggling of weapons to the Haganah, his
associates in the criminal underworld were doing the same. After World War II, close aides of
David Ben-Gurion, who would later become the first prime minister of Israel and was
instrumental in the founding of Mossad, forged tight-knit
relationships with Meyer Lansky, Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, Mickey Cohen and
other Jewish gangsters of the period. They used their clandestine networks to establish a vast
arms smuggling network between the United States and Zionist settlements in Palestine, arming
both the Haganah and the Irgun paramilitary groups. As noted in Part I of this report, at the
same time these gangsters were aiding the illegal arming of ZIonsit paramilitaries, they were
strengthening their ties to U.S. intelligence that had first been formally (though covertly)
established in World War II.
After Israel was founded, Sam Bronfman worked with future Israeli Prime Minister
Shimon Peres to negotiate the sale of Canadian armaments at half-price to Israel and the
bargain weapons purchase was paid for entirely by a fundraising dinner hosted by Bronfman and
his wife. Many years later, Peres would go on
to introduce another future prime minister of Israel, Ehud Barak, to Jeffrey Epstein.
The rest of the Bronfman family’s march on “the road to respectability”
was undertaken by Bronfman’s children, who married into aristocratic families such as
the
European Rothschilds and the Wall Street “royalty” of
the Lehmans and the Loebs .
The Bronfmans’ newfound respectability did not mean that their association with the
Lansky-led criminal empire had dissolved. Indeed, prominent members of the Seagrams dynasty
came under fire in the 1960s and 1970s for their
close association with Willie “Obie” Obront, a major figure in Canadian
organized crime, whom Canadian professor Stephen Schneider has referred to as the Meyer Lansky
of Canada.
However, Edgar and Charles Bronfman were hardly the only members of the Mega Group with deep
and long-standing ties to the Lansky-led National Crime Syndicate. Indeed, one of the
group’s prominent members, hedge fund manager Michael Steinhardt, opened up about his own
family ties to Lansky in his autobiography No Bull: My Life in and out the Markets ,
where he noted that his father, Sol “Red McGee” Steinhardt, was Lansky’s jewel
fence of choice and
a major player in New York’s criminal underworld. Sol Steinhardt was also his
son’s first client on Wall Street and helped him jumpstart his career in finance.
The ties between the Mega Group and the National Crime Syndicate don’t stop there.
Another prominent member of the Mega Group with ties to this same criminal network is Max
Fisher, who has been described as Wexner’s mentor and is also alleged
to have worked with Detroit’s “Purple Gang” during Prohibition and
beyond. The Purple Gang were part of the network that smuggled Bronfman liquor from Canada into
the United State during Prohibition, and one of its founders, Abe Bernstein, was
a close associate of both Meyer Lansky and Moe Dalitz. Fisher was a
key adviser to several U.S. presidents, beginning with Dwight D. Eisenhower, as well as to
Henry Kissinger.
Image removed: Max Fisher, center, and Henry Kissinger, right, meet with leaders of Jewish organizations
prior to Kissinger’s 1975 Middle East trip. Henry Burroughs | AP
In addition to Fisher, Mega Group member Ronald Lauder was connected to Roy Cohn and Tom
Bolan, both of whom were closely associated with this same Lansky-led crime network (see
Part
I and
Part
II ) and who regularly represented top Mafia figures in court. Furthermore, another member
of the Mega Group, director Steven Spielberg, is
a
well-known protege of Lew Wasserman, the mob-connected media mogul and long-time backer of
Ronald Reagan’s film and later political career, discussed in
Part
II of this series.
One surprise connection to Cohn involves Mega Group member, and former president of U.S.
weapons firm General Dynamics, Lester Crown, whose brother-in-law is David Schine, Cohn’s
confidant and alleged lover during the McCarthy hearings, whose
relationship with Cohn helped bring about the downfall of McCarthyism.
Another member of the Mega Group worth noting is Laurence Tisch, who owned CBS News
for several years and founded Loews Corporation. Tisch is notable for his work
for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the precursor to the CIA, where Donald Barr,
who hired Epstein at the Dalton School, also served and which forged ties with Lansky’s
criminal empire during World War II.
Wexner’s mansions and the Shapiro murder
Leslie “Les” Wexner, the other Mega Group co-founder, also has ties to organized
crime. Wexner’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein have come under scrutiny following the
latter’s recent arrest, as Wexner was the only publicly acknowledged client of
Epstein’s suspicious hedge fund, the source of much of this wealth, and the previous
owner of Epstein’s $56 million Manhattan townhouse, which Wexner transferred to an
Epstein-controlled entity for free.
Before Epstein received the townhouse, Wexner appears to have used the residence for some
unconventional purposes, noted in a 1996 New York
Times article on the then-Wexner-owned residence, which included “a bathroom
reminiscent of James Bond movies: hidden beneath a stairway, lined with lead to provide shelter
from attack and supplied with closed-circuit television screens and a telephone, both concealed
in a cabinet beneath the sink.” The Times article does not speculate as to the
purpose of this equipment, though the allusion to famous fictional superspy James Bond suggests
that it may have been used to snoop on guests or conduct electronic surveillance.
The 1996 Times article also noted that, after Wexner bought the residence for $13.2
million in 1989, he spent millions more decorating and furnishing the home, including the
addition of the electronic equipment in the “James Bond” bathroom, only to
apparently never live in it. The Times , which interviewed Epstein for the piece, quoted
him as saying that “Les never spent more than two months there.” Epstein told the
Times , which identified Epstein as Wexner’s “protege and one of his
financial advisers,” that the house, by that time, already belonged to him.
That same year, Epstein was commissioning artwork for Wexner’s Ohio mansion. A
recent
article from the Times noted that:
In the summer of 1996, Maria Farmer was working on an art project for Mr. Epstein in
Mr. Wexner’s Ohio mansion. While she was there, Mr. Epstein sexually assaulted her,
according to an affidavit Ms. Farmer filed earlier this year in federal court in Manhattan.
She said that she fled the room and called the police, but that Mr. Wexner’s security
staff refused to let her leave for 12 hours.”
Farmer’s account strongly suggests that, given the behavior of his personal security
staff at his mansion following Epstein’s alleged assault on Farmer, Wexner was well
aware of Epstein’s predatory behavior towards young women. This is compounded by claims
made by Alan Dershowitz — a former lawyer for and friend of Epstein’s, who has
also been accused of raping underage girls — that Wexner has also been accused of raping underage
girls exploited by Epstein on at least seven occasions.
The presence of the electronic equipment in his home’s bathroom, other oddities
related to the townhouse, and aspects of the links between Epstein and Wexner suggest there is
more to Wexner, who has rather successfully developed a public image of a respectable
businessman and philanthropist, much like other prominent members of the Mega
Group.
Image removed: Leslie Wexner and his wife Abigail tour the “Transfigurations” exhibit at the
Wexner Center for the Arts. Jay LaPrete | AP
However, bits and pieces of Wexner’s private secrets have occasionally bubbled up,
only to be subjected to rapid cover-ups amidst concerns of “libeling” the powerful
and well-connected billionaire “philanthropist.”
In 1985, Columbus (Ohio) lawyer Arthur Shapiro was murdered in broad daylight
at point-blank range in what was largely referred to as a “mob style murder.” The
homicide still remains unsolved, likely due to the fact that then-Columbus Police Chief James
Jackson ordered the destruction of key documents of his department’s investigation into
the murder.
Jackson’s ordering of the documents’ destruction came to light years later in
1996, when he was under investigation for corruption. According to the Columbus Dispatch ,
Jackson justified the destruction of one “ viable and valuable ” report
because he felt that it “was so filled with wild speculation about prominent business
leaders that it was potentially libelous.” The nature of this “wild
speculation” was that “millionaire businessmen in Columbus and Youngstown were
linked to the ‘mob-style murder.’”
Though Jackson’s efforts were meant to keep this “libelous” report far
from public view, it was eventually obtained by Bob Fitrakis —
attorney, journalist, and executive director of the Columbus Institute for Contemporary
Journalism — after he was “accidentally” sent a copy of the report in 1998 as
part of a public records request.
The report, titled “ Shapiro Homicide Investigation: Analysis and
Hypothesis ,” names Leslie Wexner as linked “with associates reputed to be
organized crime figures” and also lists the names of businessman Jack Kessler, former
Columbus City Council President and Wexner associate Jerry Hammond, and former Columbus City
Council member Les Wright as also being involved in Shapiro’s murder.
The report also noted that Arthur Shapiro’s law firm — Schwartz, Shapiro, Kelm
& Warren — represented Wexner’s company, The Limited, and states that
“prior to his death, Arthur Shapiro managed this account [The Limited] for the law
firm.” It also noted that, at the time of his death, Shapiro “was the subject of an
investigation by the Internal Revenue Service because he had failed to file income tax returns
for some seven years prior to his death, and he had invested in some questionable tax
shelters.” It also stated that his death prevented Shapiro from his planned testimony at
a grand jury hearing about these “questionable tax shelters.”
As to Wexner’s alleged links to organized crime, the report focuses on the close
business relationship between Wexner’s The Limited and Francis Walsh, whose trucking
company “[had] done an excess of 90 percent of the Limited’s trucking business
around the time of Shapiro’s murder,” according to the report. Walsh was named in
a 1988 indictment as a “co-conspirator” of Genovese crime family boss Anthony
“Fat Tony” Salerno, whose long-time lawyer was Roy Cohn; and the Shapiro murder
report stated that Walsh was “still considered associates of the Genovese/LaRocca crime
family, and Walsh was still providing truck transportation for The Limited.”
Notably, the Genovese crime family has long formed a key part of the National Crime
Syndicate, as its former head, Charles “Lucky” Luciano, co-created the criminal organization
with his close friend Meyer Lansky. Upon Luciano’s imprisonment and subsequent
deportation from the United States, Lansky took over the syndicate’s U.S. operations and
his association with Luciano’s successors continued until Lansky’s death in
1983.
The “Mega” Mystery and the Mossad
In May 1997, the Washington Post broke
an explosive story — long since forgotten — based on an intercepted phone call
made between a Mossad official in the U.S. and his superior in Tel Aviv that discussed the
Mossad’s efforts to obtain a secret U.S. government document. According to the
Post, the Mossad official stated during the phone call that “Israeli Ambassador
Eliahu Ben Elissar had asked him whether he could obtain a copy of the letter given to
[Palestinian leader Yasser] Arafat by [then-Secretary of State Warren] Christopher on Jan. 16,
the day after the Hebron accord was signed by Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin
Netanyahu.”
The Post article continued:
According to a source who viewed a copy of the NSA transcript of the conversation, the
intelligence officer, speaking in Hebrew, said, ‘The ambassador wants me to go to Mega
to get a copy of this letter.’ The source said the supervisor in Tel Aviv rejected the
request, saying, ‘This is not something we use Mega for.’”
The leaked communication led to an investigation that sought to identify an individual
code-named “Mega” that the Post said “may be someone in the U.S.
government who has provided information to the Israelis in the past,” a concern that
subsequently spawned a fruitless FBI investigation. The Mossad later claimed that
“Mega” was merely a codeword for the U.S.’ CIA, but the FBI and NSA were
unconvinced by that claim and
believed that it was a senior U.S. government official that had potentially once been
involved in working with Jonathan Pollard, the former U.S. naval intelligence analyst later
convicted of spying for the Mossad.
Almost one year to the day after the “Mega” spy scandal broke, the Wall
Street Journal was the first outlet to report on the
existence of a little-known organization of billionaires that was “informally”
called the Mega Group and had been founded years prior in 1991. The report made no mention of
the spy scandal that had spread concerns of Israeli espionage in the U.S. only a year prior.
However, the group’s distinctive “informal” name and the connections of its
members to the Mossad and to high-ranking Israeli politicians, including prime ministers, raise
the possibility that “Mega” was not an individual, as the FBI and NSA had believed,
but a group.
In 1997, when the “Mega” spy scandal broke, Netanyahu had recently become prime
minister of Israel after an upset victory, a victory that was
largely credited to one well-connected Netanyahu backer in particular, Ronald Lauder.
Beyond being a major donor, Lauder had brought Arthur Finklestein on to work for
Netanyahu’s 1996 campaign, whose strategies were credited for Netanyahu’s surprise
win. Netanyahu was close enough to Lauder that he personally enlisted Lauder and George Nader
to serve as his peace envoys to Syria.
Image removed: Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara with Ronald Lauder in 1997. Photo | Reuters
Nader, who was connected to the Trump 2016 campaign and Trump ally and Blackwater
founder Erik Prince, was
recently hit with federal child sex trafficking charges last month, soon after Jeffrey
Epstein had been arrested on similar charges. At the time Nader was picked to work with Lauder
on Netanyahu’s behalf, he had
already been caught possessing large amounts of child pornography on two separate
occasions, first in 1984 and later in 1990.
This strong connection between Netanyahu and Lauder during the time of the 1997
“Mega” spy scandal is important considering Mossad answers directly to
Israel’s prime minister.
Another possible connection between the Mega Group and the Mossad owes to the Mega
Group’s ties to Meyer Lansky’s criminal network. As was detailed in Part I, Lansky
had established deep ties to U.S. intelligence after World War II and was also connected to the
Mossad through Mossad official Tibor Rosenbaum, whose bank was frequently used by Lansky to
launder money. In addition, Lansky collaborated on at least one occasion with notorious Mossad
“superspy” Rafi Eitan, who he
helped acquire sensitive electronic equipment possessed only by the CIA but coveted by
Israeli intelligence. Eitan is best known in the U.S. for being the Mossad handler of Jonathan
Pollard.
Notably, Eitan was the main source of
claims that the code-word “Mega” used by the Mossad officials in 1997 referred to
the CIA and not to a potential source in the U.S. government once linked to Pollard’s
spying activities, making his claims as to the true meaning of the term somewhat dubious.
Given that the organized crime network tied to the Mega Group had ties to both U.S. and
Israeli intelligence, the “Mega” codeword could plausibly have referred to this
secretive group of billionaires. More supporting evidence for this theory comes from the fact
that prominent members of the Mega Group were business partners of Mossad agents, including
media mogul Robert Maxwell and commodities trader Marc Rich.
The mysterious Maxwells
The Maxwell family has become a source of renewed media interest following Jeffrey
Epstein’s arrest, as Ghislaine Maxwell, long described in the media as a British
“socialite,” was publicly cited as Epstein’s long-time “on and
off” girlfriend, and Epstein’s victims, as well as former wives of Epstein’s
friends, have claimed that she was Epstein’s “pimp” and procured underage
girls for his sexual blackmail operation. Ghislaine Maxwell is also alleged to have
engaged in the rape of the girls she procured for Epstein and to have used them to produce
child pornography.
Ghislaine was the favorite and youngest daughter of media mogul Robert Maxwell. Maxwell,
born Jan Ludvick Hoch, had joined the British Army in World War II. Afterwards, according to
authors John
Loftus and Mark Aarons , he greatly influenced the Czechoslovakian government’s
decision to arm Zionist paramilitaries during the 1948 war that resulted in Israel’s
creation as a state, and Maxwell himself was also involved in the smuggling of aircraft parts
to Israel.
Around this time, Maxwell was approached by British intelligence outfit MI6 and offered a
position that Maxwell ultimately declined. MI6 then classified
him as “Zionist — loyal only to Israel” and made him a person of interest. He
later became an agent of the Mossad, according to several books including Seymour Hersh’s
The Samson Option: Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy, and
Robert Maxwell: Israel’s Superspy by Gordon Thomas and Martin Dillon.
Mossad was financing many of its operations in Europe from money stolen from
Maxwell’s newspaper pension fund. They got their hands on the funds almost as soon as
Maxwell made the purchase of the Mirror Newspaper Group with money lent to him by
Mossad.”
In exchange for his services, the Mossad helped Maxwell satisfy his sexual appetite during
his visits to Israel,
providing him with prostitutes, “the service maintained for blackmail
purposes.” It was later revealed that the hotel in which he stayed in Israel was bugged
with cameras, allowing the Mossad to acquire “a small library of video footage of Maxwell
in sexually compromising positions.” As with the CIA, the Mossad’s use of blackmail
against both friend and foe is well-documented
and known to be
extensive .
Maxwell was also a close associate and friend of Israeli “superspy” Rafi Eitan,
who, as previously mentioned, was Jonathan Pollard’s handler and who had previously
worked directly with Meyer Lansky. Eitan
had learned of a revolutionary new software being used by the U.S. government known as
“Promis” from Earl Brian, a long-time associate and aide to Ronald Reagan. Promis
is often considered the forerunner to the “Prism” software used by spy agencies
today and was developed by William Hamilton, who leased the software to the U.S. government
through his company, Inslaw, in 1982.
Image removed: Ariel Sharon (right)meets with Robert Maxwell in Jerusalem on Feb. 20, 1990. Photo | AP
According to author and former BBC investigative journalist Gordon Thomas, Brian
was angry that the U.S. Department of Justice was successfully using Promis to go after
organized crime and money-laundering activities and Eitan felt that the program could aid
Israel. At the time, Eitan was the director of the now defunct Israeli military intelligence
agency Lekem, which gathered scientific and technical intelligence abroad from both public and
covert sources, especially in relation to Israel’s nuclear weapons program.
A plan was hatched to
install a “trapdoor” into the software and then market Promis throughout the
world, providing the Mossad with invaluable intelligence on the operations of its enemies and
allies while also providing Eitan and Brian with copious amounts of cash. According to the
testimony of ex-Mossad official Ari Ben-Menashe, Brian
provided a copy of Promis to Israel’s military intelligence, which contacted an
Israeli American programmer living in California who then planted the “trapdoor” in
the software. The CIA was later said to have installed its own trapdoor in the software
but it is unknown if they did so with a version of the already bugged software and how widely
it was adopted relative to the version bugged by Israeli intelligence.
After the trapdoor was inserted, the problem became selling the bugged version of the
software to governments as well as private companies around the world, particularly in areas of
interest. Brian first attempted to buy out Inslaw and Promis and then use that same company to
sell the bugged version.
Unsuccessful, Brian turned to his close friend, then-Attorney General Ed Meese whose Justice
Department then abruptly refused to
make the payments to Inslaw that were stipulated by the contract, essentially using the
software for free, which Inslaw claimed to be theft. Some have speculated that Meese’s
role in that decision was shaped, not only by his friendship with Brian, but the fact that his
wife was a major investor in
Brian’s business ventures. Meese would later become an adviser to Donald Trump when he
was president-elect.
Inslaw was forced to declare bankruptcy as a result of Meese’s actions and sued the
Justice Department. The court later found that
the Meese-led department “took, converted, stole” the software through
“trickery, fraud and deceit.”
With Inslaw out of the way, Brian sold the software all over the world. Eitan later
recruited Robert Maxwell to become another Promis salesman, which he did remarkably well, even
succeeding in selling the software to Soviet intelligence and conspiring
with Republican Texas Senator John Tower to have the software adopted by the U.S.
government laboratory at Los Alamos. Dozens of countries used the software on their most
carefully guarded computer systems, unaware that Mossad now had access to everything Promis
touched.
Whereas the Mossad’s past reliance on gathering intelligence had relied on the same
tactics used by its equivalents in the U.S. and elsewhere, the widespread adoption of the
Promis software, largely through the actions of Earl Brian and Robert Maxwell, gave the Mossad
a way to gather not just troves of counterintelligence data, but also blackmail on other
intelligence agencies and powerful figures.
Indeed, Promis’ backdoor and adoption by intelligence agencies all over the world
essentially provided the Mossad with access to troves of blackmail that the CIA and FBI had
acquired on their friends and foes for over half a century. Strangely, in recent years, the FBI
has sought to
hide information related to Robert Maxwell’s connection to the Promis scandal.
According to journalist Robert
Fisk , Maxwell was also involved in the Mossad abduction of Israeli nuclear weapons
whistleblower Vanunu Mordechai. Mordechai had attempted to provide the media with information
on the extent of Israel’s nuclear weapons program, which was eventually published by the
Sunday Times of London . Yet, Mordechai had also contacted the Daily Mirror with
the information, the Mirror being an outlet that was owned by Maxwell and whose foreign
editor was a close Maxwell associate and alleged Mossad asset, Nicholas Davies. Journalist
Seymour Hersh alleged that Davies had also been involved in Israeli arms deals.
Per Fisk, it was Maxwell who contacted the Israeli Embassy in London and told them of
Mordechai’s activities. This led to Mordechai’s entrapment by a female Mossad agent
who seduced him as part of a “honey trap” operation that led to his kidnapping and
later imprisonment in Israel. Mordechai served an 18-year sentence, 12 years of which were in
solitary confinement.
Then, there is the issue of Maxwell’s death, widely cited by mainstream and
independent media alike as suspicious
and a potential homicide . According to authors Gordon Thomas and Martin Dillon, Maxwell
had sealed his own fate when he attempted to threaten top Mossad officials with the exposure of
certain operations if they did not help him rescue his media empire from crippling debt and
financial difficulties. Many of Maxwell’s
creditors , who had grown increasingly displeased with the media mogul, were Israeli and
several of them were alleged to be Mossad-connected themselves.
Thomas and Dillon argue in their
biography of Maxwell’s life that the Mossad felt that Maxwell had become more of a
liability than an asset and killed him on his yacht three months after he demanded the bailout.
On the other extreme are theories that suggest Maxwell committed suicide because of the
financial difficulties his empire faced.
Image removed: Ghislaine Maxwell, far right, Robert Maxwell’s daughter, looks on his casket is
unloaded from a plane in Jerusalem, Nov. 8, 1991. Heribert Proepper | AP
Some have taken Maxwell’s funeral held in Israel as the country’s
“official” confirmation of Maxwell’s service to the Mossad, as it was likened
to a state funeral and attended
by no less than six serving and former heads of Israeli intelligence. During his funeral
service in Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir eulogized him and
stated : “He has done more for Israel than can today be said.” Other
eulogies were given by future Prime Ministers Ehud Olmert (then Health Minister) and Shimon
Peres, with the latter also praising
Maxwell’s “services” on behalf of Israel.
Swimming in the same
swamp
As he built his business empire — and even became a member of Parliament, Maxwell was
also doing work for Israeli intelligence, as several of the Israeli companies in which he
invested became fronts for the Mossad. In addition, as he became a media mogul, he developed a
bitter rivalry with Rupert Murdoch, a close friend of Roy Cohn and an influential figure in
American and British media.
Maxwell also partnered with the Bronfman brothers, Edgar and Charles — key figures in
the Mega Group. In 1989 Maxwell and Charles Bronfman
partnered up to bid on the Jerusalem Post newspaper and the Post described
the two men as “two of the world’s leading Jewish financiers” and their
interest in the venture as “developing The Jerusalem Post and expanding its
influence among world Jewry.” A year prior, Maxwell and Bronfman
had become top shareholders in the Israeli pharmaceutical company Teva.
Maxwell also worked with Charles Bronfman’s brother Edgar in the late 1980s to
convince the Soviet Union to allow Soviet Jews to immigrate to Israel. Edgar’s efforts in
this regard
have received more attention , as it was a defining moment of his decades-long presidency
of the World Jewish Congress, of which Ronald Lauder is currently president. Yet, Maxwell had
also made considerable
use of his contacts in the Soviet government in this effort.
Maxwell also moved in the circles of the network previously described in Parts I and II in
this series. A key example of this is the May 1989
party Maxwell hosted on his yacht, the Lady Ghislaine — named for his youngest
daughter and Epstein’s future “girlfriend.” Attendees of the party included
Roy Cohn’s protege Donald Trump and his long-time law partner Tom Bolan. A close friend
of Nancy Reagan was also present, journalist Mike Wallace, as was literary agent Mort Janklow,
who represented Ronald Reagan and two of Cohn’s closest friends: journalists William
Safire and Barbara Walters.
The CEO of what would soon become Time Warner, Steve Ross, was also invited to the exclusive
event. Ross’ presence is notable, as he had built his business empire largely through
his association with New York crime lords Manny Kimmel and Abner “Longy”
Zwillman. Zwillman was a close friend of Meyer Lansky, Michael Steinhardt’s father, and
Sam Bronfman, father of Edgar and Charles Bronfman.
Another attendee of the Maxwell yacht party was former Secretary of the Navy and former
Henry Kissinger staffer Jon Lehman, who would go on to associate with the controversial
neoconservative think tank, Project for a New American Century. Prior to being secretary of the
Navy, Lehman had been president of the Abington Corporation, which hired arch-neocon Richard
Perle to manage
the portfolio of Israeli arms dealers Shlomo Zabludowicz and his son Chaim, who paid
Ablington $10,000 month. A scandal arose when those
payments continued after both Lehman and Perle joined the Reagan Department of Defense and
while Perle was working to persuade the Pentagon to buy arms from companies linked to
Zabludowicz. Perle had been part of the Reagan transition team along with Roy Cohn’s
long-time friend and law partner Tom Bolan (another Maxwell yacht guest).
In addition to Lehman, another former Kissinger staffer, Thomas Pickering was present at
Maxwell’s yacht part. Pickering played a minor role in the Iran-Contra affair and, at the
time of the Maxwell yacht party, he was U.S. ambassador to Israel. Senator John Tower (R-TX),
who allegedly conspired with Maxwell in the Mossad-bugged Promis software at the Los Alamos
laboratories, was also present. Tower died just months before Maxwell in
a suspicious plane crash .
Ghislaine Maxwell was also at this rather notable event. After her father’s mysterious
death and alleged murder on the same yacht that bears her name in 1991, she quickly packed her
bags and moved to New York City. There, she soon made the acquaintance of Jeffrey Epstein and,
a few years later, developed close ties to the Clinton family, which will be discussed in the
next installment of this series.
Jeffrey Epstein and the new “Promis”
After it was revealed that Epstein had evaded stricter sentencing in 2008 due to his links
to “intelligence,” it was the Mossad ties of Ghislaine Maxwell’s father that
have led many to speculate that Epstein’s sexual blackmail operation was sharing
incriminating information with the Mossad. Former CBS executive producer and current
journalist for the media outlet Narativ , Zev Shalev, has since claimed that he
independently confirmed that Epstein was tied directly to the Mossad.
Image removed: Donald and Melania Trump with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell at the Mar-a-Lago club,
Palm Beach, Florida in 2000. Photo | Davidoff Studios
Epstein was a long-time friend of former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who has
long-standing and deep ties to Israel’s intelligence community. Their decades-long
friendship has been the source of recent political attacks targeting Barak, who is running in
the Israeli elections against current Prime Minister Netanyahu later this year.
Barak is also close to Epstein’s chief patron and Mega Group member Leslie Wexner,
whose Wexner Foundation
gave Barak $2 million in 2004 for a still unspecified research program. According to Barak,
he was first introduced to Epstein by former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, who eulogized
Robert Maxwell at his funeral and had decades-long ties with the Bronfman family going back to
the early 1950s. Peres was also a
frequent participant in programs funded by
Leslie Wexner in Israel and
worked closely with the Mossad for decades.
In 2015, a few years after Epstein’s release from prison following his conviction for
soliciting sex from a minor in 2008, Barak formed a company with Epstein with the chief purpose
of investing in an Israeli start-up then known as Reporty. That company, now called Carbyne,
sells its signature software to 911 call centers and emergency service providers and is also
available to consumers as an app that provides emergency services with access to a
caller’s camera and location and also runs any caller’s identity through any linked
government database. It has specifically been marketed by the company itself and the Israeli
press as a
solution to mass shootings in the
United States and is already being used by at least two U.S. counties.
Israeli media reported that Epstein and Barak were among the company’s largest
investors. Barak poured millions into the company and it was recently revealed by Haaretz
that a significant amount of Barak’s total investments in Carbyne was funded by Epstein,
making him a “ de facto partner” in the company. Barak is now Carbyne’s chairman .
The company’s executive team are all former members of different branches of Israeli
intelligence, including the elite military intelligence unit, Unit 8200, that is often likened
to Israel’s equivalent of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA). Carbyne’s
current CEO, Amir Elichai, served in Unit 8200 and tapped
former Unit 8200 commander Pinchas Buchris to serve as the
company’s director and on its board. In addition to Elichai, another Carbyne co-founder,
Lital Leshem , also
served in Unit 8200 and later worked for Israeli private spy company Black Cube. Leshem now
works for a subsidiary of Erik Prince’s company Frontier Services Group, according to the
independent media outlet Narativ .
The company also includes several tie-ins to the Trump administration, including Palantir
founder and Trump ally Peter Thiel — an investor in Carbyne. In addition,
Carbyne’s board of advisers
includes former Palantir employee Trae Stephens, who was a member of the Trump transition team,
as well as former Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff.
Trump donor and New York real-estate developer Eliot Tawill is also on Carbyne’s board , alongside Ehud Barak and
Pinchas Buchris.
Narativ , which wrote the first expose on Carbyne after Epstein’s arrest, noted
that the Chinese government uses a smartphone app very similar to Carbyne as part of its mass
surveillance apparatus, even though the original purpose of the app was for improved emergency
reporting. According to Narativ , the Chinese Carbyne-equivalent “monitors every
aspect of a user’s life, including personal conversations, power usage, and tracks a
user’s movement.”
Given the history of Robert Maxwell — the father of Epstein’s long-time
“girlfriend” and young-girl-procuring madam, Ghislaine Maxwell — in promoting
the sale of Carbyne’s modified Promis software, which was also marketed as a tool to
improve government efficacy but was actually a tool of mass surveillance for the benefit of
Israeli intelligence, the overlap between Carbyne and Promis is troubling and warrants further
investigation.
It is also worth noting that Unit 8200-connected tech start-ups are being widely integrated
into U.S. companies and have developed close ties to the U.S. military-industrial complex, with
Carbyne being just one example of that trend.
As MintPress
previously reported , Unit 8200-linked outfits like Team8 have recently hired former
National Security Agency (NSA) Director Mike Rogers as a senior advisor and gained prominent
Silicon Valley figures, including former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, as key investors. Many
American technology companies, from Intel to Google to Microsoft,
have merged with several Unit 8200-connected start-ups in recent years and have been moving
many key jobs and operations to Israel with
backing from key Republican donors like Paul Singer . Many of those same companies,
particularly Google and Microsoft, are also major U.S. government contractors.
Who was
Epstein really working for?
Even though Jeffrey Epstein appears to have had ties to the Mossad, this series has revealed
that the networks to which Epstein was connected were not Mossad-exclusive, as many of the
individuals close to Epstein — Lesie Wexner, for instance — were part of a
mob-connected class of oligarchs with deep ties to both the U.S. and Israel. As was discussed
in Part I of this series, the sharing of “intelligence” (i.e., blackmail) between
intelligence agencies and the same organized crime network connected to the Mega Group goes
back decades. With Leslie Wexner of the Mega Group as Epstein’s chief patron, as opposed
to a financier with direct ties to the Mossad, a similar relationship is more than likely in
the case of the sexual blackmail operation that Epstein ran.
Given that intelligence agencies in both the U.S. and elsewhere often conduct covert
operations for the benefit of oligarchs and large corporations as opposed to “national
security interest,” Epstein’s ties to the Mega Group suggest that this group holds
a unique status and influence in both the governments of the U.S. and of Israel, as well as in
other countries (e.g., Russia) that were not explored in this report. This is by virtue of
their role as key political donors in both countries, as well as the fact that several of them
own powerful companies or financial institutions in both countries. Indeed, many members of the
Mega Group have deep ties to Israel’s political class, including to Netanyahu and Ehud
Barak as well as to now-deceased figures like Shimon Peres, and to members of the American
political class.
Ultimately, the picture painted by the evidence is not a direct tie to a single intelligence
agency but a web linking key members of the Mega Group, politicians, and officials in both the
U.S. and Israel, and an organized-crime network with deep business and intelligence ties in
both nations.
Though this series has so far focused on the ties of this network to main Republican Party
affiliates, the next and final installment will reveal the ties developed between this web and
the Clintons. As will be revealed, despite the Clintons’ willingness to embrace corrupt
dealings during the span of their political careers, their mostly friendly relationship with
this network still saw them use the power of sexual blackmail to obtain certain policy
decisions that were favorable to their personal and financial interests but not to the
Clintons’ political reputation or agendas.
Editor’s note | The original version of this article incorrectly stated that Rafi
Eitan was interested in repurposing the American-made Promise software to restore his standing
in Israel’s intelligence community caused by the fall-out from the Pollard Affair. The
Pollard Affair occurred three years after Eitan had succeeded in repurposing the software and
MintPress has removed that incorrect information from the article and regrets the
error.
This article also originally neglected to mention that Eitan, at the time of his
collaboration with Earl Brian to repurpose the Promis software, was the director of the
now-defunct Israeli military intelligence agency Lekem at the time of those events and that
information has been added to the story.
Feature photo | Graphic by Claudio Cabrera
Whitney Webb is a MintPress News journalist based in Chile. She has contributed to
several independent media outlets including Global Research, EcoWatch, the Ron Paul Institute
and 21st Century Wire, among others. She has made several radio and television appearances and
is the 2019 winner of the Serena Shim Award for Uncompromised Integrity in
Journalism.
Republish our stories! MintPress News is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 International License.
"... A black man's body is found wrapped in chains at the bottom of the Detroit River. The police were saying it was an accidental death caused by him stealing more chains than he could swim with. ..."
The likelihood of Epstein committing suicide reminds me of two other "suicide" stories.
... ... ...
Finally, there is a greatly modified joke from my long ago misspent youth. A black man's
body is found wrapped in chains at the bottom of the Detroit River. The police were saying it
was an accidental death caused by him stealing more chains than he could swim with.
Global market power and its macroeconomic implications
By Federico Diez, Daniel Leigh and Suchanan Tambunlertchai
The rise in the market power of large firms is assumed to affect economic activity, but
measuring either market power or its effects is challenging. Based on firm-level data for 74
countries, this column shows that market power has increased around the world, driven mostly
by 'superstar' firms. Higher markups are initially associated with increasing investment and
innovation, but the reverse is true when market power becomes too strong. The share of income
paid to workers also declines with rising market power.
"... Cute – immediate goal, humanitarian aid so everybody gets a couple of free meals and some medicine. Next job, roll back socialism. At which time all the poor will not be able to afford to eat or get medicine. But who'll give a fuck then, right? Because corporate America will already be in charge by then, kicking ass and taking names and privatizing everything so that even Guaido will not be able to say he owns anything in Venezuela but his house. And of course, the equation for Venezuelans has not changed a bit: Captain America really wants to help, but it has to be under Guaido – they're really, really stuck on him for some reason. So it's Guaido or starvation. What's it gonna be, Venezuela? ..."
"In a post-Maduro Venezuela, the U.S. will remove sanctions, foster pro-market and
pro-business reforms and help rebuild confidence, Ross said. An immediate priority will be
providing humanitarian aid, while a medium-term focus will be rolling back socialism, Ross
said."
They are even promising to privatize garbage collection and sewer system! In the
medium-term focus, of course. Immediate focus on reign of terror, while handing out tins of
spam to the swarming masses. After that, setting up slave markets, just like in Tripoli!
Cute – immediate goal, humanitarian aid so everybody gets a couple of free meals and
some medicine. Next job, roll back socialism. At which time all the poor will not be able to
afford to eat or get medicine. But who'll give a fuck then, right? Because corporate America
will already be in charge by then, kicking ass and taking names and privatizing everything so
that even Guaido will not be able to say he owns anything in Venezuela but his house. And of
course, the equation for Venezuelans has not changed a bit: Captain America really wants to
help, but it has to be under Guaido – they're really, really stuck on him for some
reason. So it's Guaido or starvation. What's it gonna be, Venezuela?
I hope somebody else will help them out. I'd dearly love to see Venezuela get on its feet
without American assistance, and then tell the entire Yoo Ess of Aye to kiss its ass. No more
heavy crude for your refineries, maybe you can turn them into basket shops, what say? No
thanks; we'll buy our food elsewhere, if it's all the same to you. Oh, and Bolsonaro? Eat a
bag of shit. Invite your Colombian buddy over for dinner
Yes, I meant to remark on that as well. It's funny that the western regime-change model
relies on countries loaned huge amounts of money to be enslaved by their honesty, and
actually pay it back.
"... This is the first major expansion of sanctions against a western hemisphere nation by the US in over 30 years, and is intended to put Venezuela into the same level of economic isolation as similarly restricted Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and Syria. ..."
President Trump signed an executive order late Monday imposing a
full economic embargo against Venezuela , freezing all government assets in the US and
forbidding all transactions of any Venezuelan officials.
This is the first major expansion of sanctions against a western hemisphere nation by the
US in over 30 years, and is intended to put Venezuela into the same level of economic
isolation as similarly restricted Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and Syria.
The order cites human rights abuses, and the fact that President Maduro is still in power
in Venezuela, even though the US recognized opposition leader Guaido as the rightful ruler of
the country.
This is the latest US effort to try to impose regime change in Venezuela, after a failed
military coup earlier this year. It's not clear how broadly the US intends to enforce the
sanctions, for example if they intend to use military force to prohibit naval trade from the
Venezuelan coast
Trump had recently told reporters he was considering a naval blockade or full "quarantine"
of Venezuela as the latest effort to try to impose regime change, something the US announced
it had recognized month ago but which so far hasn't happened.
President
Maduro denounced the comments , and called on his ambassador to complain to the UN
Security Council about the "illegal" US threat to blockade the Venezuelan coastline. Maduro
added it was "clearly illegal."
Clearly illegal as a practical matter is likely to be very much beside the point for US
policy. Previous indications were that Trump had become bored with Venezuela because of the
lack of progress, and it's likely he'll only try to impose a regime change in this manner if
he believes it will work.
"... Except in a few Nevada counties, being a prostitute of any age, being a customer of a prostitute, procuring and arranging contacts between prostitutes and customer, running a prostitution business and soliciting sex for money are crimes no matter what the age of the prostitute in every state and territory of the United States including Little St James Island and the states of New York and Florida. ..."
@Fran TaubmanExcept in a few Nevada counties, being a prostitute of any age, being a
customer of a prostitute, procuring and arranging contacts between prostitutes and customer,
running a prostitution business and soliciting sex for money are crimes no matter what the
age of the prostitute in every state and territory of the United States including Little St
James Island and the states of New York and Florida.
The girls were prostitutes paid for sex. Epstein, Maxwell, the pilot Nadia and others were
procurers and arrangers of the prostitution.
As the Times goes on to note, even after his 2008 conviction on charges of soliciting
prostitution from a minor, Epstein was able to ingratiate himself with the scientific community
, attracting a "glittering array of prominent scientists."
They included the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Murray Gell-Mann, who discovered the
quark; the theoretical physicist and best-selling author Stephen Hawking ; the paleontologist
and evolutionary biologist Stephen J. Gould; Oliver Sacks, the neurologist and best-selling
author; George M. Church, a molecular engineer who has worked to identify genes that could be
altered to create superior humans; and the M.I.T. theoretical physicist Frank Wilczek, a
Nobel laureate. - New York
Times
Scientists had regular parties at Epstein's Manhattan mansion, drinking Dom Pérignon
and other expensive libations. The wealthy financier also hosted buffet lunchest at Harvard's
Program for Evolutionary Dynamics - to which he contributed $6.5 million in order to get it off
the ground.
Harvard cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker says he was invited to "salons and coffee
klatsches" at which Epstein would 'hold court.'
While some of Mr. Pinker's peers hailed Mr. Epstein as brilliant, Mr. Pinker described him
as an "intellectual impostor."
"He would abruptly change the subject, A.D.D.-style, dismiss an observation with an
adolescent wisecrack," Mr. Pinker said.
Another scientist cultivated by Mr. Epstein, Jaron Lanier, a prolific author who is a
founding father of virtual reality, said that Mr. Epstein's ideas did not amount to science,
in that they did not lend themselves to rigorous proof. Mr. Lanier said Mr. Epstein had once
hypothesized that atoms behaved like investors in a marketplace.
Mr. Lanier said he had declined any funding from Mr. Epstein and that he had met with him
only once after Mr. Epstein's 2008 guilty plea. - New York
Times
So.... Epstein lied " in an effort to worm his way into the 'upper echelons of society.'
"
So the "upper echelons of society" include Lanier, "the virtual-reality creator and
author," two unnamed "award winning" scientists, and one unnamed "advisor" to large companies
and wealthy individuals.
So, what "awards" did these unnamed scientists win? Employee of the Month, entitling them
to a reserved parking space for a week? As for "advisor," ****, I can claim to be an advisor
to wealthy individuals. ("Trust me. Go with the pink toenail polish.") I have also from time
to time offered my advice to large companies. ("Go **** yourself.")
Further, Epstein didn't "worm his way" into anything. His mode of operation was apparently
to entice/entrap his "victims" and keep them on a short leash forever after.
This whole piece is one of the most transparently disingenuous things I've ever read. They
make the guy sound like he was waiting tables in SoHo and social climbing (apparently among
people of little or no importance) to try to get a part in an off-Broadway production--by
telling funny stories.
"... Evidence has emerged that the U.S. State Department is tied to a child trafficking operation involving Billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. shared the tail number of his Bell Long Ranger 206L3 helicopter (tail number N474AW) with a U.S. State Department OV-10D Bronco ..."
"... . Descriptions of sex between adult males and underage females by XXX company employees in Bosnia in the 2000-2002 time frame coincides with descriptions of sex . on .. aircraft and [at] residences in Palm Beach, Florida; New Mexico; and on the island of Little Saint James in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Among the "Jane Does" filing suit against the U.S. government for concluding can anyone get the details of these suits? ..."
"... So so disgusting. First there was the catholic church pedophile scandal. Then there is the Epstein scandal ..."
Evidence has emerged that the U.S. State Department is tied to a child trafficking operation involving Billionaire pedophile
Jeffrey Epstein. shared the tail number of his Bell Long Ranger 206L3 helicopter (tail number N474AW) with a U.S. State Department
OV-10D Bronco. According to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) registration database. Descriptions of sex
between adult males and underage females by XXX company employees in Bosnia in the 2000-2002 time frame coincides with descriptions
of sex . on .. aircraft and [at] residences in Palm Beach, Florida; New Mexico; and on the island of Little Saint James in the
U.S. Virgin Islands. Among the "Jane Does" filing suit against the U.S. government for concluding can anyone get the details of
these suits?
"... That was while Robert Mueller ran the Bureau, which means everything about Epstein's blackmail and kompromat operation has been tucked safely away out of sight in FBI files for at least a decade. Much longer, new evidence shows. ..."
"... *CIA Acknowledged in 2003, It Knew that Ghislaine Maxwell's Late Father was a Major Foreign Intelligence Agent Operating Inside the U.S. ..."
"... That Robert Maxwell was a ruthless, corrupt, tax-dodging international businessman who served as an Israeli agent is highly probable. ..."
"... For the first time, Maxwell had failed to get his own way. He started to threaten and bluster. He then demanded that, for past services, he should receive immediately a quick fix of £400million to bale him out of his financial difficulties. ..."
"... Instead of providing the money, a small group of Mossad officers set about planning his murder. They feared that he was going to publicly expose all Mossad had done in the time he worked for them. They knew that he was gradually becoming mentally unstable and paranoid. He was taking a cocktail of drugs - Halcion and Zanax - which had serious side effects. ..."
"... Then Maxwell was contacted. He was told to fly to Gibraltar, go aboard the Lady Ghislaine and sail to the Canary Islands. There at sea he would receive his £400million quick fix in the form of a banker's draft. Maxwell did as he was told. ..."
"... As Victor Ostrovsky, a former Mossad agent told us: "On that cold night Mossad's problems with Robert Maxwell were over." ..."
"... The incontrovertible facts about his murder are contained in a previously-unseen autopsy report by Britain's then-leading forensic pathologist Dr Iain West and Israel State Pathologist Dr Yehuda Hiss. Of all the documents in our possession, these reports confirm the truth about Maxwell's death. ..."
"... Boy that Mueller has had a busy career hasn't he? Didn't he start out in Chicago where he gave Whitey Bulgar cover for being a mob boss? Then there's his cover up before and after 9/11. The weapons of mass destruction that he said Saddam had. The anthrax prosecution, Epstein's pedophilia cover up, HSBC and now he is trying to cover Hillary's buttocks. And maybe Obama's? I'm sure I've missed a few things that he did or didn't do. ..."
"... Acosta was told to stand down by someone at the top of the food chain. Mueller. Ugh what a slimy piece of work he is. But not to the Russia Gaters. Oh no. "He is a highly decorated marine who takes no guff from anyone. ..."
"... In that time, he had free access to Margaret Thatcher's Downing Street, to Ronald Reagan's White House, to the Kremlin and to the corridors of power throughout Europe. ..."
"... Inquiring minds want to know did Maxwell have access to Margaret and Ron because they liked him or because he had something on them? ..."
"... Epstein is the destruction of the Deep State. ..."
"... That pedophelia and politics scandal, better known as the Franklin Coverup, made the papers for a few months, too, before it was made to go away. Similarly, a couple of the operators served some time on reduced charges after that one. ..."
"... The two main suspects in the Bush, Sr. White House child ring were Craig Spence and Lawrence E. King Jr. King sang the National anthem at two GOP national conventions. He served time in jail for bank fraud. Spence was a Republican lobbyist before he committed suicide. Several of his partners went to jail for being involved in the adult part of the homosexual prostitution ring. ..."
"... Mueller's scrupulous avoidance of the CIA link in his prosecution of Manuel Noriega and his diversion of the PanAm 103 bombing and framing of two Libyans. Bobby Mueller has been a real go to guy when the security establishment needs a phony investigation. ..."
"... Bobby Mueller has been a real go to guy when the security establishment needs a phony investigation. ..."
"... The anthrax investigation is the most serious of his crimes. Mueller is being sued by his lead investigator in that case. ..."
"... Every now and then, here and there the curtain lifts for a moment and the political elite of a country, the business elite, the spy services, the military, and organized crime are revealed to be all working together, indeed practically joined at the hip ..."
"... partnership started during the early Cold War with US intelligence officers facilitating the drug trade out of Turkey and Burma through Europe. That soon spread to the Americas and globally. Covert operations such as Gladio, Condor, and the Safari Club, and associated banks (Franklin National Bank, BCCI, Riggs Bank, HSBC, etc.) produced massive human rights violations, transnational terrorism and governmental corruption. The CIA's secret wars provided funds and official cover for private-public sector alliance of criminals, bankers and spooks around the world. ..."
"... The CIA, MI6 and Mossad ran overlapping coordinated operations using privateers, paramilitaries and organized crime networks that consumed vast amounts of cash generated by money laundering mechanisms. Enriched by the looting of the former Soviet Union, along with the infusion of Arab oil money (the Saudi Yamamah slush fund), the "Octopus" became the instrument of Oligarchs that have thoroughly corrupted western governments and secret services. ..."
"... The Snowden release included a number of documents that illustrate the on-line entrapment and political disruption activities run by the two main communications intelligence agencies. ..."
"... Epstein recruits young girls, throws parties where he invites potential hedge fund clients, lets nature take its course and films the proceedings, extracts blackmail in the form of investments to his (largely fake) hedge fund, which actually just buys an index fund (no actual fund management required). He takes a percentage from the coerced investments. Nobody talks because they have too much to lose. No suspicious payments to raise eyebrows at the IRS. ..."
"... Epstein brought in the clients. The CIA/MI-6/Mossad provided necessary cover from the FBI and local cops - then, three or four agencies shared the intelligence take, as they had for decades from Robert Maxwell's operations. ..."
"... For Ghislaine, it was simply carrying on the family business for fun and profit. For the spooks, it was business as usual going back to the Green House, the Berlin bordello founded in the the 1870s by Wilhelm Steiber, a Prussian Police section chief, to provide useful intelligence to Bismarck's Military Intelligence, which he reorganized. ..."
"... Epstein is also well acquainted with University President Lawrence H. Summers. The two serve together on the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations, two elite international relations organizations. ..."
"... Epstein's relationships within the academy are remarkable since the tycoon, who has amassed his fortune by managing the wealth of billionaires from his private Caribbean island, does not hold a bachelor's degree. ..."
"... There's a rocky road ahead for Larry Summers. Summers introduces Epstein into the Harvard fold, but becomes reckless with his newly-refined Neoliberalism and his opinions concerning "lady scholars." ..."
That was while Robert Mueller ran the Bureau, which means everything about Epstein's blackmail and kompromat operation
has been tucked safely away out of sight in FBI files for at least a decade. Much longer, new evidence shows.
The real question is, why did the FBI wait for more than a decade to bust Epstein and Maxwell?
Epstein and Maxwell came to the attention of the FBI in 1996, when, curiously, the Bureau never acted on an accusation that
they had together sexually abused a 15 year old girl in a bedroom inside Epstein's Manhattan townhouse. Documents in a recent
law suit filed by an alleged victim, Maria Farmer, show that the FBI had been aware of Epstein and Maxwell's child abuse activities
in New York for at least a dozen years before Epstein was finally charged in 2008 with much-reduced Florida state offenses.
https://www.yourtango.com/2019323698/who-maria-farmer-latest-woman-accus...
Farmer claims she reported her sexual assault to New York police and the FBI in 1996. "To my knowledge, I was the first
person to report Maxwell and Epstein to the FBI," she wrote in her affidavit."
*CIA Acknowledged in 2003, It Knew that Ghislaine Maxwell's Late Father was a Major Foreign Intelligence Agent Operating
Inside the U.S.
Previously, Robert Maxwell, Ghislaine's father, had for many years been known to have been involved in high-level espionage
in the United States, as detailed in a 2003 publication of the CIA Center for the Study of Intelligence, The Intelligence Officer's
Bookshelf . Therein, the CIA reviewer of a biography by British author Gordon Thomas acknowledged about Maxwell:
https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-pub...
That Robert Maxwell was a ruthless, corrupt, tax-dodging international businessman who served as an Israeli agent is
highly probable.
For the deeper background to the Epstein-Maxwell multinational blackmail, coverup and kompromat operation, we have to
look at the events that led up to the 1991 death of Robert Maxwell. A summary of the Maxwell bio by its authors recounts:
British Publisher Robert Maxwell
Was Mossad Spy
By Gordon Thomas And Martin Dillon
The Mirror - UK
12-6-2002
[ . . .]
Eleven years after former Daily Mirror owner Robert Maxwell plunged from his luxury yacht to a watery grave, his death still
arouses intense interest.
Many different theories have circulated about what really happened on board the Lady Ghislaine that night in May 1991.
[ . . . ]
The Jewish millionaire and former Labour MP [born Ludvik Hoch
in Czechoslovakia] died the way he had lived - threatening.
He had threatened his wife. Threatened his children. Threatened the staff of this newspaper.
But finally he issued one threat too many - he threatened Mossad.
He told them that unless they gave him £400million to save his crumbling empire, he would expose all he had done for them.
In that time, he had free access to Margaret Thatcher's Downing Street, to Ronald Reagan's White House, to the Kremlin and
to the corridors of power throughout Europe.
On top of that he had built himself a position of power within the crime families of eastern Europe, teaching them how to
funnel their vast wealth from drugs, arms smuggling and prostitution to banks in safe havens around the globe.
Maxwell passed on all the secrets he learned to Mossad in Tel Aviv. In turn, they tolerated his excesses, vanities and insatiable
appetite for a luxurious lifestyle and women.
He told his controllers who they should target and how they should do it. He appointed himself as Israel's unofficial ambassador
to the Soviet Bloc. Mossad saw the advantage in that.
[ . . . ]
The more successful Maxwell became the more risks he took and the more dangerous he was to Mossad. At the same time, the
very public side of Maxwell, who then owned 400 companies, began to unwind.
He spent lavishly and lost money on deals. The more he lost, the more he tried to claw money from the banks. Then he saw
a way out of his problems.
He was approached by Vladimir Kryuchkov, head of the KGB. Spymaster and tycoon met in the utmost secrecy in the Kremlin.
Kryuchkov had an extraordinary proposal. He wanted Maxwell to help orchestrate the overthrow of Mikhail Gorbachev, the reformist
Soviet leader. That would bring to an end a fledgling democracy and a return to the Cold War days.
In return, Maxwell's massive debts would be wiped out by a grateful Kryuchkov, who planned to replace Gorbachev. The KGB
chief wanted Maxwell to use the Lady Ghislaine, named after Maxwell's daughter, as a meeting place between the Russian plotters,
Mossad chiefs and Israel's top politicians.
The plan was for the Israelis to go to Washington and say that democracy could not work in Russia and that it was better
to allow the country to return to a modified form of communism, which America could help to control. In return, Kryuchkov would
guarantee to free hundreds of thousands of Jews and dissidents in the Soviet republics.
Kryuchkov told Maxwell that he would be seen as a saviour of all those Jews. It was a proposal he could not refuse. But
when he put it to his Mossad controllers they were horrified. They said Israel would have no part in such a madcap plan.
For the first time, Maxwell had failed to get his own way. He started to threaten and bluster. He then demanded that,
for past services, he should receive immediately a quick fix of £400million to bale him out of his financial difficulties.
Instead of providing the money, a small group of Mossad officers set about planning his murder. They feared that he
was going to publicly expose all Mossad had done in the time he worked for them. They knew that he was gradually becoming mentally
unstable and paranoid. He was taking a cocktail of drugs - Halcion and Zanax - which had serious side effects.
The group of Mossad plotters sensed, like Solomon, he could bring their temple tumbling down and cause incalculable harm
to Israel. The plan to kill him was prepared in the utmost secrecy. A four-man squad was briefed.
Then Maxwell was contacted. He was told to fly to Gibraltar, go aboard the Lady Ghislaine and sail to the Canary Islands.
There at sea he would receive his £400million quick fix in the form of a banker's draft. Maxwell did as he was told.
On the night of November 4, 1991, the Lady Ghislaine, one of the world's biggest yachts, was at sea.
[ . . . ]
As Victor Ostrovsky, a former Mossad agent told us: "On that cold night Mossad's problems with Robert Maxwell were over."
The incontrovertible facts about his murder are contained in a previously-unseen autopsy report by Britain's then-leading
forensic pathologist Dr Iain West and Israel State Pathologist Dr Yehuda Hiss. Of all the documents in our possession, these
reports confirm the truth about Maxwell's death.
Gordon Thomas & Martin Dillon are authors of The Assassination of Robert Maxwell: Israel's Super Spy, published by Robson
Books.
The obvious question, why did the U.S. government let these intelligence crimes continue for decades, isn't being asked. The
answer is almost self-evident. Information and leverage obtained by Maxwell-Epstein and Co. was far too valuable to its several
operators to let it all end too soon.
leap out at me as suggesting how Epstein connects to much bigger subjects. First is the assertion that Maxwell was
... teaching them how to funnel their vast wealth from drugs, arms smuggling and prostitution to banks in safe havens around
the globe.
This area of trafficking and money laundering directly connects to Mueller and his essential exoneration of
HSBC .
The other quotation that suggests the importance of money laundering is here:
The plan was for the Israelis to go to Washington and say that democracy could not work in Russia and that it was better
to allow the country to return to a modified form of communism, which America could help to control.
The life's work of
Antony Sutton at Stanford's Hoover Institution shows that American industry was ALWAYS controlling communism as well as Soviet
industrial development, and that a trend toward social democracy, represented by Gorbachev, would have put an end to that control.
@Linda Wood his money laundering and blackmailing activities. While the review confirms that Robert Maxwell was for decades
a major Mossad agent actively setting up operations and cover in the United States and the UK, I can only surmise that the spreading
political influence of Eastern European organized crime networks and child honey traps are things that the Agency didn't want
to discuss publicly in 2003.
As for Mueller, let's not forget that he was FBI Director and before that the head of the Criminal Division at Main Justice
at the time that global "black finance" grew along with the catastrophic spread of multinational crime and terrorism. BCCI, Iran-Contra,
9/11, and the rise of transnational Oligarchs happened on his watch. As the Chief Law Enforcement Officer in the United States
at the time, it is hard to imagine anyone more responsibility for the ultimate consequences than Robert Mueller. There is perhaps
someone who bears ultimate responsibility, the President who appointed Mueller: George Herbert Walker Bush and his lesser son,
Shrub, who promoted him.
... wouldn't you assume that this entire affair is an ongoing Mossad operation, which may or may not have concluded? The US
IC is just another operative inside the envelope, but Mossad owns the assets and the intellectual property. I think we could assume
that some of this is automated and Mossad has ongoing leverage still in play.
The obvious question, why did the U.S. government let these intelligence crimes continue for decades, isn't being asked.
The answer is almost self-evident. Information and leverage obtained by Maxwell-Epstein and Co. was far too valuable to its
several operators to let it all end too soon.
.
Mossad's legendary blackmail traps ensnared even high-level deep state authorities and made them pliable. The recent history
of United States foreign policy is an enigma that can only be solved when that assumption is inserted. Once the assumption is
in place, it opens like a Pandora's box. Don't you find that to be the case?
In a recent investigation I presented the case that British banking and financial giant HSBC conspired with banking institutions
with documented links to terrorist financing, including those responsible for helping bankroll the 9/11 attacks.
SUNDAY, JULY 29, 2012
Black Dossier: HSBC & Terrorist Finance
Moral equivalencies abound. After all, when American secret state agencies manage drug flows or direct terrorist proxies
to attack official enemies it's not quite the same as battling terror or crime.
Pounding home that point, a new report by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations accused HSBC of exposing "the
U.S. financial system to a wide array of money laundering, drug trafficking, and terrorist financing risks due to poor anti-money
laundering (AML) controls."
That 335-page report, "U.S. Vulnerabilities to Money Laundering, Drugs, and Terrorist Financing: HSBC Case History," (large
pdf file available
here ) was issued after a year-long Senate investigation zeroed-in on the bank's U.S. affiliate, HSBC Bank USA, N.A., better
known as HBUS.
Drilling down, we learned that amongst the "services" offered by HSBC subsidiaries and correspondent banks were sweet deals
with financial entities with terrorist ties; the transportation of billions of dollars in cash by plane and armored car through
their London Banknotes division; the clearing of sequentially-numbered travelers checks through dodgy Cayman Islands accounts
for Mexican drug lords and Russian mafiosi.
From richly-appointed suites at Canary Wharf, London, the bank's "smartest guys in the room" handed some of the most violent
gangsters on earth the financial wherewithal to organize their respective industries: global crime.
A case in point. In 2008 alone the Senate revealed that the bank's Cayman Islands branch handled some 50,000 client accounts
(all without benefit of offices or staff on Grand Cayman, mind you), yet still managed to ship some $7 billion (£10.9bn) in
cash from Mexico into the U.S. Now that's creative accounting!...
@Linda Wood HSBC, huh--there must be some clever name for it, which deserves no research.
what an eloquent article you presented. Brief but right on target. It isn't just sex, drugs and rock and roll. Now it is drugs
- money -sexual perversion--and perhaps worse? Rumors are flying about what video on the Weiner laptop showed. It is strictly
heresay, but a core of folks seem to believe the suspicions are possible.
snoopydawg on Thu, 07/11/2019 - 8:48pm
Boy that Mueller has had a busy career
hasn't he? Didn't he start out in Chicago where he gave Whitey Bulgar cover for being a mob boss? Then there's his
cover up before and after 9/11. The weapons of mass destruction that he said Saddam had. The anthrax prosecution, Epstein's pedophilia
cover up, HSBC and now he is trying to cover Hillary's buttocks. And maybe Obama's? I'm sure I've missed a few things that he
did or didn't do.
Acosta is saying that if he hadn't made the plea deal then Epstein would never have served any time in
prison. Well he actually only slept there since he got to leave every day for work and then there's the massages he got after
his busy day at work. But there were more than 80 pages that the Feds wrote on his escapades so I think that story he told congress
is true. Acosta was told to stand down by someone at the top of the food chain. Mueller. Ugh what a slimy piece of work he
is. But not to the Russia Gaters. Oh no. "He is a highly decorated marine who takes no guff from anyone.
In that time, he had free access to Margaret Thatcher's Downing Street, to Ronald Reagan's White House, to the Kremlin
and to the corridors of power throughout Europe.
Inquiring minds want to know did Maxwell have access to Margaret and Ron because they liked him or because he had something
on them?
Great information! The more I learn the more I need a shower.
is how I've been feeling all week from reading about this, just more and more demoralized when I think about the depravation
of our so-called "leadership." What is it that we're supposed to think of as the new normal after this behavior?
That pedophelia and politics scandal, better known as the Franklin Coverup, made the papers for a few months, too, before
it was made to go away. Similarly, a couple of the operators served some time on reduced charges after that one.
The two main suspects in the Bush, Sr. White House child ring were Craig Spence and Lawrence E. King Jr. King sang the
National anthem at two GOP national conventions. He served time in jail for bank fraud. Spence was a Republican lobbyist before
he committed suicide. Several of his partners went to jail for being involved in the adult part of the homosexual prostitution
ring.
Mueller's scrupulous avoidance of the CIA link in his prosecution of Manuel Noriega and his diversion of the PanAm 103
bombing and framing of two Libyans. Bobby Mueller has been a real go to guy when the security establishment needs a phony investigation.
Bobby Mueller has been a real go to guy when the security establishment needs a phony investigation.
The anthrax investigation is the most serious of his crimes. Mueller is being
sued by his lead investigator in that case.
Because researchers in our biological weapons labs went public with what they were doing, and where such research was being
done in the U.S., we learned the CIA was one of several outfits doing biological weapons research.
But Mueller exonerated all of them, including the CIA, with no explanation and only focused on a lone vaccine researcher at
the Army lab when journalists began to ask why no one had been indicted after seven years of investigation, at which point the
FBI attempted to harass the suspect into committing suicide.
Every now and then, here and there the curtain lifts for a moment and the political elite of a country, the business elite,
the spy services, the military, and organized crime are revealed to be all working together, indeed practically joined at the
hip.
partnership started during the early Cold War with US intelligence officers facilitating the drug trade out of Turkey and
Burma through Europe. That soon spread to the Americas and globally. Covert operations such as Gladio, Condor, and the Safari
Club, and associated banks (Franklin National Bank, BCCI, Riggs Bank, HSBC, etc.) produced massive human rights violations, transnational
terrorism and governmental corruption. The CIA's secret wars provided funds and official cover for private-public sector alliance
of criminals, bankers and spooks around the world.
This "dark alliance" assumed a political and economic life of its own beyond its original intent to counter communist movements.
By the Vietnam War, Agency operators were running most of the heroin trade in the world through proprietary airlines, banks and
logistics companies. In the mid-1970s, CIA Director Bush expanded privatization with Saudi funding in his Safari Club deal that
eventually morphed into Al Qaeda and ISIS.
The CIA, MI6 and Mossad ran overlapping coordinated operations using privateers, paramilitaries and organized crime networks
that consumed vast amounts of cash generated by money laundering mechanisms. Enriched by the looting of the former Soviet Union,
along with the infusion of Arab oil money (the Saudi Yamamah slush fund), the "Octopus" became the instrument of Oligarchs
that have thoroughly corrupted western governments and secret services.
Multinational honey trap operations such as Maxwell-Epstein & Co. are an inevitable and continuing part of this privatization
and criminalization of intelligence that stretches back to the days of Tom Braden and Cord Meyer handing out stacks of greenbacks
to Mafiosi on the Corsican Docks.
The Snowden release included a number of documents that illustrate the on-line entrapment and political disruption activities
run by the two main communications intelligence agencies.
"Honey-trap; a great option. Very successful, when it works" (GCHQ, UK training program slide)
Without quoting the whole thing (which is worth a read):
Epstein recruits young girls, throws parties where he invites potential hedge fund clients, lets nature take its course
and films the proceedings, extracts blackmail in the form of investments to his (largely fake) hedge fund, which actually just
buys an index fund (no actual fund management required). He takes a percentage from the coerced investments. Nobody talks because
they have too much to lose. No suspicious payments to raise eyebrows at the IRS.
There's no need to invoke the Mafia/Russia/Mossad/CIA/etc, that's just needlessly overfitting.
Except such an operation would be quite attractive to intelligence services. Maybe they were in on the ground floor, maybe
they made Epstein an offer he couldn't refuse once they heard about it.
Epstein brought in the clients. The CIA/MI-6/Mossad provided necessary cover from the FBI and local cops - then,
three or four agencies shared the intelligence take, as they had for decades from Robert Maxwell's operations.
For Ghislaine, it was simply carrying on the family business for fun and profit. For the spooks, it was business as usual
going back to the Green House, the Berlin bordello founded in the the 1870s by Wilhelm Steiber, a Prussian Police section chief,
to provide useful intelligence to Bismarck's Military Intelligence, which he reorganized.
Steiber is considered the father of modern espionage. His methods were vastly influential, and he attracted students from London,
St. Petersburg to Tokyo. Each put their own national spin on the science of sexual blackmail. As for the Japanese, they are among
the most interesting and innovative in their use of a parallel network of privatized intelligence services incorporating underworld
Yakuzi groups alongside conventional military intelligence units. Using compromise, they gained and maintained control over Imperial
Japan and its Colonies: https://weaponsandwarfare.com/2019/03/15/eastern-peril/
To realize these divinely inspired ambitions, Japan needed a modern espionage system. Adopting the German model, Japanese
officials were sent to study under Wilhelm Stieber in the mid-1870s. Over the next decade Japan built up separate army and
naval intelligence services, each with an accompanying branch of secret military police (Kempeitai for the army and Tokeitai
for the navy). These latter organizations also provided an excellent counter-espionage service. However, where the Japanese
were unique was in the use of spies belonging to unofficial secret societies working alongside or independently of the official
intelligence agencies. These shadowy institutions were ultra-nationalist by nature, drawing their membership from a cross-section
of Japanese society, including the military, politics, industry and Yakuza underworld. Under ruthless leadership, their henchmen
would spy on, subvert and corrupt Japan's Far East neighbours.
For more on Steiber and his superior, von Hinckeldey, methods of international counter-insurgency, espionage, and political
policing included deception and a forerunner of today's internet surveillance:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2006/11/29/275653/-
While armies are essential to the maintenance of autocracy, the preservation of dynastic rule and the prevention of democracy
requires an effective secret police. The suppression of its middle-class constitutionalists [during the 1840s] was followed
by the expansion of the Prussian political police under Karl Ludwig Friedrich von Hinckeldey.
Appointed police president of Berlin in late 1848, Hinckeldey was an innovator of many of the features of modern systematic
political policing. Among the tactics that he introduced with his new police system in Berlin was the "Litfass columns". Named
for Ernst Litfass, Frederick William's court printer, he had dozens of these large poles erected in strategic spots around
Berlin. The public posting of political notices was then banned. By application to a state office for a waiver, however, the
columns could be used to display messages. The police dutifully recorded the names of all who had applied. A. Richie, Faust's
Metropolis: A History of Berlin, New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 1998 at p.134.
LEGACY OF THE LITFASS COLUMNS: A similar ploy was later adopted by the People's Republic of China. In the mid-1980s, the
Communist authorities at first appear to tolerate the operation of a so-called Democracy Wall, where "dissidents" in Beijing
could post political writings, initially, without being arrested. Similar walls then sprung up under the noses of the authorities
in other Chinese cities. For this apparent opening to democracy, the Deng regime much applauded, particularly by some in the
Reagan-Bush Administration, eager to legitimize the regime and its growing commercial ties with U.S. corporations. Eventually,
many of those who had availed themselves of the wall to post political messages were, of course, arrested in the roundup of
hundreds of thousands of democracy supporters that followed the Tienamen Square massacre. The impression of anonymity and "freedom"
conveyed by the Internet, of course, presents a similar opportunity for police to cast a wide net for identifying persons and
organizations who may not hold favor for the regime in power, or may not in the future.
Hinckeldey also founded the Police Union, the first recorded international network of counterrevolutionary police spies
in modern times. Primarily made up of police officers from Prussia and the German states, the Union operated throughout Europe,
Britain and in the United States. The Union was run by his deputy, the notorious police provocateur, Wilhelm Steiber, who would
later reorganize the Okhrana along similar lines. Internationally active from 1851-1866, the Police Union, according to Mathieu
Deflem, was "one of the first formal initiatives in industrial society to establish an organized police system across national
borders."13
I disagree with the Alternet view on this. See, this is the norm. A purely private sexual blackmail ring of any scale would
be the historical exception. It certainly wouldn't survive very long.
...authorities at first appear to tolerate the operation of a so-called Democracy Wall, where "dissidents" in Beijing could
post political writings.... Similar walls then sprung up under the noses of the authorities in other Chinese cities. Eventually,
many of those who had availed themselves of the wall to post political messages were, of course, arrested in the roundup of
hundreds of thousands of democracy supporters....
The impression of anonymity and "freedom" conveyed by the Internet, of course, presents a similar opportunity for police
to cast a wide net for identifying persons and organizations who may not hold favor for the regime in power, or may not in
the future.
But why should one avoid the thought? If the situation looks like the people are going to lose the war for their minds, and
are unwilling to back a publisher like Assange who has given his all to try to empower them, why should anyone put themselves
at risk by expressing their opinions? It's a honeypot of our own making, just as Facebook is where people go to write their own
dossiers for the Authorities.
@Pluto's Republic an enemy of the status quo, you raise the calculated costs of the eventual crackdown, pushing back the
day of reckoning. Keep it up! Visible rebellion is the only defense of the people.
...from which to leverage access to the elite, Harvard University would be a top choice.
Jeffery Epstein actually entered the social salons of the elite through many doors. He was, of course, a member of the Council
on Foreign Relations. One would have to be to rub shoulders with the political elite. From there he matriculated to the Trilateral
Commission becoming friendly with Harvard President, Larry Summers. **
Becoming a surprise mystery philanthropist at Harvard, with Summers help, was a booster rocket for Epstein. In the Havard Crimson , in
June 2003, Epstein's involvement with Harvard was celebrated.
People in the News: Jeffrey E. Epstein
Elusive financier Jeffrey E. Epstein donated $30 million this year to Harvard for the founding of a mathematical biology
and evolutionary dynamics program.
While the mathematics teacher turned magnate remained unknown to most people until he flew President Clinton, Kevin
Spacey and Chris Tucker to Africa to explore the problems of AIDS and economic development facing the region, Epstein
has been a familiar face to many at Harvard for years.
Networking with the University's leading intellectuals, Epstein has spurred research through both discussions with and dollars
contributed to various faculty members.
Lindsley Professor of Psychology Stephen M. Kosslyn, former Dean of the Faculty Henry A. Rosovsky and Frankfurter Professor
of Law Alan M. Dershowitz are among Epstein's bevy of eminent friends that includes princes, presidents and Nobel
Prize winners.
Epstein is also well acquainted with University President Lawrence H. Summers. The two serve together on the Trilateral
Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations, two elite international relations organizations.
Epstein's collection of high-profile friends also includes newly-recruited professor Martin A. Nowak, who will run Harvard's
mathematical biology and evolutionary dynamics program.
Like Kosslyn, Rosovsky and Dershowitz, Nowak praises Epstein's numerous relationships within the scientific community.
"I am amazed by the connections he has in the scientific world," Nowak says. "He knows an amazing number of scientists.
He knows everyone you can imagine."
Epstein's relationships within the academy are remarkable since the tycoon, who has amassed his fortune by managing
the wealth of billionaires from his private Caribbean island, does not hold a bachelor's degree.
Yet, friends and beneficiaries say they do not see Epstein merely as a man with deep pockets, but as an intellectual equal.
Dershowitz says Epstein is "brilliant" and Kosslyn calls Epstein "one of the brightest people I've ever known."
Epstein's beneficiaries say they are particularly appreciative of the no-strings-attached approach Epstein takes with his
donations.
"He is one of the most pleasant philanthropists," Nowak says. "Unlike many people who support science, he supports science
without any conditions. There are not any disadvantages to associating with him."
Friends and associates say Harvard stands to benefit from its evolving relationship with Epstein.
"I hope that he will, over time, become one of the leading supporters of science at Harvard," Rosovsky writes in an e-mail.
__________________________________________
** A footnote on Larry Summers seems important here:
Harvard-trained economists have been running the US economy for a very long time, and continue to do so. Summers began his ascent
as a professor of economics at Harvard University, leaving shortly before Bill Clinton won the Presidency. He was clearly the
Neoliberal seed planted for the New American Century.
In 1993, Summers was appointed Undersecretary for International Affairs of the United States Department of the Treasury
under the Clinton Administration. In 1995, he was promoted to Deputy Secretary of the Treasury under his long-time political
mentor Robert Rubin. In 1999, he succeeded Rubin as Secretary of the Treasury.
While working for the Clinton administration Summers played a leading role in the American response to the 1994 economic
crisis in Mexico, the 1997 Asian financial crisis, and the Russian financial crisis. He was also influential in the Harvard
Institute for International Development and American-advised privatization of the economies of the post-Soviet states, and
in the deregulation of the U.S financial system, including the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act.
At This Point the Ball is Passed to the Bush Team Republicans, while the Democrats Sit Back and Wait for 2008.
There's now a Treasury surplus to transfer to the wealthy, and the necessary deregulation for Wall Street empowerment is in
place. The Soviet era had ended and Russia is ended forever. The world is finally primed to be seized by the One Exceptional Power.
It's 2001, and we are standing on the threshold of the New American Century . Time to throw a flash-bang of chaos onto the world
stage and trigger the booming War Economy that will carry us directly to global control.
There's a rocky road ahead for Larry Summers. Summers introduces Epstein into the Harvard fold, but becomes reckless with
his newly-refined Neoliberalism and his opinions concerning "lady scholars."
Following the end of Clinton's term, Summers served as the 27th President of Harvard University from 2001 to 2006.
Summers resigned as Harvard's president in the wake of a no-confidence vote by Harvard faculty, which resulted in large part
from Summers's conflict with Cornel West, financial conflict of interest questions regarding his relationship with Andrei Shleifer,
and a 2005 speech in which he suggested that the under-representation of women in science and engineering could be due to a
"different availability of aptitude at the high end", and less to patterns of discrimination and socialization. Remarking upon
political correctness in institutions of higher education, Summers said in 2016:
Summers resigned as Harvard's president in the wake of a no-confidence vote by Harvard faculty, which resulted in large
part from Summers's conflict with Cornel West, financial conflict of interest questions regarding his relationship with
Andrei Shleifer, and a 2005 speech in which he suggested that the under-representation of women in science and engineering
There is a great deal of absurd political correctness. Now, I'm somebody who believes very strongly in diversity, who
resists racism in all of its many incarnations, who thinks that there is a great deal that's unjust in American society
that needs to be combated, but it seems to be that there is a kind of creeping totalitarianism in terms of what kind of
ideas are acceptable and are debatable on college campuses.
After his departure from Harvard, Summers cooled his jets on Wall Street, positioning himself to be called back into the game
when it was Team Democrat's turn in 2008.
Summers worked as a managing partner at the hedge fund D. E. Shaw & Co., and as a freelance speaker at other financial institutions,
including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers. Summers rejoined public service during
the Obama administration, serving as the Director of the White House United States National Economic Council for President
Barack Obama from January 2009 until November 2010, where he emerged as a key economic decision-maker in the Obama administration's
response to the Great Recession.
Jeffery Epstein continued to weave himself into the fabric of government like a good psychopath would. He was by no means the
only one.
"... A secret plea bargain and non-prosecution agreement with the federal government is what happened. It shifted the public face to the Florida state court system with Epstein pleading to two state prostitution crimes, which implied, of course, that the complainants were prostitutes. The public is now aware that the result was Epstein sleeping at the county jail and then going to his office during the day, for 13 months. Registering as a sex offender has not curtailed his travel or daily activity. ..."
"... The whole nasty business disappeared from view and would have stayed hidden in its nicely wrapped package except that two civil lawsuits have pulled some of it into the light. ..."
"... With that background, we come to the recent fascinating events, in which Epstein was arrested, and the role of Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta in this whole rotten mess was revealed to some extent. He had been the U.S. Attorney for that part of Florida at that time ..."
"... There you have it: "... this case ... had input and vetting at multiple levels of the Department of Justice." The cat was out of the bag. It was a sad sight: Alex Acosta, after achieving two significant positions in the federal government, took a dive to be the fall guy. ..."
"... The non-prosecution agreement has signature dates from 24 September to 7 December 2007, and page 3 of Robert Josefsberg's lawsuit against Epstein confirms this. The Department of Justice is a bureaucracy, and even though a U.S. Attorney has significant authority and some independence, the Justice Department in Washington D.C. -- sometimes called "Main Justice" -- ultimately controls things. In the organizational chart, the U.S. Attorneys are under the Deputy Attorney General, the number two person [6] ..."
"... The U.S. Attorney General from 3 February 2005 to 17 September 2007 was Alberto Gonzales. Michael Mukasey was nominated on 17 September and became Attorney General on 8 November 2007 until Eric Holder was sworn in on 3 February 2009. ..."
"... The FBI Director from 4 September 2001 to 4 September 2013 was Robert Mueller. ..."
"... And from July 2008 into this year, the Justice Department has resisted the CVRA lawsuit in Florida. ..."
"... This material is presented here for viewing or downloading so that you can think for yourself. Mass media has reported next to nothing about the 11-year course of the Crime Victims' Rights Act lawsuit and the detail in the first 22 pages of the trial court's opinion, other than that the court found the government violated the CVRA. I am not aware of one word reported about the 2010 lawsuit brought by Robert Josefsberg against Epstein for breaching the non-prosecution agreement. ..."
"... Jeffrey Epstein was being protected. The process and communications that accomplished it, and who did it, are not yet known. ..."
"... Why nobody is above the law! Not even a President! Oh! Wait! 23 flights! And a scion of the house of Windsor allegedly involved as well? ..."
"... "The federal non-prosecution agreement Epstein's legal team negotiated with the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida immunized all named and unnamed "potential co-conspirators" in Epstein's child trafficking network, which includes those who allegedly procured minors for Epstein and also any powerbrokers who may have molested them." ..."
"... Who gets a plea deal in which "all named and unnamed potential co-conspirators" get immunity? https://gawker.com/flight-logs-put-clinton-dershowitz-on-pedophile-billio-1681039971 ..."
"... Epstein's NPA was limited to the Florida district of federal courts, hence another branch of the federal courts, the Southern District of New York, was free to re-open the issue..and did. ..."
"... Acosta says he acted in accordance with his superior's wishes at the DOJ. Plausible, but lets see some corroborating evidence. If he agreed to negotiate this NPA without getting his boss's orders in writing he is a remarkable fool. ..."
"... Arkancide? Epstein is linked with E Barak, and Nicole Junkermann, per flight logs. Presumably that is the intelligence link Acosta was babbling about. https://carbyne911.com/team/ ..."
"... Doubt if Bubba Bill was involved in any of Epstein's sexual shenanigans after being burnt by Lewinsky. Clinton always had the proverbial ability to "talk a dog off a gut wagon" and could most likely find an agreeable partner elsewhere. Might be wrong but doubt it. ..."
"... If I understand correctly, Epstein broke the agreement. Would it follow that the WTF!? immunity deal is now nixed? ..."
"... Crossing the Clinton cabal in any manner is seriously dangerous. The list of those who have and died mysteriously is very long. ..."
"... The sweetheart deal that Epstein received from Acosta and the DOJ seems rather unusual for the felony that is such a social taboo as you note. Not only did he get off extremely lightly but his co-conspirators were completely let off the hook. The way the children who were raped were also treated by the courts was also shameful. ..."
"... This case epitomizes the travesty of the current state of the rule of law. Sexual predators of children are typically thrown the book and quickly taken off the streets to serve a long sentence. Not only did that not happen but even worse he was allowed to continue his despicable behavior out in the open even when he was supposed to be serving his sentence. Clearly he had some powerful friends in the Bush administration, but even with these connections when such execrable behavior is shown repeatedly there were none with a conscience. A sad testament to the state of our justice system. ..."
"... The usual plea agreement requires the defendant to plead guilty to some federal criminal offense. The Epstein agreement did not require him to plead to a federal crime. It also did not require him to debrief or provide them with information. To the contrary, it required that the federal government do nothing to him or to other people who helped him or conspired with him to commit federal crimes! ..."
16 July 2019Alex Acosta let the cat out of the bag: the Justice Department knew all about the Jeffrey Epstein Florida
plea deal
A taboo in our culture that is also a crime is sexual contact with a child or young person -- usually less than 17 or 18 years
old -- by an adult or older person. An exception is sexual experimentation during the struggle of adolescence, when the persons are
no more than around two or three years apart in age, as long as there is consent. A greater age difference creates the crime often
called "statutory rape", in which a statute (a law passed by a legislature) says that legal consent for sexual contact cannot be
given by the underage person.
This taboo is a strong one, even more so than homicide, about which there are various levels and justifications, such as self-defense.
All over the country on a regular basis, underage sex crime cases are tried to a jury, even without medical or forensic evidence.
And with just one complainant and victim.
But then Jeffrey Epstein is named as a suspect in underage sex crimes in Palm Beach County, Florida, with not one complainant,
but with at least 20.
What was the local State Attorney, Barry Krischer, going to do? Apparently, not very much. Attention shifted to the federal U.S.
Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Alexander Acosta, and the FBI. Was a federal prosecution pursued? No. Nothing.
A secret plea bargain and non-prosecution agreement with the federal government is what happened. It shifted the public face
to the Florida state court system with Epstein pleading to two state prostitution crimes, which implied, of course, that the complainants
were prostitutes. The public is now aware that the result was Epstein sleeping at the county jail and then going to his office during
the day, for 13 months. Registering as a sex offender has not curtailed his travel or daily activity.
The whole nasty business disappeared from view and would have stayed hidden in its nicely wrapped package except that two
civil lawsuits have pulled some of it into the light.
On 7 July 2008, a case under the federal Crime Victims' Rights Act (CVRA) was filed in the Southern District of Florida by lawyers
Paul Cassell, Bradley Edwards, and two others against the federal government, with case number 08-cv-80736 [1]. Around ten and a
half years later, on 21 February 2019, the trial court judge issued a 33-page opinion and order granting a request for partial summary
judgment by two victims, ruling that there was no genuine issue of material fact about the assertion that the government violated
the CVRA by failing properly to confer with the victims, and that therefore a contested trial on that issue is not necessary. The
opinion is worth reading, and the first 22 pages are a detailed statement of facts about the non-prosecution agreement and the activity
surrounding it by lawyers for the government and Epstein, giving an insight into what was going on. The beginning of the opinion
references four startling factual assertions made by the complainants in their request for summary judgment and which the federal
government admitted without qualification in its response [2]:
"1. Between about 1999 and 2007, Jeffrey Epstein sexually abused more than 30 minor girls, including Jane Doe 1 and Jane Doe 2,
at his mansion in Palm Beach, Florida, located in the Southern District of Florida, and elsewhere in the United States and overseas.
"2. Because Epstein and his co-conspirators knowingly traveled in interstate and international commerce to sexually abuse Jane
Doe 1, Jane Doe 2, and other similarly situated victims, they committed violations of not only Florida law (see, e,g., Fla. Stat.
sections 794.05, 796.04, 796.045, 39.201 and 777.04), but also federal law, including repeated violations of 18 U.S.C. sections 1591,
2421, 2422, 2423, and 371).
"3. In addition to personally abusing his victims, Epstein also directed other persons to sexually abuse the girls. For example,
Nadia Marcinkova sexually abused Jane Doe 1 and other victims at the direction of Epstein.
"8. More generally, the FBI established that Epstein used paid employees to repeatedly find and bring minor girls to him. Epstein
worked in concert with others to obtain minor girls not only for his own sexual gratification, but also for the sexual gratification
of others."
The present court activity is to figure out a procedure to determine a remedy for the government's violation of the CVRA and to
establish a remedy.
On 17 May 2010, a lawsuit revealing more of Epstein's degenerate attitude and mentality was filed in federal court in the Southern
District of Florida, with case number 10-cv-21586. It was based on parts 7 and 8 of the plea bargain / non-prosecution agreement,
that--
"7. The United Sates shall provide Epstein's attorneys with a list of individuals whom it has identified as victims, as defined
in 18 U.S.C. section 2255, after Epstein has signed this agreement and been sentenced. Upon the execution of this agreement, the
United States, in consultation with and subject to the good faith approval of Epstein's counsel, shall select an attorney representative
for these persons, who shall be paid for by Epstein. Epstein's counsel may contact the indentified individuals through that representative.
"8. [In part] If any of the individuals referred to in paragraph (7), supra , elects to file suit pursuant to 18 U.S.C.
section 2255, Epstein will not contest the jurisdiction of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida
over his person and/or the subject matter, and Epstein waives his right to contest liability and also waives his right to contest
damages up to an amount as agreed to between the identified individual and Epstein, so long as the identified individual elects to
proceed exclusively under 18 U.S.C. section 2255, and agrees to waive any other claim for damages, whether pursuant to state, federal,
or common law."
Title 18, U.S. Code, section 2255, creates the right for an underage person (a minor) to bring a civil lawsuit in federal court
for money for personal injury suffered as a victim of certain federal crimes. The victim can seek money for the actual harm suffered,
or the fixed amount of $150,000, plus attorney fees and litigation costs. [3].
The attorney representative selected to help the females who wanted to seek compensation by that route under the non-prosecution
agreement (NPA) was Robert Josefsberg, of the Podhurst & Orseck law firm in Miami, Florida, known to have experience in litigation.
Some number over 12 of the 34 females named by the U.S. Attorney's Office as complainants against Epstein sought compensation through
the representative.
However, although Epstein agreed in the NPA to pay the attorney representative and to not contest liability in the claims the
females made under 18 U.S.C. 2255, he not only breached the agreement by contesting liability in the cases, but also he paid only
a small part of what was owed to Josefsberg, and tried to stiff the representative by not paying over $2 million dollars due for
attorney fees and costs!
For over 20 months, Josefsberg tried unsuccessfully to get Epstein to pay him under the NPA, and finally sued Epstein for breach
of contract and breach of the implied doctrine of good faith and fair dealing. Attached to the lawsuit document was a copy of the
NPA. Here are the scandalous plea bargain / non-prosecution agreement and addendum, and the informative original petition brought
by the representative for some of the victimized females:
This produced an amusing turn of events, shown by the court clerk's docket sheet. Epstein quickly settled with the attorney representative
by 8 June 2010, only 22 days after the lawsuit was filed [4]. After all, he had breached the NPA and it could have been cancelled
(and should have been) and a prosecution started in Florida.
Picking apart the NPA is in itself an interesting exercise, but looking at the agreement as a whole, you can see that it is designed
to keep his sexually abusive conduct from being disclosed, both as to criminal charges -- he pled only to state prostitution offenses
-- and as to civil cases involving females who decided to seek compensation through the NPA's representative and 18 U.S.C. section
2255. In those civil cases, Epstein agreed to not challenge his liability, so no stories would be told in court; the only issue would
be the amount of money to be paid.
With that background, we come to the recent fascinating events, in which Epstein was arrested, and the role of Labor Secretary
Alexander Acosta in this whole rotten mess was revealed to some extent. He had been the U.S. Attorney for that part of Florida at
that time. The NPA on page 2 asserted that: "On the authority of R. Alexander Acosta, United States Attorney for the Southern
District of Florida, prosecution in this District for these offenses shall be deferred in favor of prosecution by the State of Florida,
provided that Epstein abides by the following conditions and the requirements of this Agreement set forth below".
Well, not exactly. When publicity heated up, fingers were pointed at Acosta with the usual hollering by some that he should resign.
This produced a pathetic press conference on Wednesday, 10 July, in which Acosta tried to justify what the materials presented above
reveal [5]. On Friday, 12 July, when president Trump went outside the White House to talk to the press before leaving on a trip,
Acosta went with him. At around 1 minute, 40 seconds into this short video excerpt, Acosta says:
"I have seen coverage of this case, that is over 12 years old, that had input and vetting at multiple levels of the Department
of Justice. And as I look forward, I do not think it is right and fair for this administration's labor department to have Epstein
as the focus, rather than the incredible economy that we have today. And so I called the president this morning. I told him that
I thought the right thing was to step aside...."
There you have it: "... this case ... had input and vetting at multiple levels of the Department of Justice." The cat
was out of the bag. It was a sad sight: Alex Acosta, after achieving two significant positions in the federal government, took a
dive to be the fall guy.
"Multiple levels" of "input" and "vetting" at the DOJ, you say? Who might that be?
The non-prosecution agreement has signature dates from 24 September to 7 December 2007, and page 3 of Robert Josefsberg's
lawsuit against Epstein confirms this. The Department of Justice is a bureaucracy, and even though a U.S. Attorney has significant
authority and some independence, the Justice Department in Washington D.C. -- sometimes called "Main Justice" -- ultimately controls
things. In the organizational chart, the U.S. Attorneys are under the Deputy Attorney General, the number two person [6]
The U.S. Attorney General from 3 February 2005 to 17 September 2007 was Alberto Gonzales. Michael Mukasey was nominated on
17 September and became Attorney General on 8 November 2007 until Eric Holder was sworn in on 3 February 2009.
The FBI Director from 4 September 2001 to 4 September 2013 was Robert Mueller.
More research is needed to identify persons in various positions in the Department of Justice from 2005 through at least 2010,
when Epstein breached the NPA by contesting liability and failing to pay attorney fees and costs, and had to be sued by Robert Josefsberg
and the Podhurst & Orseck law firm.
And from July 2008 into this year, the Justice Department has resisted the CVRA lawsuit in Florida.
The CVRA opinion on page 3 confirmed that by May 2007, the U.S. Attorney's Office had drafted a 53-page indictment and an 82-page
prosecution memorandum about federal sex crimes committed by Epstein. The opinion on pages 5-6 quotes a letter to Epstein's counsel
that the U.S. Attorney's office did not have the power to bind the Immigration service, but that they did not plan on bringing immigration
charges against two of Epstein's female co-conspirators.
The CVRA opinion on page 7 tells us that--
"On September 21, 2007, Palm Beach County State Attorney Barry Krischer wrote the line prosecutor [Assistant U.S. Attorney] about
the proposed agreement and added: 'Glad we could get this worked out for reasons I won't put in writing. After this is resolved I
would love to buy you a cup at Starbucks and have a conversation'."
This material is presented here for viewing or downloading so that you can think for yourself. Mass media has reported next
to nothing about the 11-year course of the Crime Victims' Rights Act lawsuit and the detail in the first 22 pages of the trial court's
opinion, other than that the court found the government violated the CVRA. I am not aware of one word reported about the 2010 lawsuit
brought by Robert Josefsberg against Epstein for breaching the non-prosecution agreement.
From this information, you can see the brazen lack of a basis for the extra protection put in the plea bargain / NPA on page 5,
that--
"In consideration of Epstein's agreement to plead guilty and to provide compensation in the manner described above, if Epstein
successfully fulfills all of the terms and conditions of this agreement, the United States also agrees that it will not institute
any criminal charges against any potential co-conspirators of Epstein, including but not limited to Sarah Kellen, Adriana Ross,
Lesley Groff, or Nadia Marcinkova."
Jeffrey Epstein was being protected. The process and communications that accomplished it, and who did it, are not yet known.
[1] The Crime Victims' Rights Act, Title 18, United States Code, section 3771
[2] The request (motion) for partial summary judgment by the victims (Jane Doe 1 and 2) contained a list of what they claimed
were 157 undisputed material facts. The federal government filed a response which either admitted, or admitted with a qualification,
or denied the asserted facts. The numbered facts 1, 2, 3, and 8 were admitted.
I had hoped we would learn from today's hearings more regarding Epstein's source of wealth - and exactly how much it was. Plus
more info on his doctored passport. More about the money trail between him and various Florida officials.
Anyone new calling
the tip line - especially from during his time as a teacher at that prep school in NY? And more about the Dershowitz and Starr
involvement back 12 years ago.
Unfortunately the food fight between Trump and the four frosh sucked all the air out of the media.
Came across this site with the court documents .The FBI travelled to Australia in 2011 and interviewed ms Roberts at the american
consulate in Sydney.9 years ago then in 2015 she sued Epstein and maxwell. Only now in 2019 did Epstein fly back from Paris knowing
he was going to be arrested.
Some of those girls were collecting info for him and getting paid. The whole thing stinks time
to call in the plumbers.
Many things are disposed of by plea Bargaining. With high profile crimes, it is always difficult to know if you did the right
thing. Here, it is fairly obvious it wasn't. Acosta is a Harvard College/HLS, a very able and connected guy and his error here
has damaged his life.
The part that I haven't seen being reported or discussed:
"The federal non-prosecution agreement Epstein's legal team negotiated with the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District
of Florida immunized all named and unnamed "potential co-conspirators" in Epstein's child trafficking network, which includes
those who allegedly procured minors for Epstein and also any powerbrokers who may have molested them."
Thanks for the link to the NPA I didn't realize it was in the public domain, it is an astonishing read. I'm not familiar with
NPA's (having never been party to one!) so forgive me if the following questions are uninformed:
To what extent are NPA's legally binding upon the USG, are there circumstances where a court can set one aside for reasons
other than breach of contract?
The NPA appears to try and indemnify Epstein and both known and unknown co-conspirators (Ghislaine Maxwell?) in both the offenses
prosecuted and any other offenses subject to the joint USAO/FBI investigation . In fact on page 5 the indemnity given uses
the wording "the [US] also agrees it will not institute any criminal charges against any potential co-conspirators
of Epstein included but not limited to.." (my emphasis) i.e. scope here appears to be unlimited. This cannot be legally enforceable
surely?
I thought NPA's were used to go after people further up the food chain. This one seems to have given carte blanche immunity
to all involved at every level. I'm astonished Acosta had the authority, merely with "consultation" within DOJ to do this. This
is a travesty and is starting to make FISA abuse look like chicken feed.
Epstein's NPA was limited to the Florida district of federal courts, hence another branch of the federal courts, the Southern
District of New York, was free to re-open the issue..and did.
Acosta says he acted in accordance with his superior's wishes at the DOJ. Plausible, but lets see some corroborating evidence.
If he agreed to negotiate this NPA without getting his boss's orders in writing he is a remarkable fool.
Was Acosta making an "error"? Looks to me he was a fully paid up member of the Swamp, doing what swampians do and he will no doubt
settle back into a Swamp law firm or Professorship somewhere. Weep not for him.
Arkancide? Epstein is linked with E Barak, and Nicole Junkermann, per flight logs. Presumably that is the intelligence link
Acosta was babbling about. https://carbyne911.com/team/
yes. I con't see him living much longer. On Morning joe today, Joe and his imbecile consort went on at length about a party
in 1992 at Mar A Lago for a bunch of NFL cheerleaders. Trump, Epstein and other me stood around ogling the ladies. So what! Not
a word was said about the absent Bill Clinton.
Doubt if Bubba Bill was involved in any of Epstein's sexual shenanigans after being burnt by Lewinsky. Clinton always had
the proverbial ability to "talk a dog off a gut wagon" and could most likely find an agreeable partner elsewhere. Might be wrong
but doubt it.
Ogling NFL cheerleaders, big deal. That seemed pretty normal to me. I'm waiting for more to come out about the 1992 private party
at Mar a Lago with Trump, Epstein and 28 calendar girls. I get the feeling Trump is going tweet crazy right now primarily to change
the subject. With Trump, Clinton, the DOJ enablers who protected Epstein and probably a host of others, Epstein is bound to be
whacked as you and walrus said.
Yes, the MSM are predictably silent about Bill Clinton and other leftists who are/were buddies with Epstein. I guess with all
of his money, he could murder someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue and...
If I understand correctly, Epstein broke the agreement. Would it follow that the WTF!? immunity deal is now nixed?
What a rotten underbelly oozes out. This foul beast needs to be wrestled into the light. Where is the people's champion?
There must be some good people in there somewhere.
The sweetheart deal that Epstein received from Acosta and the DOJ seems rather unusual for the felony that is such a social
taboo as you note. Not only did he get off extremely lightly but his co-conspirators were completely let off the hook. The way
the children who were raped were also treated by the courts was also shameful.
This case epitomizes the travesty of the current state of the rule of law. Sexual predators of children are typically thrown
the book and quickly taken off the streets to serve a long sentence. Not only did that not happen but even worse he was allowed
to continue his despicable behavior out in the open even when he was supposed to be serving his sentence. Clearly he had some
powerful friends in the Bush administration, but even with these connections when such execrable behavior is shown repeatedly
there were none with a conscience. A sad testament to the state of our justice system.
Do you think the current case will also just be another white wash or do you think the DOJ will pursue the investigation with
vigor to get to the bottom of his finances and all the other sexual predators of children in his orbit?
You are perceptive about the Epstein plea bargain / non-prosecution agreement (NPA). The one for Epstein is the complete opposite
of what happens in federal criminal cases. Yes, agreements between the Justice Department and defendants are often used "to go
after people further up the food chain". There will be a plea bargain with a cooperation section in it. If cooperation is not
part of the arrangement, that section is left out.
They have a standard form they use for plea bargains, and some sections may be in or out of it depending on the situation.
Classic examples are those that were used by "special counsel" Robert Mueller when he went around putting the squeeze on people.
Here is the agreement between the Mueller group and Richard Gates, who was around Paul Manafort during the Trump campaign--
The usual plea agreement requires the defendant to plead guilty to some federal criminal offense. The Epstein agreement
did not require him to plead to a federal crime. It also did not require him to debrief or provide them with information. To the
contrary, it required that the federal government do nothing to him or to other people who helped him or conspired with him to
commit federal crimes!
I'm not a Trump supporter, but you have to say this for Trump: he banned Jeffery Epstein from his properties and made him PNG
when Trump had complaints about the man's conduct on site.
Looks like the world order established after WWIII crumbed with the USSR and now it is again the law if jungles with the US as the
biggest predator.
Notable quotes:
"... The root cause is clear: After the crescendo of pretenses and deceptions over Iraq, Libya and Syria, along with our absolution of the lawless regime of Saudi Arabia, foreign political leaders are coming to recognize what world-wide public opinion polls reported even before the Iraq/Iran-Contra boys turned their attention to the world's largest oil reserves in Venezuela: The United States is now the greatest threat to peace on the planet. ..."
"... Calling the U.S. coup being sponsored in Venezuela a defense of democracy reveals the Doublethink underlying U.S. foreign policy. It defines "democracy" to mean supporting U.S. foreign policy, pursuing neoliberal privatization of public infrastructure, dismantling government regulation and following the direction of U.S.-dominated global institutions, from the IMF and World Bank to NATO. For decades, the resulting foreign wars, domestic austerity programs and military interventions have brought more violence, not democracy ..."
"... A point had to come where this policy collided with the self-interest of other nations, finally breaking through the public relations rhetoric of empire. Other countries are proceeding to de-dollarize and replace what U.S. diplomacy calls "internationalism" (meaning U.S. nationalism imposed on the rest of the world) with their own national self-interest. ..."
"... For the past half-century, U.S. strategists, the State Department and National Endowment for Democracy (NED) worried that opposition to U.S. financial imperialism would come from left-wing parties. It therefore spent enormous resources manipulating parties that called themselves socialist (Tony Blair's British Labour Party, France's Socialist Party, Germany's Social Democrats, etc.) to adopt neoliberal policies that were the diametric opposite to what social democracy meant a century ago. But U.S. political planners and Great Wurlitzer organists neglected the right wing, imagining that it would instinctively support U.S. thuggishness. ..."
"... Perhaps the problem had to erupt as a result of the inner dynamics of U.S.-sponsored globalism becoming impossible to impose when the result is financial austerity, waves of population flight from U.S.-sponsored wars, and most of all, U.S. refusal to adhere to the rules and international laws that it itself sponsored seventy years ago in the wake of World War II. ..."
"... Here's the first legal contradiction in U.S. global diplomacy: The United States always has resisted letting any other country have any voice in U.S. domestic policies, law-making or diplomacy. That is what makes America "the exceptional nation." But for seventy years its diplomats have pretended that its superior judgment promoted a peaceful world (as the Roman Empire claimed to be), which let other countries share in prosperity and rising living standards. ..."
"... Inevitably, U.S. nationalism had to break up the mirage of One World internationalism, and with it any thought of an international court. Without veto power over the judges, the U.S. never accepted the authority of any court, in particular the United Nations' International Court in The Hague. Recently that court undertook an investigation into U.S. war crimes in Afghanistan, from its torture policies to bombing of civilian targets such as hospitals, weddings and infrastructure. "That investigation ultimately found 'a reasonable basis to believe that war crimes and crimes against humanity." ..."
"... This showed that international finance was an arm of the U.S. State Department and Pentagon. But that was a generation ago, and only recently did foreign countries begin to feel queasy about leaving their gold holdings in the United States, where they might be grabbed at will to punish any country that might act in ways that U.S. diplomacy found offensive. So last year, Germany finally got up the courage to ask that some of its gold be flown back to Germany. U.S. officials pretended to feel shocked at the insult that it might do to a civilized Christian country what it had done to Iran, and Germany agreed to slow down the transfer. ..."
"... England refused to honor the official request, following the direction of Bolton and U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo. As Bloomberg reported: "The U.S. officials are trying to steer Venezuela's overseas assets to [Chicago Boy Juan] Guaido to help bolster his chances of effectively taking control of the government. The $1.2 billion of gold is a big chunk of the $8 billion in foreign reserves held by the Venezuelan central bank." ..."
"... But now, cyber warfare has become a way of pulling out the connections of any economy. And the major cyber connections are financial money-transfer ones, headed by SWIFT, the acronym for the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, which is centered in Belgium. ..."
"... On January 31 the dam broke with the announcement that Europe had created its own bypass payments system for use with Iran and other countries targeted by U.S. diplomats. Germany, France and even the U.S. poodle Britain joined to create INSTEX -- Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges. The promise is that this will be used only for "humanitarian" aid to save Iran from a U.S.-sponsored Venezuela-type devastation. But in view of increasingly passionate U.S. opposition to the Nord Stream pipeline to carry Russian gas, this alternative bank clearing system will be ready and able to become operative if the United States tries to direct a sanctions attack on Europe ..."
"... The U.S. overplaying its position is leading to the Mackinder-Kissinger-Brzezinski Eurasian nightmare that I mentioned above. In addition to driving Russia and China together, U.S. diplomacy is adding Europe to the heartland, independent of U.S. ability to bully into the state of dependency toward which American diplomacy has aimed to achieve since 1945. ..."
"... By following U.S. advice, countries have left themselves open to food blackmail – sanctions against providing them with grain and other food, in case they step out of line with U.S. diplomatic demands. ..."
"... It is worthwhile to note that our global imposition of the mythical "efficiencies" of forcing Latin American countries to become plantations for export crops like coffee and bananas rather than growing their own wheat and corn has failed catastrophically to deliver better lives, especially for those living in Central America. The "spread" between the export crops and cheaper food imports from the U.S. that was supposed to materialize for countries following our playbook failed miserably – witness the caravans and refugees across Mexico. Of course, our backing of the most brutal military dictators and crime lords has not helped either. ..."
"... But a few years ago Ukraine defaulted on $3 billion owed to Russia. The IMF said, in effect, that Ukraine and other countries did not have to pay Russia or any other country deemed to be acting too independently of the United States. The IMF has been extending credit to the bottomless it of Ukrainian corruption to encourage its anti-Russian policy rather than standing up for the principle that inter-government debts must be paid. ..."
"... It is as if the IMF now operates out of a small room in the basement of the Pentagon in Washington. ..."
"... Anticipating just such a double-cross, President Chavez acted already in 2011 to repatriate 160 tons of gold to Caracas from the United States and Europe. ..."
"... It would be good for Americans, but the wrong kind of Americans. For the Americans that would populate the Global Executive Suite, a strong US$ means that the stipends they would pay would be worth more to the lackeys, and command more influence. ..."
"... Dumping the industrial base really ruined things. America is now in a position where it can shout orders, and drop bombs, but doesn't have the capacity to do anything helpful. They have to give up being what Toynbee called a creative minority, and settle for being a dominant minority. ..."
"... Having watched the 2016 election closely from afar, I was left with the impression that many of the swing voters who cast their vote for Trump did so under the assumption that he would act as a catalyst for systemic change. ..."
"... Now we know. He has ripped the already transparent mask of altruism off what is referred to as the U.S.-led liberal international order and revealed its true nature for all to see, and has managed to do it in spite of the liberal international establishment desperately trying to hold it in place in the hope of effecting a seamless post-Trump return to what they refer to as "norms". Interesting times. ..."
"... Exactly. He hasn't exactly lived up to advanced billing so far in all respects, but I suspect there's great deal of skulduggery going on behind the scenes that has prevented that. ..."
"... To paraphrase the infamous Rummy, you don't go to war with the change agent and policies you wished you had, you go to war with the ones you have. That might be the best thing we can say about Trump after the historic dust of his administration finally settles. ..."
"... Yet we find out that Venezuela didn't managed to do what they wanted to do, the Europeans, the Turks, etc bent over yet again. Nothing to see here, actually. ..."
"... So what I'm saying is he didn't make his point. I wish it were true. But a bit of grumbling and (a tiny amount of) foot-dragging by some pygmy leaders (Merkel) does not signal a global change. ..."
"... Currency regime change can take decades, and small percentage differences are enormous because of the flows involved. USD as reserve for 61% of global sovereigns versus 64% 15 years ago is a massive move. ..."
"... I discovered his Super Imperialism while looking for an explanation for the pending 2003 US invasion of Iraq. If you haven't read it yet, move it to the top of your queue if you want to have any idea of how the world really works. ..."
"... If it isn't clear to the rest of the world by now, it never will be. The US is incapable of changing on its own a corrupt status quo dominated by a coalition of its military industrial complex, Wall Street bankers and fossil fuels industries. As long as the world continues to chase the debt created on the keyboards of Wall Street banks and 'deficits don't matter' Washington neocons – as long as the world's 1% think they are getting 'richer' by adding more "debts that can't be repaid (and) won't be" to their portfolios, the global economy can never be put on a sustainable footing. ..."
"... In other words, after 2 World Wars that produced the current world order, it is still in a state of insanity with the same pretensions to superiority by the same people, to get number 3. ..."
"... Few among Washington's foreign policy elite seem to fully grasp the complex system that made U.S. global power what it now is, particularly its all-important geopolitical foundations. As Trump travels the globe, tweeting and trashing away, he's inadvertently showing us the essential structure of that power, the same way a devastating wildfire leaves the steel beams of a ruined building standing starkly above the smoking rubble." ..."
"... He's draining the swamp in an unpredicted way, a swamp that's founded on the money interest. I don't care what NYT and WaPo have to say, they are not reporting events but promoting agendas. ..."
"... The financial elites are only concerned about shaping society as they see fit, side of self serving is just a historical foot note, Trumps past indicates a strong preference for even more of the same through authoritarian memes or have some missed the OT WH reference to dawg both choosing and then compelling him to run. ..."
"... Highly doubt Trump is a "witting agent", most likely is that he is just as ignorant as he almost daily shows on twitter. On US role in global affairs he says the same today as he did as a media celebrity in the late 80s. Simplistic household "logics" on macroeconomics. If US have trade deficit it loses. Countries with surplus are the winners. ..."
"... Anyhow frightening, the US hegemony have its severe dark sides. But there is absolutely nothing better on the horizon, a crash will throw the world in turmoil for decades or even a century. A lot of bad forces will see their chance to elevate their influence. There will be fierce competition to fill the gap. ..."
"... On could the insane economic model of EU/Germany being on top of global affairs, a horribly frightening thought. Misery and austerity for all globally, a permanent recession. Probably not much better with the Chinese on top. I'll take the USD hegemony any day compared to that prospect. ..."
"... Former US ambassador, Chas Freeman, gets to the nub of the problem. "The US preference for governance by elected and appointed officials, uncontaminated by experience in statecraft and diplomacy, or knowledge of geography, history and foreign affairs" https://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_882041135&feature=iv&src_vid=Ge1ozuXN7iI&v=gkf2MQdqz-o ..."
"... Michael Hudson, in Super Imperialism, went into how the US could just create the money to run a large trade deficit with the rest of the world. It would get all these imports effectively for nothing, the US's exorbitant privilege. I tied this in with this graph from MMT. ..."
"... The Government was running a surplus as the economy blew up in the early 1990s. It's the positive and negative, zero sum, nature of the monetary system. A big trade deficit needs a big Government deficit to cover it. A big trade deficit, with a balanced budget, drives the private sector into debt and blows up the economy. ..."
The end of America's unchallenged global economic dominance has arrived sooner than expected, thanks to the very same Neocons
who gave the world the Iraq, Syria and the dirty wars in Latin America. Just as the Vietnam War drove the United States off gold
by 1971, its sponsorship and funding of violent regime change wars against Venezuela and Syria – and threatening other countries
with sanctions if they do not join this crusade – is now driving European and other nations to create their alternative financial
institutions.
This break has been building for quite some time, and was bound to occur. But who would have thought that Donald Trump would become
the catalytic agent? No left-wing party, no socialist, anarchist or foreign nationalist leader anywhere in the world could have achieved
what he is doing to break up the American Empire. The Deep State is reacting with shock at how this right-wing real estate grifter
has been able to drive other countries to defend themselves by dismantling the U.S.-centered world order. To rub it in, he is using
Bush and Reagan-era Neocon arsonists, John Bolton and now Elliott Abrams, to fan the flames in Venezuela. It is almost like a black
political comedy. The world of international diplomacy is being turned inside-out. A world where there is no longer even a pretense
that we might adhere to international norms, let alone laws or treaties.
The Neocons who Trump has appointed are accomplishing what seemed unthinkable not long ago: Driving China and Russia together
– the great nightmare of Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski. They also are driving Germany and other European countries into
the Eurasian orbit, the "Heartland" nightmare of Halford Mackinder a century ago.
The root cause is clear: After the crescendo of pretenses and deceptions over Iraq, Libya and Syria, along with our absolution
of the lawless regime of Saudi Arabia, foreign political leaders are coming to recognize what world-wide public opinion polls reported
even before the Iraq/Iran-Contra boys turned their attention to the world's largest oil reserves in Venezuela: The United States
is now the greatest threat to peace on the planet.
Calling the U.S. coup being sponsored in Venezuela a defense of democracy reveals the Doublethink underlying U.S. foreign
policy. It defines "democracy" to mean supporting U.S. foreign policy, pursuing neoliberal privatization of public infrastructure,
dismantling government regulation and following the direction of U.S.-dominated global institutions, from the IMF and World Bank
to NATO. For decades, the resulting foreign wars, domestic austerity programs and military interventions have brought more violence,
not democracy.
In the Devil's Dictionary that U.S. diplomats are taught to use as their "Elements of Style" guidelines for Doublethink, a "democratic"
country is one that follows U.S. leadership and opens its economy to U.S. investment, and IMF- and World Bank-sponsored privatization.
The Ukraine is deemed democratic, along with Saudi Arabia, Israel and other countries that act as U.S. financial and military protectorates
and are willing to treat America's enemies are theirs too.
A point had to come where this policy collided with the self-interest of other nations, finally breaking through the public
relations rhetoric of empire. Other countries are proceeding to de-dollarize and replace what U.S. diplomacy calls "internationalism"
(meaning U.S. nationalism imposed on the rest of the world) with their own national self-interest.
This trajectory could be seen 50 years ago (I described it in Super Imperialism [1972] and Global Fracture [1978].) It had to
happen. But nobody thought that the end would come in quite the way that is happening. History has turned into comedy, or at least
irony as its dialectical path unfolds.
For the past half-century, U.S. strategists, the State Department and National Endowment for Democracy (NED) worried that
opposition to U.S. financial imperialism would come from left-wing parties. It therefore spent enormous resources manipulating parties
that called themselves socialist (Tony Blair's British Labour Party, France's Socialist Party, Germany's Social Democrats, etc.)
to adopt neoliberal policies that were the diametric opposite to what social democracy meant a century ago. But U.S. political planners
and Great Wurlitzer organists neglected the right wing, imagining that it would instinctively support U.S. thuggishness.
The reality is that right-wing parties want to get elected, and a populist nationalism is today's road to election victory in
Europe and other countries just as it was for Donald Trump in 2016.
Trump's agenda may really be to break up the American Empire, using the old Uncle Sucker isolationist rhetoric of half a century
ago. He certainly is going for the Empire's most vital organs. But it he a witting anti-American agent? He might as well be – but
it would be a false mental leap to use "quo bono" to assume that he is a witting agent.
After all, if no U.S. contractor, supplier, labor union or bank will deal with him, would Vladimir Putin, China or Iran be any
more naďve? Perhaps the problem had to erupt as a result of the inner dynamics of U.S.-sponsored globalism becoming impossible
to impose when the result is financial austerity, waves of population flight from U.S.-sponsored wars, and most of all, U.S. refusal
to adhere to the rules and international laws that it itself sponsored seventy years ago in the wake of World War II.
Dismantling International Law and Its Courts
Any international system of control requires the rule of law. It may be a morally lawless exercise of ruthless power imposing
predatory exploitation, but it is still The Law. And it needs courts to apply it (backed by police power to enforce it and punish
violators).
Here's the first legal contradiction in U.S. global diplomacy: The United States always has resisted letting any other country
have any voice in U.S. domestic policies, law-making or diplomacy. That is what makes America "the exceptional nation." But for seventy
years its diplomats have pretended that its superior judgment promoted a peaceful world (as the Roman Empire claimed to be), which
let other countries share in prosperity and rising living standards.
At the United Nations, U.S. diplomats insisted on veto power. At the World Bank and IMF they also made sure that their equity
share was large enough to give them veto power over any loan or other policy. Without such power, the United States would not join
any international organization. Yet at the same time, it depicted its nationalism as protecting globalization and internationalism.
It was all a euphemism for what really was unilateral U.S. decision-making.
Inevitably, U.S. nationalism had to break up the mirage of One World internationalism, and with it any thought of an international
court. Without veto power over the judges, the U.S. never accepted the authority of any court, in particular the United Nations'
International Court in The Hague. Recently that court undertook an investigation into U.S. war crimes in Afghanistan, from its torture
policies to bombing of civilian targets such as hospitals, weddings and infrastructure. "That investigation ultimately found 'a reasonable
basis to believe that war crimes and crimes against humanity."
[1]
Donald Trump's National Security Adviser John Bolton erupted in fury, warning in September that: "The United States will use any
means necessary to protect our citizens and those of our allies from unjust prosecution by this illegitimate court," adding that
the UN International Court must not be so bold as to investigate "Israel or other U.S. allies."
That prompted a senior judge, Christoph Flügge from Germany, to resign in protest. Indeed, Bolton told the court to keep out of
any affairs involving the United States, promising to ban the Court's "judges and prosecutors from entering the United States." As
Bolton spelled out the U.S. threat: "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."
What this meant, the German judge spelled out was that: "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 original inspiration of the Court – to use the Nuremburg laws that were applied against German Nazis to bring similar prosecution
against any country or officials found guilty of committing war crimes – had already fallen into disuse with the failure to indict
the authors of the Chilean coup, Iran-Contra or the U.S. invasion of Iraq for war crimes.
Dismantling Dollar Hegemony from the IMF to SWIFT
Of all areas of global power politics today, international finance and foreign investment have become the key flashpoint. International
monetary reserves were supposed to be the most sacrosanct, and international debt enforcement closely associated.
Central banks have long held their gold and other monetary reserves in the United States and London. Back in 1945 this seemed
reasonable, because the New York Federal Reserve Bank (in whose basement foreign central bank gold was kept) was militarily safe,
and because the London Gold Pool was the vehicle by which the U.S. Treasury kept the dollar "as good as gold" at $35 an ounce. Foreign
reserves over and above gold were kept in the form of U.S. Treasury securities, to be bought and sold on the New York and London
foreign-exchange markets to stabilize exchange rates. Most foreign loans to governments were denominated in U.S. dollars, so Wall
Street banks were normally name as paying agents.
That was the case with Iran under the Shah, whom the United States had installed after sponsoring the 1953 coup against Mohammed
Mosaddegh when he sought to nationalize Anglo-Iranian Oil (now British Petroleum) or at least tax it. After the Shah was overthrown,
the Khomeini regime asked its paying agent, the Chase Manhattan bank, to use its deposits to pay its bondholders. At the direction
of the U.S. Government Chase refused to do so. U.S. courts then declared Iran to be in default, and froze all its assets in the United
States and anywhere else they were able.
This showed that international finance was an arm of the U.S. State Department and Pentagon. But that was a generation ago,
and only recently did foreign countries begin to feel queasy about leaving their gold holdings in the United States, where they might
be grabbed at will to punish any country that might act in ways that U.S. diplomacy found offensive. So last year, Germany finally
got up the courage to ask that some of its gold be flown back to Germany. U.S. officials pretended to feel shocked at the insult
that it might do to a civilized Christian country what it had done to Iran, and Germany agreed to slow down the transfer.
But then came Venezuela. Desperate to spend its gold reserves to provide imports for its economy devastated by U.S. sanctions
– a crisis that U.S. diplomats blame on "socialism," not on U.S. political attempts to "make the economy scream" (as Nixon officials
said of Chile under Salvador Allende) – Venezuela directed the Bank of England to transfer some of its $11 billion in gold held in
its vaults and those of other central banks in December 2018. This was just like a bank depositor would expect a bank to pay a check
that the depositor had written.
England refused to honor the official request, following the direction of Bolton and U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo.
As Bloomberg reported: "The U.S. officials are trying to steer Venezuela's overseas assets to [Chicago Boy Juan] Guaido to help bolster
his chances of effectively taking control of the government. The $1.2 billion of gold is a big chunk of the $8 billion in foreign
reserves held by the Venezuelan central bank."
Turkey seemed to be a likely destination, prompting Bolton and Pompeo to warn it to desist from helping Venezuela, threatening
sanctions against it or any other country helping Venezuela cope with its economic crisis. As for the Bank of England and other European
countries, the Bloomberg report concluded: "Central bank officials in Caracas have been ordered to no longer try contacting the Bank
of England. These central bankers have been told that Bank of England staffers will not respond to them."
This led to rumors that Venezuela was selling 20 tons of gold via a Russian Boeing 777 – some $840 million. The money probably
would have ended up paying Russian and Chinese bondholders as well as buying food to relieve the local famine.
[4] Russia denied this report, but Reuters has confirmed is that Venezuela has sold 3 tons of a planned 29 tones of gold to the
United Arab Emirates, with another 15 tones are to be shipped on Friday, February 1.
[5] The U.S. Senate's Batista-Cuban hardliner Rubio accused this of being "theft," as if feeding the people to alleviate the
U.S.-sponsored crisis was a crime against U.S. diplomatic leverage.
If there is any country that U.S. diplomats hate more than a recalcitrant Latin American country, it is Iran. President Trump's
breaking of the 2015 nuclear agreements negotiated by European and Obama Administration diplomats has escalated to the point of threatening
Germany and other European countries with punitive sanctions if they do not also break the agreements they have signed. Coming on
top of U.S. opposition to German and other European importing of Russian gas, the U.S. threat finally prompted Europe to find a way
to defend itself.
Imperial threats are no longer military. No country (including Russia or China) can mount a military invasion of another major
country. Since the Vietnam Era, the only kind of war a democratically elected country can wage is atomic, or at least heavy bombing
such as the United States has inflicted on Iraq, Libya and Syria. But now, cyber warfare has become a way of pulling out the
connections of any economy. And the major cyber connections are financial money-transfer ones, headed by SWIFT, the acronym for the
Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, which is centered in Belgium.
Russia and China have already moved to create a shadow bank-transfer system in case the United States unplugs them from SWIFT.
But now, European countries have come to realize that threats by Bolton and Pompeo may lead to heavy fines and asset grabs if they
seek to continue trading with Iran as called for in the treaties they have negotiated.
On January 31 the dam broke with the announcement that Europe had created its own bypass payments system for use with Iran
and other countries targeted by U.S. diplomats. Germany, France and even the U.S. poodle Britain joined to create INSTEX -- Instrument
in Support of Trade Exchanges. The promise is that this will be used only for "humanitarian" aid to save Iran from a U.S.-sponsored
Venezuela-type devastation. But in view of increasingly passionate U.S. opposition to the Nord Stream pipeline to carry Russian gas,
this alternative bank clearing system will be ready and able to become operative if the United States tries to direct a sanctions
attack on Europe.
I have just returned from Germany and seen a remarkable split between that nation's industrialists and their political leadership.
For years, major companies have seen Russia as a natural market, a complementary economy needing to modernize its manufacturing and
able to supply Europe with natural gas and other raw materials. America's New Cold War stance is trying to block this commercial
complementarity. Warning Europe against "dependence" on low-price Russian gas, it has offered to sell high-priced LNG from the United
States (via port facilities that do not yet exist in anywhere near the volume required). President Trump also is insisting that NATO
members spend a full 2 percent of their GDP on arms – preferably bought from the United States, not from German or French merchants
of death.
The U.S. overplaying its position is leading to the Mackinder-Kissinger-Brzezinski Eurasian nightmare that I mentioned above.
In addition to driving Russia and China together, U.S. diplomacy is adding Europe to the heartland, independent of U.S. ability to
bully into the state of dependency toward which American diplomacy has aimed to achieve since 1945.
The World Bank, for instance, traditionally has been headed by a U.S. Secretary of Defense. Its steady policy since its inception
is to provide loans for countries to devote their land to export crops instead of giving priority to feeding themselves. That is
why its loans are only in foreign currency, not in the domestic currency needed to provide price supports and agricultural extension
services such as have made U.S. agriculture so productive. By following U.S. advice, countries have left themselves open to food
blackmail – sanctions against providing them with grain and other food, in case they step out of line with U.S. diplomatic demands.
It is worthwhile to note that our global imposition of the mythical "efficiencies" of forcing Latin American countries to
become plantations for export crops like coffee and bananas rather than growing their own wheat and corn has failed catastrophically
to deliver better lives, especially for those living in Central America. The "spread" between the export crops and cheaper food imports
from the U.S. that was supposed to materialize for countries following our playbook failed miserably – witness the caravans and refugees
across Mexico. Of course, our backing of the most brutal military dictators and crime lords has not helped either.
Likewise, the IMF has been forced to admit that its basic guidelines were fictitious from the beginning. A central core has been
to enforce payment of official inter-government debt by withholding IMF credit from countries under default. This rule was instituted
at a time when most official inter-government debt was owed to the United States. But a few years ago Ukraine defaulted on $3
billion owed to Russia. The IMF said, in effect, that Ukraine and other countries did not have to pay Russia or any other country
deemed to be acting too independently of the United States. The IMF has been extending credit to the bottomless it of Ukrainian corruption
to encourage its anti-Russian policy rather than standing up for the principle that inter-government debts must be paid.
It is as if the IMF now operates out of a small room in the basement of the Pentagon in Washington. Europe has taken
notice that its own international monetary trade and financial linkages are in danger of attracting U.S. anger. This became clear
last autumn at the funeral for George H. W. Bush, when the EU's diplomat found himself downgraded to the end of the list to be called
to his seat. He was told that the U.S. no longer considers the EU an entity in good standing. In December, "Mike Pompeo gave a speech
on Europe in Brussels -- his first, and eagerly awaited -- in which he extolled the virtues of nationalism, criticised multilateralism
and the EU, and said that "international bodies" which constrain national sovereignty "must be reformed or eliminated."
[5]
Most of the above events have made the news in just one day, January 31, 2019. The conjunction of U.S. moves on so many fronts,
against Venezuela, Iran and Europe (not to mention China and the trade threats and moves against Huawei also erupting today) looks
like this will be a year of global fracture.
It is not all President Trump's doing, of course. We see the Democratic Party showing the same colors. Instead of applauding democracy
when foreign countries do not elect a leader approved by U.S. diplomats (whether it is Allende or Maduro), they've let the mask fall
and shown themselves to be the leading New Cold War imperialists. It's now out in the open. They would make Venezuela the new Pinochet-era
Chile. Trump is not alone in supporting Saudi Arabia and its Wahabi terrorists acting, as Lyndon Johnson put it, "Bastards, but they're
our bastards."
Where is the left in all this? That is the question with which I opened this article. How remarkable it is that it is only right-wing
parties, Alternative for Deutschland (AFD), or Marine le Pen's French nationalists and those of other countries that are opposing
NATO militarization and seeking to revive trade and economic links with the rest of Eurasia.
The end of our monetary imperialism, about which I first wrote in 1972 in Super Imperialism, stuns even an informed observer like
me. It took a colossal level of arrogance, short-sightedness and lawlessness to hasten its decline -- something that only crazed
Neocons like John Bolton, Elliot Abrams and Mike Pompeo could deliver for Donald Trump.
[2] Patricia Laya, Ethan Bronner and Tim Ross,
"Maduro Stymied in Bid to Pull $1.2 Billion of Gold From U.K.," Bloomberg, January 25, 2019. Anticipating just such a double-cross,
President Chavez acted already in 2011 to repatriate 160 tons of gold to Caracas from the United States and Europe.
Well, if the StormTrumpers can tear down all the levers and institutions of international US dollar strength, perhaps they
can also tear down all the institutions of Corporate Globalonial Forced Free Trade. That itself may BE our escape . . . if there
are enough millions of Americans who have turned their regionalocal zones of habitation into economically and politically armor-plated
Transition Towns, Power-Down Zones, etc. People and places like that may be able to crawl up out of the rubble and grow and defend
little zones of semi-subsistence survival-economics.
If enough millions of Americans have created enough such zones, they might be able to link up with eachother to offer hope
of a movement to make America in general a semi-autarchik, semi-secluded and isolated National Survival Economy . . . . much smaller
than today, perhaps likelier to survive the various coming ecosystemic crash-cramdowns, and no longer interested in leading or
dominating a world that we would no longer have the power to lead or dominate.
We could put an end to American Exceptionalism. We could lay this burden down. We could become American Okayness Ordinarians.
Make America an okay place for ordinary Americans to live in.
If Populists, I assume that's what you mean by "Storm Troopers", offer me M4A and revitalized local economies, and deliver
them, they have my support and more power to them.
That's why Trump was elected, his promises, not yet delivered, were closer to that then the Democrats' promises. If the Democrats
promised those things and delivered, then they would have my support.
If the Democrats run a candidate, who has a no track record of delivering such things, we stay home on election day. Trump
can have it, because it won't be any worse.
I don't give a damn about "social issues." Economics, health care and avoiding WWIII are what motivates my votes, and I think
more and more people are going to vote the same way.
Good point about Populist versus StormTrumper. ( And by the way, I said StormTRUMper, not StormTROOper). I wasn't thinking
of the Populists. I was thinking of the neo-etc. vandals and arsonists who want us to invade Venezuela, leave the JCPOA with Iran,
etc. Those are the people who will finally drive the other-country governments into creating their own parallel payment systems,
etc.
And the midpoint of those efforts will leave wreckage and rubble for us to crawl up out of. But we will have a chance to crawl
up out of it.
My reason for voting for Trump was mainly to stop the Evil Clinton from getting elected and to reduce the chance of near immediate
thermonuclear war with Russia and to save the Assad regime in Syria from Clintonian overthrow and replacement with an Islamic
Emirate of Jihadistan.
Much of what will be attempted " in Trump's name" will be de-regulationism of all kinds delivered by the sorts of basic Republicans
selected for the various agencies and departments by Pence and Moore and the Koch Brothers. I doubt the Populist Voters wanted
the Koch-Pence agenda. But that was a risky tradeoff in return for keeping Clinton out of office.
The only Dems who would seek what you want are Sanders or maybe Gabbard or just barely Warren. The others would all be Clinton
or Obama all over again.
I couldn't really find any details about the new INSTEX system – have you got any good links to brush up on? I know they made
an announcement yesterday but how long until the new payment system is operational?
arguably wouldn't it be better if for USD hegemony to be dismantled? A strong USD hurts US exports, subsidizes American consumption
(by making commodities cheaper in relative terms), makes international trade (aka a 8,000-mile+ supply chain) easier.
For the sake of the environment, you want less of all three. Though obviously I don't like the idea of expensive gasoline,
natural gas or tube socks either.
It would be good for Americans, but the wrong kind of Americans. For the Americans that would populate the Global Executive
Suite, a strong US$ means that the stipends they would pay would be worth more to the lackeys, and command more influence.
Dumping the industrial base really ruined things. America is now in a position where it can shout orders, and drop bombs,
but doesn't have the capacity to do anything helpful. They have to give up being what Toynbee called a creative minority, and
settle for being a dominant minority.
Having watched the 2016 election closely from afar, I was left with the impression that many of the swing voters who cast
their vote for Trump did so under the assumption that he would act as a catalyst for systemic change.
What this change would consist of, and how it would manifest, remained an open question. Would he pursue rapprochement with
Russia and pull troops out of the Middle East as he claimed to want to do during his 2016 campaign, would he doggedly pursue corruption
charges against Clinton and attempt to reform the FBI and CIA, or would he do both, neither, or something else entirely?
Now we know. He has ripped the already transparent mask of altruism off what is referred to as the U.S.-led liberal international
order and revealed its true nature for all to see, and has managed to do it in spite of the liberal international establishment
desperately trying to hold it in place in the hope of effecting a seamless post-Trump return to what they refer to as "norms".
Interesting times.
Exactly. He hasn't exactly lived up to advanced billing so far in all respects, but I suspect there's great deal of skulduggery
going on behind the scenes that has prevented that. Whether or not he ever had or has a coherent plan for the havoc he has
wrought, he has certainly been the agent for change many of us hoped he would be, in stark contrast to the criminal duopoly parties
who continue to oppose him, where the daily no news is always bad news all the same. To paraphrase the infamous Rummy, you
don't go to war with the change agent and policies you wished you had, you go to war with the ones you have. That might be the
best thing we can say about Trump after the historic dust of his administration finally settles.
Look on some bright sides. Here is just one bright side to look on. President Trump has delayed and denied the Clinton Plan
to topple Assad just long enough that Russia has been able to help Assad preserve legitimate government in most of Syria and defeat
the Clinton's-choice jihadis.
That is a positive good. Unless you are pro-jihadi.
Clinton wasn't going to "benefit the greater good" either, and a very strong argument, based on her past behavior, can be made
that she represented the greater threat. Given that the choice was between her and Trump, I think voters made the right decision.
Hudson's done us a service in pulling these threads together. I'd missed the threats against the ICC judges. One question:
is it possible for INSTEX-like arrangements to function secretly? What is to be gained by announcing them publicly and drawing
the expected attacks? Does that help sharpen conflicts, and to what end?
Maybe they're done in secret already – who knows? The point of doing it publicly is to make a foreign-policy impact, in this
case withdrawing power from the US. It's a Declaration of Independence.
It certainly seems as though the 90 percent (plus) are an afterthought in this journey to who knows where? Like George C.Scott
said while playing Patton, "The whole world at economic war and I'm not part of it. God will not let this happen." Looks like
we're on the Brexit track (without the vote). The elite argue with themselves and we just sit and watch. It appears to me that
the elite just do not have the ability to contemplate things beyond their own narrow self interest. We are all deplorables now.
The end of America's unchallenged global economic dominance has arrived sooner than expected
Is not supported by this (or really the rest of the article). The past tense here, for example, is unwarranted:
At the United Nations, U.S. diplomats insisted on veto power. At the World Bank and IMF they also made sure that their
equity share was large enough to give them veto power over any loan or other policy.
And this
So last year, Germany finally got up the courage to ask that some of its gold be flown back to Germany. Germany agreed
to slow down the transfer.
Doesn't show Germany as breaking free at all, and worse it is followed by the pregnant
But then came Venezuela.
Yet we find out that Venezuela didn't managed to do what they wanted to do, the Europeans, the Turks, etc bent over yet
again. Nothing to see here, actually.
So what I'm saying is he didn't make his point. I wish it were true. But a bit of grumbling and (a tiny amount of) foot-dragging
by some pygmy leaders (Merkel) does not signal a global change.
"So what I'm saying is he didn't make his point. I wish it were true. But a bit of grumbling and (a tiny amount of) foot-dragging
by some pygmy leaders (Merkel) does not signal a global change."
I'm surprised more people aren't recognizing this. I read the article waiting in vain for some evidence of "the end of our
monetary imperialism" besides some 'grumbling and foot dragging' as you aptly put it. There was some glimmer of a buried lede
with INTEX, created to get around U.S. sanctions against Iran ─ hardly a 'dam-breaking'. Washington is on record as being annoyed.
Currency regime change can take decades, and small percentage differences are enormous because of the flows involved. USD
as reserve for 61% of global sovereigns versus 64% 15 years ago is a massive move. World bond market flows are 10X the size
of world stock market flows even though the price of the Dow and Facebook shares etc get all of the headlines.
And foreign exchange flows are 10-50X the flows of bond markets, they're currently on the order of $5 *trillion* per day. And
since forex is almost completely unregulated it's quite difficult to get the data and spot reserve currency trends. Oh, and buy
gold. It's the only currency that requires no counterparty and is no one's debt obligation.
That's not what Hudson claims in his swaggering final sentence:
"The end of our monetary imperialism, about which I first wrote in 1972 in Super Imperialism, stuns even an informed
observer like me."
Which is risible as not only did he fail to show anything of the kind, his opening sentence stated a completely different reality:
"The end of America's unchallenged global economic dominance has arrived sooner than expected" So if we hold him to his first
declaration, his evidence is feeble, as I mentioned. As a scholar, his hyperbole is untrustworthy.
No, gold is pretty enough lying on the bosom of a lady-friend but that's about its only usefulness in the real world.
Always bemusing that gold bugs never talk about gold being in a bubble . yet when it goes south of its purchase price speak
in tongues about ev'bal forces.
thanks Mr. Hudson. One has to wonder what has happened when the government (for decades) has been shown to be morally and otherwise
corrupt and self serving. It doesn't seem to bother anyone but the people, and precious few of them. Was it our financial and
legal bankruptcy that sent us over the cliff?
Indeed! It is to say the least encouraging to see Dr. Hudson return so forcefully to the theme of 'monetary imperialism'.
I discovered his Super Imperialism while looking for an explanation for the pending 2003 US invasion of Iraq. If you
haven't read it yet, move it to the top of your queue if you want to have any idea of how the world really works. You can
find any number of articles on his web site that return periodically to the theme of monetary imperialism. I remember one in particular
that described how the rest of the world was brought on board to help pay for its good old-fashioned military imperialism.
If it isn't clear to the rest of the world by now, it never will be. The US is incapable of changing on its own a corrupt
status quo dominated by a coalition of its military industrial complex, Wall Street bankers and fossil fuels industries. As long
as the world continues to chase the debt created on the keyboards of Wall Street banks and 'deficits don't matter' Washington
neocons – as long as the world's 1% think they are getting 'richer' by adding more "debts that can't be repaid (and) won't be"
to their portfolios, the global economy can never be put on a sustainable footing.
Until the US returns to the path of genuine wealth creation, it is past time for the rest of the world to go its own way with
its banking and financial institutions.
In other words, after 2 World Wars that produced the current world order, it is still in a state of insanity with the same
pretensions to superiority by the same people, to get number 3.
UK withholding Gold may start another Brexit? IE: funds/gold held by BOE for other countries in Africa, Asian, South America,
and the "stans" with start to depart, slowly at first, perhaps for Switzerland?
Where is the left in all this? Pretty much the same place as Michael Hudson, I'd say. Where is the US Democratic Party in all
this? Quite a different question, and quite a different answer. So far as I can see, the Democrats for years have bombed, invaded
and plundered other countries 'for their own good'. Republicans do it 'for the good of America', by which the ignoramuses mean
the USA. If you're on the receiving end, it doesn't make much difference.
Agreed! South America intervention and regime change, Syria ( Trump is pulling out), Iraq, Middle East meddling, all predate
Trump. Bush, Clinton and Obama have nothing to do with any of this.
" So last year, Germany finally got up the courage to ask that some of its gold be flown back to Germany. "
What proof is there that the gold is still there? Chances are it's notional. All Germany, Venezuela, or the others have is
an IOU – and gold cannot be printed. Incidentally, this whole discussion means that gold is still money and the gold standard
still exists.
What makes you think that the gold in Fort Knox is still there? If I remember right, there was a Potemkin visit back in the
70s to assure everyone that the gold was still there but not since then. Wait, I tell a lie. There was another visit about two
years ago but look who was involved in that visit-
And I should mention that it was in the 90s that between 1.3 and 1.5 million 400 oz tungsten blanks were manufactured in the
US under Clinton. Since then gold-coated tungsten bars have turned up in places like Germany, China, Ethiopia, the UK, etc so
who is to say if those gold bars in Fort Knox are gold all the way through either. More on this at --
http://viewzone2.com/fakegoldx.html
It wasn't last year that Germany brought back its Gold. It has been ongoing since 2013, after some political and popular pressure
build up. They finished the transaction in 2017. According to an article in Handelblatt (but it was widely reported back then)
they brought back pretty much everything they had in Paris (347t), left what they had in London (perhaps they should have done
it in reverse) and took home another 300t from the NY Fed. That still leaves 1236t in NY. But half of their Gold (1710t) is now
in Frankfurt. That is 50% of the Bundesbanks holdings.
They made a point in saying that every bar was checked and weighed and presented some bars in Frankfurt. I guess they didn't
melt them for assaying, but I'd expect them to be smart enough to check the density.
Their reason to keep Gold in NY and London is to quickly buy USD in case of a crisis. That's pretty much a cold war plan, but
that's what they do right now.
Regarding Michal Hudsons piece, I enjoyed reading through this one. He tends to write ridiculously long articles and in the
last few years with less time and motivation at hand I've skipped most of his texts on NC as they just drag on.
When I'm truly fascinated I like well written, long articles but somehow he lost me at some point. But I noticed that some
long original articles in US magazines, probably research for a long time by the journalist, can just drag on for ever as well
I just tune out.
This is making sense. I would guess that tearing up the old system is totally deliberate. It wasn't working so well for us
because we had to practice too much social austerity, which we have tried to impose on the EU as well, just to stabilize "king
dollar" – otherwise spread so thin it was a pending catastrophe.
Now we can get out from under being the reserve currency – the currency that maintains its value by financial manipulation
and military bullying domestic deprivation. To replace this old power trip we are now going to mainline oil. The dollar will become
a true petro dollar because we are going to commandeer every oil resource not already nailed down.
When we partnered with SA in Aramco and the then petro dollar the dollar was only backed by our military. If we start monopolizing
oil, the actual commodity, the dollar will be an apex competitor currency without all the foreign military obligations which will
allow greater competitive advantages.
No? I'm looking at PdVSA, PEMEX and the new "Energy Hub for the Eastern Mediterranean" and other places not yet made public.
It looks like a power play to me, not a hapless goofball president at all.
So sand people with sociological attachment to the OT is a compelling argument based on antiquarian preferences with authoritarian
patriarchal tendencies for their non renewable resource . after I might add it was deemed a strategic concern after WWII .
Considering the broader geopolitical realities I would drain all the gold reserves to zero if it was on offer . here natives
have some shiny beads for allowing us to resource extract we call this a good trade you maximize your utility as I do mine .
Hay its like not having to run C-corp compounds with western 60s – 70s esthetics and letting the locals play serf, blow back
pay back, and now the installed local chiefs can own the risk and refocus the attention away from the real antagonists.
Indeed. Thanks so much for this. Maybe the RICS will get serious now – can no longer include Brazil with Bolsonaro. There needs
to be an alternate system or systems in place, and to see US Imperialism so so blatantly and bluntly by Trump admin –
"US
gives Juan Guaido control over some Venezuelan assets" – should sound sirens on every continent and especially in the developing
world. I too hope there will be fracture to the point of breakage. Countries of the world outside the US/EU/UK/Canada/Australia
confraternity must now unite to provide a permanent framework outside the control of imperial interests. The be clear, this must
not default to alternative forms of imperialism germinating by the likes of China.
" such criticism can't begin to take in the full scope of the damage the Trump White House is inflicting on the system of global
power Washington built and carefully maintained over those 70 years. Indeed, American leaders have been on top of the world for
so long that they no longer remember how they got there.
Few among Washington's foreign policy elite seem to fully grasp the complex system that made U.S. global power what it
now is, particularly its all-important geopolitical foundations. As Trump travels the globe, tweeting and trashing away, he's
inadvertently showing us the essential structure of that power, the same way a devastating wildfire leaves the steel beams of
a ruined building standing starkly above the smoking rubble."
I read something like this and I am like, some of these statements need to be qualified. Like: "Driving China and Russia together".
Like where's the proof? Is Xi playing telephone games more often now with Putin? I look at those two and all I see are two egocentric
people who might sometimes say the right things but in general do not like the share the spotlight. Let's say they get together
to face America and for some reason the later gets "defeated", it's not as if they'll kumbaya together into the night.
This website often points out the difficulties in implementing new banking IT initiatives. Ok, so Europe has a new "payment
system". Has it been tested thoroughly? I would expect a couple of weeks or even months of chaos if it's not been tested, and
if it's thorough that probably just means that it's in use right i.e. all the kinks have been worked out. In that case the transition
is already happening anyway. But then the next crisis arrives and then everyone would need their dollar swap lines again which
probably needs to cleared through SWIFT or something.
Anyway, does this all mean that one day we'll wake up and a slice of bacon is 50 bucks as opposed to the usual 1 dollar?
Driving Russia and China together is correct. I recall them signing a variety of economic and military agreement a few years
ago. It was covered in the media. You should at least google an issue before making silly comments. You might start with the report
of Russia and China signing 30 cooperation agreements three years ago. See
https://www.rbth.com/international/2016/06/27/russia-china-sign-30-cooperation-agreements_606505
. There are lots and lots of others.
He's draining the swamp in an unpredicted way, a swamp that's founded on the money interest. I don't care what NYT and
WaPo have to say, they are not reporting events but promoting agendas.
The financial elites are only concerned about shaping society as they see fit, side of self serving is just a historical
foot note, Trumps past indicates a strong preference for even more of the same through authoritarian memes or have some missed
the OT WH reference to dawg both choosing and then compelling him to run.
Whilst the far right factions fight over the rudder the only new game in town is AOC, Sanders, Warren, et al which Trumps supporters
hate with Ideological purity.
Highly doubt Trump is a "witting agent", most likely is that he is just as ignorant as he almost daily shows on twitter. On
US role in global affairs he says the same today as he did as a media celebrity in the late 80s. Simplistic household "logics"
on macroeconomics. If US have trade deficit it loses. Countries with surplus are the winners.
On a household level it fits, but there no "loser" household that in infinity can print money that the "winners" can accumulate
in exchange for their resources and fruits of labor.
One wonder what are Trumps idea of US being a winner in trade (surplus)? I.e. sending away their resources and fruits of labor
overseas in exchange for what? A pile of USD? That US in the first place created out of thin air. Or Chinese Yuan, Euros, Turkish
liras? Also fiat-money. Or does he think US trade surplus should be paid in gold?
When the US political and economic hegemony will unravel it will come "unexpected". Trump for sure are undermining it with
his megalomaniac ignorance. But not sure it's imminent.
Anyhow frightening, the US hegemony have its severe dark sides. But there is absolutely nothing better on the horizon, a crash
will throw the world in turmoil for decades or even a century. A lot of bad forces will see their chance to elevate their influence.
There will be fierce competition to fill the gap.
On could the insane economic model of EU/Germany being on top of global affairs, a horribly frightening thought. Misery and
austerity for all globally, a permanent recession. Probably not much better with the Chinese on top.
I'll take the USD hegemony any day compared to that prospect.
Michael Hudson, in Super Imperialism, went into how the US could just create the money to run a large trade deficit with the
rest of the world. It would get all these imports effectively for nothing, the US's exorbitant privilege. I tied this in with this graph from MMT.
The trade deficit required a large Government deficit to cover it and the US government could just create the money to cover
it.
Then ideological neoliberals came in wanting balanced budgets and not realising the Government deficit covered the trade deficit.
The US has been destabilising its own economy by reducing the Government deficit. Bill Clinton didn't realize a Government surplus is an indicator a financial crisis is about to hit. The last US Government surplus occurred in 1927 – 1930, they go hand-in-hand with financial crises.
Richard Koo shows the graph central bankers use and it's the flow of funds within the economy, which sums to zero (32-34 mins.).
The Government was running a surplus as the economy blew up in the early 1990s. It's the positive and negative, zero sum, nature of the monetary system. A big trade deficit needs a big Government deficit to cover it. A big trade deficit, with a balanced budget, drives the private sector into debt and blows up the economy.
It should be remembered Bill Clinton's early meeting with Rubin, where in he was informed that wages and productivity had diverged –
Rubin did not blink an eye.
'He bragged she was his sex slave': Jeffrey Epstein 'purchased Nadia Marcinkova as a girl from her
family, shot child porn of her with underage teen and forced her into threesomes'
WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT
Nada Marcinkova, who now goes by Nadia, was one of Epstein's victims as well as
an enabler according to interviews with victims back in 2005
An incident report obtained by DailyMail.com reveals she was as young as 15
when she first began having sex with Epstein and other victims
She was forced to have sex with at least three other women, two of whom were
underage, while Epstein would watch and perform sex acts on himself
'Epstein had purchased her from her family in Yugoslavia,' wrote Detective
Joseph Recarey after his interview with one victim
'Epstein bragged he brought her into the United States to be his Yugoslavian
sex slave,' Detective Recarey said after speaking to that same victim
She was granted immunity as part of Epstein's 2008 plea deal, despite never
being identified as a person to criminally charge in the case
The foreign-born model who many have identified as an accomplice in
procuring underage girls for Jeffrey Epstein is just as much a victim of the serial pedophile, according
to official reports.
Incident reports from the Palm Beach Police Department's 2005 investigation
that were obtained by DailyMail.com claim that Epstein told at least one underage victim that Nada
Marcinkova was his 'Yugoslavian sex slave.'
Multiple girls also state that Epstein made them engage in sexual acts with
Marcinkova, which eventually turned into threesomes with both himself and the model.
'Epstein had purchased her from her family in Yugoslavia,' wrote Detective
Joseph Recarey after his interview with one victim.
'Epstein bragged he brought her into the United States to be his
Yugoslavian sex slave.'
Scroll down for video
... ... ...
Scene: An incident report obtained by DailyMail.com reveals she was as young
as 15 when she first began having sex with Epstein and other victims at his Palm Beach home (above)
Marcinkova would have been underage during most of the alleged incidents
described by the victims to Detective Recarey.
She was no older then 16 when she and another underage victim were
allegedly forced to stimulate each other manually, orally and with toys while Epstein watched them and
pleasured himself in the bed.
That same unnamed girl broke down in tears while revealing she had been to
Epstein's Palm Beach mansion hundreds of times in a two-year period and made thousands of dollars.
At first she was paid extra to perform an oral sex act on Marcinkova, then
each week 'things continued to escalate', states the incident report.
She said that she was 'adamant... that no vaginal penetration would occur
with [Epstein],' but then that too did occur while she was underage, she told Detective Recarey.
On one occasion, the date of which he could not recall, Epstein allegedly
raped that victim after she and Marcinkova had engaged in an oral sex act to completion.
'She said her head was being held against the bed forcibly... she screamed
no and Epstein stopped,' said the report.
Soon after this, the victim said that Epstein purchased a '2005 Doge [sic]
Neon, blue in color for her personal use.'
'Epstein bragged he brought her into the United States to be his Yugoslavian sex slave,' Detective Recarey said after speaking to that same victim (Epstein above in 2008)"
Another woman also detailed a similar progression of events, starting with
massages and leading into sexual encounters with Marcinkova.
That victim, who was of age during all visits to the house as she first met
Epstein at 18, told Detective Recarey she also performed oral sex acts on Epstein but refused his
directive to bring around other young girls.
She also claimed that she was once directed to perform a manual sex act on
herself while watching Epstein have sex with Marcinkova.
Another victim, who told police she began having sexual relations with
Marcinkova at 16, said that Epstein took pictures of the two and actually displayed them around his
home.
These incidents make it clear that Marcinkova was also an alleged victim of
Epstein.
She would later move into more of a procurement role, according to court
documents, and eventually cut ties with Epstein.
Marcinkova was granted immunity as part of Epstein's 2008 deal despite the
fact that no charges would likely have been filed against her based on the police investigation.
She was actually born in the former Czechoslovakia just four years before
the Velvet Revolution, which precipitated the non-violent transition of power in the country.
At some point she and her family did move to Yugoslavia. In recent years,
she has changed her surname and Americanized her first name, going by Nadia.
Jeffrey Epstein's longtime personal pilots have been subpoenaed by federal prosecutors in Manhattan, according to the
Wall Street Journal . The grand jury subpoenaes were served earlier this month following Epstein's July 6 arrest at Teterboro
Airport in New Jersey on charges of sex-trafficking minors. He has pleaded not guilty to the yearslong scheme in which prosecutors
allege the wealthy financier sexually abused dozens of young girls from 2002 to 2005, some of whom recruited other victims.
It is unknown how many of Epstein's pilots were subpoenaed, or whether they are cooperating witnesses. According to court documents
from prior cases, Epstein employed David Rodgers, Larry Visoski, Larry Morrison and Bill Hammond as pilots and flight engineers.
Rogers, Visoski and Morrison have previously testified in civil depositions.
Testimony from the pilots could be used by federal investigators in their efforts to corroborate accounts from Mr. Epstein's
accusers. They could also provide detail on Mr. Epstein's travels and his associates. Some of the pilots were responsible for
keeping flight logs of passengers who flew on Mr. Epstein's private jet, according to court filings. -
Wall Street Journal
While prosecutors claimed that Epstein owns two private jets, the registered sex offender's attorneys said in a court filing earlier
this month that he owns one private jet, and "sold the other jet in June 2019." Considering that he was arrested after returning
from Paris in his Gulfstream G550, per Bloomberg , it suggests that Epstein sold his infamous and evidence-rich Boeing 272-200 known
as the "Lolita Express"
weeks
before his arrest .
Women in civil lawsuits have accused Mr. Epstein of conspiring with his pilots and other associates from at least 1998 to 2002
to facilitate sex abuse and avoid law-enforcement detection . One woman has said in court filings that when she was a minor in
2000, Mr. Epstein transported her regularly on his private jet to be sexually exploited by his associates and friends . -
Wall Street Journal
According to flight logs, former President Bill Clinton flew on the "Lolita Express" a total of 27 times . "Many of those times
Clinton had his Secret Service with him and many times he did not," according to investigative journalist Conchita Sarnoff - who
first revealed the former president's extensive flights on Epstein's "lolita express" in a 2010
Daily Beast exposé.
Clinton claimed in a statement earlier
this month that he only took "a total of four trips on Jeffrey Epstein's airplane" in 2002 and 2003, and that Secret Service accompanied
him at all times - which Sarnoff told Fox News was a
total lie
.
"I know from the pilot logs and these are pilot logs that you know were written by different pilots and at different times that
Clinton went, he was a guest of Epstein's 27 times ," said Sarnoff.
Other famous guests include actor Kevin Spacey and Chris Tucker, who flew with Clinton to Africa to tour HIV/AIDS project sites,
according to New York Magazine in 2002, which notes how
much Epstein revered the former president.
Lawyers for some of Epstein's accusers alleged in a 2015 court filing that flight logs provided by Epstein pilot Rodgers were
incomplete, and that they will corroborate their accusations of being trafficked by Epstein and his associates when they were underage
.
"It would not be surprising to find that some of these flight logs were likely designed to hide evidence of criminal activity
-- or perhaps later cleansed of such evidence," wrote the lawyers.
Investigators may be interested in asking Mr. Epstein's pilots whether they witnessed any efforts by Mr. Epstein to interfere
with law enforcement, according to legal experts. In recent court filings, prosecutors have
accused Mr. Epstein of tampering with witnesses , an allegation that Mr. Epstein's lawyers denied in court.
Federal prosecutors in Miami and Mr. Epstein's lawyers in 2007 negotiated over the possibility of Mr. Epstein pleading guilty
to obstruction of justice, including for an incident involving one of his pilots, according to emails that became public in civil
lawsuits. -
Wall Street Journal
Interestingly, prosecutors confirmed that there are " uncharged individuals " in Epstein's case. Aside from his close associate
and Clinton pal Ghislaine Maxwell - his 'madam,' could the pilots be on that list?"
"... A reporter at Wired tried to look into Marcinko's past to parse whether she was a willing, or unwilling, participant in Epstein's crimes, and whether she was also one of his youngest victims. Some of Epstein's other victims told police that Marcinko pressured them to sleep with both her and Epstein. Though her history of flying with Epstein is harder to pin down due to Epstein's record-keeping practices (he only recorded the first names of underage girls in flight logs, if at all), but it's become clear that during her first decade in the country, from roughly 2000 to the beginning of Epstein's prison sentence, she frequently flew between Epstein's properties in New York, Palm Beach, Monterey, Columbus, Ohio and the Azores. A pilot who once worked for Epstein testified that she had flown with him hundreds of times. ..."
"... Marcinko's relationship with Epstein presumably ended when she was given immunity from prosecution in 2008 after being named an accomplice. It's still not entirely clear how she came to live with Epstein. Was she 'sold' to him by family members in Bratislava? Or did she run away with him willingly, hoping for a more glamorous life? ..."
"... Whatever happened, as Wired claims, Marcinko is part of a small group of people who are both victims of Epstein and possible abusers. ..."
While anybody even remotely familiar with the Epstein story knows that his actions were irredeemably heinous, there are other
characters in Epstein's orbit - characters who may have participated in what appears to be a global sex-trafficking ring - who are
more complicated.
One of those characters is a 32-year-old model named Nadia Marcinko. Marcinko, who was once described in court documents as Epstein's
"in-house sex slave" was ferried out of Slovakia on Epstein's private jet when she was just 15, and lived with the billionaire for
years after,
Wired reports.
Now working as a commercial pilot, Marcinko is clearly hoping the media will gloss over her involvement with Epstein. She refuses
to talk to reporters, and even uses a slightly modified version of her last name (she was once known as Nadia Marcinkova).
A reporter at Wired tried to look into Marcinko's past to parse whether she was a willing, or unwilling, participant in Epstein's
crimes, and whether she was also one of his youngest victims. Some of Epstein's other victims told police that Marcinko pressured
them to sleep with both her and Epstein. Though her history of flying with Epstein is harder to pin down due to Epstein's record-keeping
practices (he only recorded the first names of underage girls in flight logs, if at all), but it's become clear that during her first
decade in the country, from roughly 2000 to the beginning of Epstein's prison sentence, she frequently flew between Epstein's properties
in New York, Palm Beach, Monterey, Columbus, Ohio and the Azores. A pilot who once worked for Epstein testified that she had flown
with him hundreds of times.
Marcinko's relationship with Epstein presumably ended when she was given immunity from prosecution in 2008 after being named
an accomplice. It's still not entirely clear how she came to live with Epstein. Was she 'sold' to him by family members in Bratislava?
Or did she run away with him willingly, hoping for a more glamorous life?
Whatever happened, as
Wired claims, Marcinko is part of a small group of people who are both victims of Epstein and possible abusers.
Her testimony could again be useful. That is, if she ultimately avoids being implicated as a 'rape facilitator'.
This type of adult behavior is really common among prior child sex victims, even younger than what they are stating here.
If children get sex instead of parenting and nurturing they equate sex with love and their only value. They later often turn
into over sexualized 'desperate attention whores'. They could easily help abuse others to stay in the game for their desperation
for attention validation.
This is probably the closest thing Epstein had to a mate. You can see that he cant bond with people, there is only sex, narcissism
and objectifying. Business deal is as close as he gets.
Read the Wired article. She is portrayed as both not necessarily in that order. They theorize she may have been sold to JE
or maybe he simply took her before eh engaged in recruitment and abuse herself. They conclude with:
"It's all too sad, and anyone who is said to have entered bondage at 15, and was forced to act as a sex slave, deserves much,
much better."
No its Mossad. His partner chick Maxwell's father even had an Mossad Israeli state funeral. Although the CIA is subservient
to Mossad, so same thing in the end.
That's why the Israeli Mossad guys caught in Sept 11 were eventually released.
Australia has become the first country in the world to recognise so-called orphanage trafficking as a form of modern-day slavery.
The vast majority of children living in "orphanages" in developing nations are not true orphans. About 80%
have a living parent or family .
Such institutions are often run for the profit of their owners. They are sustained by well-meaning western tourists who visit
to donate or volunteer their time.
We have a very short summary this time, but the GTRP Diagram is the Value. In this post we look at the information available
pertaining to Roy Cohn. We look at his relationships with Ronald Reagan, Rupert Murdoch, Nicaraguan Rebel propaganda. Cohn's
leadership role in the Western Goals Foundation, Larry McDonald, and the Council for National Policy. Cohn's admitted role
in CIA pedophile ring, referred to by some as Human Compromise operations. Cohn's pedophile network continued by Edwin Wilson's
pedophile network uncovered and investigated by Sen. John DeCamp. Cohn law practice ties to Organized Crime and the Catholic
Archdiocese of New York. Cohn's mentorship of bot...
Sexual Blackmail" "Pedophile Ring" "Roy Cohn and Rupert Murdoch" "Pizzagate" "John Podesta" "Iran-Contra" "Edwin Wilson"
"Roger Stone" (
https://gtrpweb.com/featured_content )
"Historically, one of Wilson's Agency jobs was to subvert members of both houses [of Congress] by any means necessary .
Certain people could be easily coerced by living out their sexual fantasies in the flesh . A remembrance of these occasions
[was] permanently recorded via selected cameras . The technicians in charge of filming were TSD [Technical Services Division
of the CIA]. The unwitting ***** stars advanced in their political careers, some of [whom] may still be in office." (Qtd. in
DeCamp 179)
Cohn also had a protégé of his own: a young, up-and-coming real-estate developer named Donald J. Trump. And though Trump
and Cohn's relationship spanned from the early 1970s until a few months before Cohn's death, in 1986 (Trump abandoned his mentor
as Cohn lay dying), there seemed to be a lot of information of contemporary significance contained within their bizarre partnership
This girl is all over the internet profiling her piloting of planes.........
Narcissism in a woman is twice as bad as in a man............
The story of Narcissus dates back to ancient Greece. It was said that this young man was the son of a nymph named Liriope,
and the river deity and personification of the river, Cephissus. Narcissus was raised in Boeotia (a region in central Greece)
and grew into an extremely handsome youth. However, he never found anyone he thought was as attractive as he was; he left a string
of broken-hearted girls (and a few young men) everywhere he went.
until one day Narcissus happened to see his own reflection in the water. He had finally found someone he found truly attractive:
himself. He tried to kiss the image, but only created a ripple in the water that hid the reflection. Obsessed with his love for
his own image, but never able to touch it, he wasted away and eventually died of hunger and thirst.
The term and the Greek story are not connected. Narcs actually hate themselves deep down and tend to only associate with those
who either make them look good or they can dominate.
A nitro story, and from what seems already apparent, one of breathtaking dimension. This would be the swamp dam break. The
scumbags who would go down ... limited only by one's imagination. True justice in this case would be the correction the U.S. needs
to really get back to greatness. It would be the story of our times ... for the ages.
Any networks covering this? Are the masses being informed? Does the guy sitting next to you, standing behind you, mowing your
lawn, stocking the shelves .... do they know who Epstein is? Nope, and the story is getting buried.
If the Clintons have the most to lose over a thorough investigation of Epstein's sexual abuse of minors then Epstein does not
have long. People posing a threat to Team Clinton usually have accidents and disappear. This is going to get much uglier for swamp
dwellers.
"Epstein also made E.W. perform oral sex on him and was to perform sex acts on Nadia Marcinkova [pictured above, on right]
(Epstein's live-in sex slave) in Epstein's presence."
Case 09-34791-RBR Doc 1603-3 Filed 04/08/11 Page 7 of 39
the Palm Beach Police Department also began investigating Epstein's sexual abuse of minor girls. They also collected evidence
of Epstein's involvement with minor girls and his obsession with training sex slaves, including pulling information from Epstein's
trash. Their investigation showed that Epstein ordered from Amazon.com on about
September 4, 2005, such books as: SMI 01: A Realistic Introduction, by Jay Wiseman; SlaveCraft: Roadmaps for Erotic Servitude
- Principles, Skills, and Tools, by Guy Baldwin; and Training with Miss Abernathy: A Workbook for Erotic Slaves and Their Owners,
by Christina Abernathy. See Receipt for Sex Slave Books (Exhibit "I")
Case 09-34791 -RBR Doc 1 603-3 Filed 04/08/1 1 Page 1 1 of 39
further, how "convenient" the synchronicity as the Virgin Islands have just been hit this week with a MOSSAD CIA MI6 FSB bleach
bit "ransom ware" "hack" huh huh.
They were the glamorous Jeffrey Epstein aides who refused to testify about Prince Andrew's visits to the 'House of Sin'.
Sarah Kellen and Nadia Marchinova both pleaded their right to silence under the US Fifth Amendment when asked if the royal had
sex with teenage girls – earning themselves the nickname the 'blondes who took the Fifth'.
Today, Epstein's former PA Miss Kellen and Miss Marchinova – his on-off girlfriend – have reinvented themselves as Sarah Kensington
and Nadia Marcinko.
Scroll down for video
Sarah Kensington - formerly Sarah Kellen - and her racing driver boyfriend Brian Vickers (left) and Nadia Marchinova, who is now
Nadia Marcinko (right)
Miss Kensington, 34, is an interior designer who boasts of renovating corporate apartments in New York, the Caribbean and Paris
– and dating a handsome racing car driver.
Miss Marcinko, 29, is a pilot and the chief executive of Aviloop, a company selling discounted flying lessons.
Intriguingly, they both operate from Ł1.5million addresses in a Manhattan building majority-owned by Mr Epstein's brother Mark.
Neither woman seems keen to draw attention to their past work for the billionaire paedophile.
Both women were given immunity from prosecution in a controversial deal fixed by Epstein when he was jailed for soliciting prostitution
from underage girls.
Miss Kellen was named as the chief fixer who travelled the world with Epstein and was accused by lawyers in legal filings of 'bringing
girls to Epstein's mansion to be abused'.
Quizzed under oath, she had an opportunity to deny Andrew had sex at the Ł6million Florida mansion, dubbed the 'House of Sin',
but chose to remain silent.
Citing the Fifth Amendment, Miss Marchinova also declined to say if she had sex with Andrew.
Since those scandal-engulfed days, both women have led dramatically different lives, a Mail investigation has discovered.
Both women were given immunity from prosecution in a controversial deal fixed by Epstein (left and right). He is said to have
gone to huge efforts to cover-up his crimes, promising to 'look after' those who kept quiet +8 <img src="https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/01/08/2461C72500000578-0-image-a-12_1420680664559.jpg"
height="910" width="634" alt="When quizzed under oath, Ms Kellen had an opportunity to deny Andrew (pictured left with Epstein) had
sex at Epstein's Ł6million Florida mansion, dubbed the 'House of Sin', but chose to remain silent" />
When quizzed under oath, Ms Kellen had an opportunity to deny Andrew (pictured left with Epstein) had sex at Epstein's Ł6million
Florida mansion, dubbed the 'House of Sin', but chose to remain silent
Buckingham Palace denies Prince Andrew sex case claim
Miss Kellen moved to Hawaii for a number of years where she married and took her husband's surname Bonk, before taking on her
current identity. On her interior design website, sarahkensington.net, she describes being 'fortunate to say that I've been able
to travel to many locations around the world, which in turn has broadened my designing skills'. She is in a relationship with a successful
Nascar driver, stating on her website that 'most of my fans know that I am Brian Vickers' girlfriend'.
Slovakia-born Miss Marcinko's biography on the Aviloop website now states: 'Over the years, she has proven herself to be a distinguished
entrepreneur'.
Virginia Roberts (pictured) claims in court she was forced to have sex with the Duke of York three times while underage"
Prince
Andrew pictured in 2001 with Virginia Roberts. She is said to be planning a book about her life
She also penned an online blog under the name 'Gulfstream Girl' which more than 77,000 people 'liked', until the company Gulfstream
objected and she changed it to 'Global Girl'.
She described how she started her flight training at Palm Beach Airport before accepting 'an offer from a friend' to obtain her
Gulfstream II pilot rating.
Epstein, 61, is said to have gone to extraordinary efforts to cover-up his vile crimes, promising to 'look after' people who kept
quiet.
His brother Mark told The Guardian newspaper he owned 'the majority of the units in the Manhattan building' and had never heard
of the two women's companies.
The Duke (pictured) fiercely denies any sexual contact with underage girls, while Epstein's lawyer has described the claims as
lies
He said Jeffrey did not own any of the units in the building, adding: 'They're rentals. The ones I own, I rent all of them out.'
It was also claimed yesterday that Epstein intimidated a pregnant journalist by asking where she was due to give birth.
British-born writer Vicky Ward was so afraid of the US financier that she had security put on the intensive care ward where her
premature twins were being treated.
The Cambridge-educated journalist, 45, said he tried to 'control' her when he learned she was writing an in-depth article about
him for Vanity Fair magazine in 2002.
Describing how Epstein 'spooked' her, she said he feared he was 'coming for my little ones' when he asked at which hospital she
was giving birth.
The Duke fiercely denies any sexual contact with underage girls, while Epstein's lawyer has described the claims as lies.
Where Are Jeffrey Epstein's Alleged Accomplices Now?
When prosecutors gave Jeffrey Epstein a sweetheart plea deal in 2007, they agreed not
to charge four women allegedly involved in recruiting dozens of underage girls for abuse.
Updated
07.09.19
1:49PM
ET
/
Published
07.09.19
4:41AM
ET
Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast/Photos Getty/YouTube
For decades,
financier Jeffrey Epstein
allegedly abused dozens of underage girls in a sex-trafficking enterprise,
according to a new federal indictment unsealed in the Southern District of New York.
But in order to successfully "create a vast network of underage victims for him to sexually exploit" and
expand his network of possible targets, he relied on the loyalty and organizational skills of his employees,
prosecutors claim.
According to the
14-page indictment
filed in Manhattan federal court on Monday, the 66-year-old hedge-fund
manager/convicted sex offender "worked and conspired with others, including employees and associates" to run
a sex-trafficking enterprise between 2002 and 2005, preying on "dozens" of girls as young as 14 at his
mansions in New York and Palm Beach, Florida.
During each encounter listed in the indictment -- which charges Epstein with one count of sex trafficking
and one count of sex-trafficking conspiracy -- girls were taken to a room to perform "massages" nude or
partially nude before Epstein would escalate the encounter to "include one or more sex acts."
"Epstein typically would also masturbate during these sexualized encounters, ask victims to touch him
while he masturbated, and touch victims' genitals with his hands or with sex toys," the indictment states,
adding the money man knew that the girls were minors.
After the assault, prosecutors allege, Epstein or his associates would pay each girl hundreds of dollars
in cash and often would turn the victim into a recruiter of new girls to abuse.
"In this way, Epstein created a vast network of underage victims for him to sexually exploit," the
indictment said. The indictment goes on to detail three anonymous victims and refers to three unnamed
employees who allegedly assisted Epstein in the enterprise, including by making calls to arrange for
"massages" for Epstein.
It's not the first time that Epstein's employees and associates have been accused of helping procure
underage girls for his abuse.
In Epstein's controversial 2008 plea deal in Florida -- which was granted by then-prosecutor and
now-Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta and other DOJ attorneys, without informing the billionaire's alleged
victims -- four women are named as possible accomplices. Epstein's non-prosecution agreement, which sentenced
him to 18 months in prison, also granted immunity to the four women and any other "potential
co-conspirators," identified in the
document
as "including but not limited to Sarah Kellen, Adriana Ross, Lesley Groff, or Nadia
Marcinkova."
"While Epstein was at the head of the international sex trafficking organization, that conspiracy could
not have functioned without many others playing their part," attorney Paul Cassell, who represents multiple
victims of Epstein,
told The Daily Beast after Epstein's arrest on Saturday
. "Jane Doe 1 and 2 will continue to fight for
all of Epstein's co-conspirators to be held accountable in New York, Florida, and anywhere else they
committed crimes."
Details of Epstein's alleged trafficking in Monday's indictment mirror the accounts of scores of underage
women in Florida, who described several "schedulers" who organized his alleged sex sessions and one young
woman, described as Epstein's "sex slave," who would allegedly participate in the abuse while the
billionaire watched.
Sarah Kellen, Epstein's former assistant who allegedly kept a Rolodex of young girls to recruit for her
employer, is now
married
to NASCAR driver Brian Vickers. Along with traveling with her husband, the 39-year-old (who also
goes by the name
Sarah Kensington)
is the owner of an interior-design firm,
SLK Designs
.
"Sarah Kensington makes a living doing what she loves in life, interior design,"
a Facebook page connected to SLK Designs states
. "She is the owner of SLK Designs LLC. and has studies
at several schools including the University of Hawaii and New York School of Interior Design." The
social-media page also details Sarah's interests, which include "fashion, photography, travel, delicious
cuisine, and anything design related."
The page also notes that Sarah "is working with a number of clients on various projects including
renovating several corporate apartments in New York, the Caribbean, and Paris. For the houses that Sarah
manages, she does a number of duties which can involve organizing staff schedules, looking for and
interviewing housekeepers and chefs, purchase and source items that are needed for the household (flatware,
dishes, furniture, art, etc.), design floral arrangements, and interior design."
Epstein also owns homes in New York, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Paris.
According to public records
, SLK Designs once operated from a building in Midtown Manhattan owned by
Epstein's property-manager brother, Mark Epstein. The condominium listed to take SLK Designs deliveries, at
301 E. 66th St., is the same address
where Epstein allegedly rented units
to house
models
.
Though not directly named in Monday's indictment, Kellen has been accused in court documents related to
the Florida case of booking the "massages," often calling girls to ensure they "were available for
encounters" when Epstein would travel to Palm Beach. Several alleged victims in Florida told authorities
they were led to and from the upstairs room in Epstein's mansion by a woman named Sarah, after she lined up
the oils on his massage table. According to
one police report
, Kellen also warned the girls not to talk to authorities about the encounters.
Monday's indictment contains similar allegations about unnamed Epstein employees. "When a victim
initially arrived at the Palm Beach Residence, she would be escorted to a room, sometimes by an employee of
Epstein's, including, at times, two assistants who, as described herein, were also responsible for
scheduling sexual encounters with minor victims," the Monday indictment states.
Kellen, who has properties in North Carolina, New York, and Miami Beach, did not respond to The Daily
Beast's request for comment. A NASCAR spokesperson told The Daily Beast the organization does "not have a
comment" about Kellen's alleged misconduct.
Nadia Marcinkova
Nadia Marcinkova, Epstein's alleged "sex slave" who
was accused of
participating in sexual encounters with underage girls, is now an FAA-certified
commercial pilot and flight instructor. Marcinkova, 33, who was allegedly brought from the former Yugoslavia
to live with Epstein, now goes by the named "
Global
Girl
" on social media, and has changed her last name.
"Global Girl (
Nadia
Marcinko
) spent many years in the international marketing and advertising world as an international
fashion model and spokesperson, with clients including Chanel, Christian Dior, Valentino,
Vogue
and
MTV. After many successful years in the modeling industry, she was ready for longer runways and became a
licensed commercial pilot," her
Facebook account states
, adding that she is an "FAA certified flight instructor and Gulfstream II, III &
IV pilot."
Marcinkova also is the founder and CEO of Aviloop, a website selling discounted flying lessons and other
deals related to aviation. Since 2011, Aviloop provides a slew of services, including designing custom pilot
team and "organizing team building events." As with Kellen, the aviation company is
registered
at the building once owned by Mark Epstein and allegedly used as a model clubhouse by his
brother.
Though Marcinkova originally started calling herself "Gulfstream Girl," she was sued in 2013 by
Gulfstream Aerospace Corp. for trademark infringement. On Jan. 6, 2014, the lawsuit filed in a New York
Southern District court was settled after Marcinko changed her online name to Global Girl.
According to
written testimony by several alleged victims
, Marcinkova is described as having "encouraged and engaged
in sexual acts" with young girls while Epstein watched. According to police, Epstein told one victim
Marcinkova was his "sex slave" and that he'd purchased her from her family in the former Yugoslavia when she
was 15. Marcinkova is not directly named in Monday's indictment.
Marcinkova, who lives in New York, did not immediately respond to The Daily Beast's request for comment.
Adriana Ross
Adriana Ross, a former model from Poland who allegedly helped organize Epstein's predatory sessions,
moved to Florida in 2002 and was hired to work at the financier's mansion. Ross, who often went by Adriana
Mucinska and is not directly named in Monday's indictment, also frequently flew on Epstein's
private jet alongside Bill Clinton
, according to flight records.
Along with her fellow alleged co-conspirators, Ross was questioned in 2010 about whether Britain's Prince
Andrew participated in Epstein's alleged sex enterprise. Refusing to answer questions about the inner
workings of the alleged scheme, Ross repeatedly invoked her Fifth Amendment rights,
according to previous reports
. As previously reported by The Daily Beast, Ross also lived at the East
66th Street building in Manhattan.
Ross' current profession or address was not immediately clear and she could not be reached for comment.
Lesley Groff
Lesley Groff
was another Epstein assistant who allegedly coordinated travel for young girls, often calling to schedule
"massages." Though not directly named in Monday's indictment, the 51-year-old has been previously named as
one of Epstein's three female assistants. According to a
2005
Chicago Tribune
story about executive-assistant pay
, Epstein divulged his assistants made
about $200,000.
"They are an extension of my brain. Their intuition is something that I don't have," Epstein told the
Tribune
. According to public records, Groff currently lives in Connecticut and did not respond to The
Daily Beast's request for comment.
Jeffrey Epstein's Nadia, who learnt to fly at the same Mossad-linked airfield as the
Hebrew-speaking Mohamed Atta.
What links Jeffrey Epstein to 9 11 and to Mossad?
The mainstream media is so thoroughly controlled by Mossad and its friends that the general
public is unlikely to find out.
Virginia Roberts became Jeffrey Epstein's sex slave in 1999.
Epstein's Black Book lists a number of people whom Mossad and its friends may have wanted
to blackmail and control prior to the events of 9 11 .
Jeffrey Epstein's girl Nadia Marcinko/Marcinkova (above) learned to fly at Florida's Lantana Airport at about
the same time as the Hebrew-speaking Mohammad Atta, who is thought to have been a Mossad agent.
Without a doubt, the absolutely raunchiest part of the Epstein affadavit stars a mysterious young woman named "Nada Marcinkova."
Lesbian strap-on raunchiness, ending in something that sounds to us a little bit like rape. We get all the details but no explanation
of who Marcinkova is or what her relationship with Epstein was.
She's not one of his high school victims, and doesn't seem to have talked to the police. But it somehow seems fitting that this
mysterious money manager to the billionaires would have an unknown Czech sex puppet lying around somewhere.
Gawker identified her in a
NY Social Diary photo
where Nadia (far left) is palling around with Epstein's pimp assistant Sarah Kellen (right).
Here she looks very respectable. Not at all like the "large rubber penis" wielding girl we know from the affadavit. Surely there's
a more representative photo.
Of course there is. After the jump, check out Nadia looking a little more, uhm, severe, sexy and ready to get it on. And we'll
throw in the raunchy portion of the affadavit below for your, uhm, reading pleasure.
[Note: Nadia, of course, couldn't be reached to confirm that this is her. But we're pretty sure it is.] Here's the relevant part
of the affidavit.
[Annoying redacting ink blot covering up girl's name] advised that things escalated within the home as Epstein would instruct
and pay [ink blot] to have intercourse with his female friend, Nada Marcinkova.
[Ink blot] explained the intercourse included strap on dildos, large rubber penis' [sic] and other devices that Epstein had
at his disposal. Epstein would watch them have intercourse and masturbate himself. Occasionally, Epstein would then join in during
the female on female intercourse and provide oral sex to both [ink blot] and Marcinkova.
This occured during the time [ink blot] was sixteen years of age.
[Ink blot] advised that this continued to escalate during two years. The routine became familiar to [ink blot]. Epstein's assistant
Sarah [Kellen] would telephone her every time Epstein was in the Town of Palm Beach and would place appointments for her to visit
and work for Epstein.
[... Ink blot] stated during one visit to Epstein's house in which she provided a massage to Epstein, his female friend, Nada
Marcinkova, was also present. [Ink blot] provided the massage in which Marcinkova and her would fondle each others breasts and
kiss for Epstein to enjoy. Towards the end of this massage, Epstein grabbed [ink blot] and turned her over onto her stomach on
the massage table and forcible insterted his penis into her vagina.
[Ink blot] became upset over this. She said her head was being held against the table forcibly, as he continued to pump inside
her. She screamed "No!" and Epstein stopped. She told him that she did not want to have his penis inside of her. Epstein did not
ejaculate inside of her and apologized for his actions and subsequently paid her a thousand dollars for that visit.
[Ink blot] stated she knows he still displays her photographs throughout the house.
The US justice department is opening a broad antitrust review into major technology firms,
as criticism over the companies' growing reach and power heats up.
The investigation will focus on growing complaints that the companies are unlawfully
stifling competition.
"The Department's review will consider the widespread concerns that consumers, businesses
and entrepreneurs have expressed about search, social media, and some retail services online,"
the Department of Justice said in a statement.
ss="rich-link"> A new antitrust frontier – the issue closing partisan divides in
the name of policing big tech Read more
"Without the discipline of meaningful market-based competition, digital platforms may act in
ways that are not responsive to consumer demands," added the assistant attorney general Makan
Delrahim, of the antitrust division.
The review will investigate practices of online platforms including Facebook , Alphabet's Google, Amazon and
Apple.
The investigation comes amid calls from lawmakers, including Democratic presidential
candidates such as Elizabeth Warren, that the companies should face more scrutiny.
Lat week, Facebook, Google, and Amazon
faced a grilling before the House subcommittee on antitrust, commercial and administrative
law over their hold on markets including digital advertising, e-commerce and cloud
computing.
Lawmakers questioned Amazon over the fees it levies against
third-party sellers on the platform and whether this creates a monopoly of power. They also
questioned Facebook executives over practices of targeting startups for acquisition and copying
features of companies that decline to be acquired.
Lawmakers also grilled Facebook this month over its plans to launch a global cryptocurrency,
called Libra. In the hearing, Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio said Facebook showed "breathtaking
arrogance" in attempting to launch a digital financial service after a number of major privacy
scandals.
In July, the Federal Trade Commission approved a $5bn fine against Facebook for its handling
of user data surrounding the Cambridge
Analytica scandal in 2018.
"Facebook is dangerous," Brown said, likening the company to a toddler playing with matches.
"It has burned the house down repeatedly and called every attempt a learning experience. Do you
really think people should trust you with their bank accounts and their money?"
The Department of Justice investigation is already under way, the Wall Street Journal
reported on Tuesday. The department hosted a private presentation from critics of big
technology companies, who walked legislators through concerns and arguments for breaking up the
firms.
Facebook, Alphabet , Amazon and Apple did not
immediately respond to requests for comment.
"... I thought all these foreign countries were international." He explained that "international" means countries that are not really countries. They're Liberia and Panama, countries that only use the US dollar, not their own currency. So the oil industry doesn't have a currency risk. They are flags of convenience and they don't have any income tax. ..."
"... He explained to me that Standard Oil sold its oil at a very low price from the Near East to Liberia or Panama or Lagos, or wherever they have a flag of convenience and no income tax. Then they would sell it at a very high price to its refineries in Europe and America, at such a high price that these "downstream" affiliates don't make any income. So there's no tax to pay. ..."
"... Standard Oil and other U.S. oil companies – and also mining companies – don't earn an income there, because they sell it so low, all the profits are reported to be taken in Liberia or Panama. These are non-countries. ..."
"... Here is a report. I'm from the State Department (I assumed that this meant CIA). "We want to calculate how much money the US could get if we set up bank branches and became the bank for all the criminal capital in the world." He said, "We figured out we can finance, (and he said this in an elevator), we can finance the Vietnam War with all the drug money coming into America, all of the criminal money. Can you make a calculation of how much that might be?" ..."
"... I found that the entire US balance of payments deficit in the 1960s, since the Vietnam War, the entire balance of payments deficit was military spending abroad. The private sector's trade and investment was exactly in balance; tourism, trade and investment were exactly in balance. All the deficit was military. ..."
"... Mr. Barsanti said that McNamara said that Arthur Andersen would never get another government contract if it published my report. ..."
"... There were three people, known as the Columbia Group, saying the Vietnam War was going to destroy the American monetary system as we know it. The group was composed of Terence McCarthy, my mentor; Seymour Melman, a professor at Columbia University's School of Industrial Engineering where Terence also taught; and myself. We would basically go around the New York City giving speeches. ..."
I worked at Chase Manhattan until 1967, then finally I had to quit to finish the
dissertation. I spent a year on that. At Chase I had become the specialist in the oil
industry's balance of payments. When the Vietnam War began and escalated, President Johnson
in January 1965, right after I joined the bank in December 1964, passed the voluntary –
in reality, compulsory – foreign investment rules blocking American companies from
investing more than 5% of the growth of the previous year's investment. The oil industry
objected to that. They came to David Rockefeller and said we've got to convince the
government that we're ripping off other countries so fast, we're able to exploit them so
rapidly, that it really helps the US balance of payments to let us continue investing more
abroad. Can you help us show this statistically?
So David Rockefeller asked me to do a study of the balance of payments of the oil
industry. Rockefeller said, "We don't want to have Chase's oil and gas department do it,
because they would be thought of as lobbyists. Nobody knows who you are, so you're neutral.
We want to know what the real facts are, and if they're what we think they are, we'll publish
what you write; if we don't like it we'll keep it to ourselves, but please just give us the
facts." He said, "You can ask the oil companies all the questions you want. They will fill
out the forms you design for a statistical accounting format. We'll give you a year to write
it all up." To me this was wonderful. Oil was the key sector internationally. It turned out I
found out that the average dollar that actually was invested abroad by oil companies was
recaptured by the US economy within 18 months. The payback period was that fast.
The report that I wrote was put on the desk of every senator and every representative in
the United States and I was celebrated for being the economist of the oil industry. So this
taught me everything about the balance of payments which, as I said, is a topic that's not
taught in any university. So I finished that, finished the dissertation, and then I developed
a methodology for the overall US balance of payments. Most of the balance of payment
statistics were changed when they designed the gross national product accounts. The accounts
now treat exports and imports as if they were paid for fully for cash. So if you make a
million dollars worth of grain exports, you are assumed to bring a million dollars into the
economy. And if you export a million dollars of arms, of military, it all comes back.
What I found out is that only a portion actually of exports actually comes back. And
imports have an even lower balance-of-payment costs as compared to their nominal valuation.
For instance, all of America's oil imports are from American oil companies, so if you pay a
hundred dollars for oil, maybe thirty dollars of that is profit, thirty dollars is
compensation to American management, thirty dollars is the use of American exports to
physical equipment, oil drilling equipment and others to produce the oil.
The closest people that I worked with for the study were at the Standard Oil Company,
which was always very close to the Rockefellers, as you know. So I went over the statistics
and I said, "In the balance of payments, I can't find where Standard Oil makes the profit.
Does it make the profit by producing oil at the production end? Or does it make it selling it
at the gas stations, at the retail sales end?" The treasurer of Standard Oil said, "Ah I can
tell you where we make them. We make them right here in my office." I asked how. "What
countries could I find this in? I don't find it in Europe, I don't find it in Asia, I don't
find it in Latin America or Africa." He said, "Ah, do you see at the very end of the
geography headings for international earnings, there's something called international?"
I said, "Yes that always confused me. Where is it? I thought all these foreign countries
were international." He explained that "international" means countries that are not really
countries. They're Liberia and Panama, countries that only use the US dollar, not their own
currency. So the oil industry doesn't have a currency risk. They are flags of convenience and
they don't have any income tax.
He explained to me that Standard Oil sold its oil at a very
low price from the Near East to Liberia or Panama or Lagos, or wherever they have a flag of
convenience and no income tax. Then they would sell it at a very high price to its refineries
in Europe and America, at such a high price that these "downstream" affiliates don't make any
income. So there's no tax to pay. For all US oil investment in Europe, there's no tax to pay
because the oil companies' accountants price it so high, and pay so little per barrel to
third world countries such as Saudi Arabia, that they only get a royalty. Standard Oil and
other U.S. oil companies – and also mining companies – don't earn an income
there, because they sell it so low, all the profits are reported to be taken in Liberia or
Panama. These are non-countries.
That gave me the clue about what people these days talk about money laundering. In the
last few months that I worked for Chase Manhattan in 1967, I was going up to my office on the
ninth floor and a man got on the elevator and said, "I was just coming to your office,
Michael. Here is a report. I'm from the State Department (I assumed that this meant CIA). "We
want to calculate how much money the US could get if we set up bank branches and became the
bank for all the criminal capital in the world." He said, "We figured out we can finance,
(and he said this in an elevator), we can finance the Vietnam War with all the drug money
coming into America, all of the criminal money. Can you make a calculation of how much that
might be?"
So I spent three months figuring out how much money goes to Switzerland, from drug
dealings, what's the dollar volume of drug dealings. They helped me with all sorts of
statistics on that, and said, "We can become the criminal capital of the world and it'll
finance the dollar and this will enable us to afford the spending to defeat communism in
Vietnam and elsewhere. If we don't do that, the bomb throwers will come to New York."
So I became a specialist in money laundering! Nothing could have better prepared me to
understand how the global economy works! I had all the statistics, I had the help of the
government people explaining to me how the CIA worked with drug dealing and other criminals
and kidnappers to raise the money so it would be off the balance sheet funding and Congress
didn't have to approve it when they would kill people and sponsor revolutions. They were
completely open with me about this. I realized they'd never done a security check on me.
So I wanted to do a study of the balance of payments of the whole United States. I went
to work for Arthur Andersen, which was at that time was one of the Big Five accounting firms
in the United States. Later it was convicted of fraud when it got involved in the Enron
scandal and was closed down. But I was working before the other people went to jail, before
they closed down Arthur Andersen. So I spent a year applying my balance of payments analysis
to the US balance of payments. When I finally finished, I found that the entire US balance of
payments deficit in the 1960s, since the Vietnam War, the entire balance of payments deficit
was military spending abroad. The private sector's trade and investment was exactly in
balance; tourism, trade and investment were exactly in balance. All the deficit was
military.
So I turned in my statistics. My boss Mr. Barsanti, came in to me three days later and
he said, "I'm afraid we have to fire you." I asked, "What happened?" He said, "Well, we sent
it to Robert McNamara." (who was the Secretary of Defense and then became an even more
dangerous person with the World Bank, which probably is more dangerous to the world than the
American military. But that's another story). Mr. Barsanti said that McNamara said that
Arthur Andersen would never get another government contract if it published my report.
In all of the Pentagon Papers that later came out of McNamara's regime, there's no
discussion at all of the balance-of-payments cost of the Vietnam War. This is what was
driving America off gold. At Chase Manhattan from 1964 until I left, every Friday the Federal
Reserve would come out with its goal, its weekly statistics. We could trace the gold stock.
Everybody was talking about General de Gaulle cashing in the gold, because Vietnam was a
French colony and the American soldiers and army would have to use French banks, the dollars
would go to France and de Gaulle would cash it in for gold.
Well, Germany actually was cashing in more gold than de Gaulle, but they didn't make
speeches about it. So I could see that the war spending was going to drive America off gold.
There were three people, known as the Columbia Group, saying the Vietnam War was going to
destroy the American monetary system as we know it. The group was composed of Terence
McCarthy, my mentor; Seymour Melman, a professor at Columbia University's School of
Industrial Engineering where Terence also taught; and myself. We would basically go around
the New York City giving speeches.
Jeffrey D. Sachs Trump is often called
an isolationist, but he is as interventionist as his predecessors. His strategy is simply to rely more heavily on US economic power
than military might to coerce adversaries, which creates its own kind of cruelty and destabilization – and embodies its own brand
of illegality.
NEW YORK – US President Donald Trump has based his foreign policy on a series of harsh economic blockades, each designed to frighten,
coerce, and even starve the target country into submitting to American demands. While the practice is less violent than a military
attack, and the blockade is through financial means rather than the navy, the consequences are often dire for civilian populations.
As such, economic blockades by the United States should be scrutinized by the United Nations Security Council under international
law and the UN Charter.
When Trump campaigned for office in 2016, he rejected the frequent US resort to war in the Middle East. During the years 1990-2016,
the US launched two major wars with Iraq (1990 and 2003), as well as wars in Afghanistan (2001), Libya (2011), and Syria (2012).
It also participated in many smaller military interventions (Mali, Somalia, and Yemen, among others). While the Syrian War is often
described as a civil war, it was in a fact a war of regime change led by the US and Saudi Arabia under a US presidential directive
called Timber
Sycamore .
None of these US-led wars (and others in recent history) achieved their political objectives, and the major conflicts have been
followed by chronic violence and instability. The attempt to force Syria's Bashar al-Assad from power led to a proxy war – eventually
involving the US, Syria, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Iran, Turkey, Israel, and the United Arab Emirates – that displaced over ten
million Syrians and caused around a half-million violent deaths.
While Trump has so far eschewed a new war, he has continued US regime-change efforts by other means. Trump is often called an
isolationist, but he is as interventionist as his predecessors. His strategy, at least so far, has been to rely more heavily on US
economic power than military might to coerce adversaries, which creates its own kind of cruelty and destabilization. And it constantly
risks flaring into outright war, as occurred with Iran this month.
The Trump administration currently is engaged in three attempts at comprehensive economic blockades, against North Korea, Venezuela,
and Iran, as well as several lesser blockades against countries such as Cuba and Nicaragua, and an intensifying effort to cut off
China's access to technology. The blockade against North Korea is sanctioned, at least in part, by the UN Security Council. The blockade
against Iran is in direct opposition to the Security Council. And the blockade against Venezuela is so far without Security Council
engagement for or against. The US is attempting to isolate the three countries from almost all international trade, causing shortages
of food, medicines, energy, and spare parts for basic infrastructure, including the water supply and power grid.
The North Korean blockade operates mainly through UN-mandated sanctions, and includes a
comprehensive list of
exports to North Korea, imports from North Korea, and financial relations with North Korean entities. The UN Food and Agriculture
Organization reports that ten million North Koreans are
at risk of hunger, partly owing to sanctions. "[T]he unintended negative impact sanctions can have on agricultural production, through
both direct and indirect impacts, cannot be ignored," the FAO warns. "The most obvious are restrictions on the importation of certain
items that are necessary for agricultural production, in particular fuel, machinery and spare parts for equipment."
The draconian US sanctions on Venezuela have come in two phases. The first, beginning in August 2017, was mainly directed at the
state oil company PDVSA, the country's main earner of foreign exchange; the second round of sanctions, imposed in January 2019, was
more comprehensive, targeting the Venezuelan government. A recent
detailed analysis
of the first round of sanctions shows their devastating impact. The US sanctions gravely exacerbated previous economic mismanagement,
contributing to a catastrophic fall in oil production, hyperinflation, economic collapse (output is down by half since 2016), hunger,
and rising mortality.
US sanctions against Iran have been in place more or less continuously since 1979. The most recent and by far most draconian measures,
introduced in August 2018 and intensified in the first half of this year, aim to cut Iran off from foreign trade. The US sanctions
are in direct contravention of UN Security Council Resolution
2231 , which endorsed the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran. The effects have been devastating. The International Monetary Fund
forecasts that Iran's economy will shrink by 10% between 2017 and 2019, with inflation reaching 30% this year. Medicines are in
short supply .
One might expect that other countries would easily circumvent US sanctions. But the US has threatened to punish foreign companies
that violate the sanctions and has used the dollar's global clout as a bludgeon, threatening to sanction foreign banks that finance
trade with Iran. European companies have fallen into line, despite the European Union's express desire to engage economically with
Iran. Over the longer term, it is likely that more ways will be found to circumvent the sanctions, using renminbi, ruble, or euro
financing, yet the erosion of US sanctions will only be gradual.
Despite the intense economic pain – indeed calamity – inflicted on North Korea, Venezuela, and Iran, none of them has succumbed
to US demands. In this sense, sanctions have proved to be no more successful than military intervention. North Korea has maintained,
and most likely is expanding, its nuclear arsenal. The Iranian regime rejects US demands concerning its missile program and foreign
policies. And Venezuela's President Nicolás Maduro remains in power.
The US blockades have been carried out by presidential decree, with almost no public debate and no systematic oversight by Congress.
This has been a one-man show, even more so than in the case of president-led wars, which trigger vastly more public scrutiny. Trump
realizes that he can impose crippling sanctions abroad with almost no direct costs to the US public or budget, and with virtually
no political accountability.
Military blockades are acts of war, and therefore subject to international law, including UN Security Council oversight. America's
economic blockades are similar in function and outcome to military blockades, with devastating consequences for civilian populations,
and risk provoking war. It is time for the Security Council to take up the US sanctions regimes and weigh them against the requirements
of international law and peacekeeping. Jeffrey D. Sachs , Professor of Sustainable
Development and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University, is Director of Columbia's Center for Sustainable
Development and of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network. His books include
The
End of Poverty ,
Common
Wealth , The Age of
Sustainable Development ,
Building the New American
Economy , and most recently, A New
Foreign Policy: Beyond American Exceptionalism .
As long as a country neither conducts a genocide, nor attacks other countries, nobody should interfere in its internal affairs.
If a country like Venezuela or Cuba goes broke due to its incompetent leadership, it should get help from the IMF etc. in exchange
for reforms as happens with any other country. Other than that it is their business whether they want to be socialist, capitalist
or whatever. That whole ideological crusade against leftist countries has to stop, it has cost millions of lives already.
And there is a simple way to stop Iran's activities in the Middle East: let's finally solve the conflict there after decades
during which the West simply looked the other way when land, water and oil were stolen from the Palestinians and others.
In my view the US has long turned into a rogue state. The rest of the world has to prune that country by working together and
isolating it. For instance, let's create a new global currency for commodities, the Com, in order to drive the dollar out.
Let's move the UN out of the US to a neutral, peaceful country, Switzerland for instance.
Sanctions are legal and based on national sovereignty and not a proper subject of scrutiny by an international body. Blockades
are subject to international law. By calling something which is legal by another term which may involve illegality one is guilty
of shedding false light.
Sachs thinks that if sanctions have the same effect as a blockade then sanctions are blockades. This is foolish. It is like
saying 'since a woman can get pregnant either through consensual sex or through rape, it follows that all fathers are rapists'.
Trump is carrying on policies previously applied. He has made no great innovation. It appears likely that no 'regime change'
will occur. That is why there is no real 'geopolitical' risk here. The effect of sanctions is to create a widening chasm between
regime 'insiders' and the great mass of the people. This has a demoralizing effect and reduces the ability of the regime to use
its brain-washed subjects for an aggressive purpose. In other words, sanctions reduce, not increase, the threat potential of a
bitter adversary.
Current sanctions attempt to effectively have jurisdiction over third parties, i.e. not the US, who would trade with Iran. ( that,
in full compliance with international law and a binding prior agreement to which the US is a party.) I am curious how you square
that with "national sovereignty", unless that is something over which the US has a higher priority than third parties.
As in all other times that are precursors to War, the laws of disparate nations mean nothing. We all have our own laws, to rule
our own geopolitical nations, which disserve the interests of other geopolitical nations.
Most recently, the WTO admits it is insufficient to resolve trade disputes among nations, and must change its hypotheses. This
is only another precursor admission that binding international laws are becoming irrelevant, and that we must "Start all over
again", i.e. the rule of the strongest, which means one state must conquer another before we can reestablish "Common Rule."
Economic sanctions are not tantamount to acts of war and should not be treated that way at the UN Security Council or anywhere
else. To do that would just leave acts of war as the only alternative in the case of serious disputes. But neither should nations
necessarily cooperate with sanctions they see as poorly motivated or poorly designed. In those cases, the best response is usually
technical -- new institutional arrangements that raise the costs or limit the effects of poorly justified unilateral sanctions.
it is the beginning of the end for the special role of the US$ in the world economy. Dethroning the US$ has now become a matter
of national security for 95% of the planet. Not that this would not have happened anyway, nothing lasts forever, but present events
accelerate the process.
This can be good for the US in the long run, if painful at first. One sometimes quips about the curse of natural resources.
US suffers from the similar curse of the Dollar, which is a natural resource of sorts, as it can be printed out of thin air, seemingly
without consequences. The dethroning of the US$ will cause a pretty significant, perhaps shocking, drop in living standards given
US social inequalities, but it may be beneficial in the long run by imposing some sobriety and discipline upon the political system.
Then, it could also break up the country for good. May you live in interesting times, as the saying goes.
Fortunately, the ability of the U.S. to do this is fading fast, as it loses its economic domination to China. So far, China has
shown rather less tendency to meddle in the affairs of other countries, with the notable exceptions of certain territories which
it regards as part of its territory. The world is slowly becoming fairer.
"Given that organized crime had apparently played a far greater national role in twentieth
century American history than I had realized from my readings of mainstream newspapers and
magazines, I recently decided to expand my knowledge in that area. Someone brought to my
attention the work of investigative journalist Gus Russo, a prominent author on that topic.
Russo had worked as a lead reporter for the award-winning PBS Frontline series and filled
similar roles at other television networks, while being nominated for a 1998 Pulitzer Prize
for his book on the JFK-Mafia alliance against Castro."
"Over a dozen years ago, Russo published a pair of massive volumes on the history of
organized crime focused on two particular regions, with The Outfit in 2001 discussing Chicago
and Supermob in 2006 dealing with California. Taken together these two works of deep
investigative research run more than 1100 pages and over a half million words, apparently
dwarfing almost anything else in that subject area. By the 1990s declassification of a vast
quantity of government documents, including FBI wiretaps and Congressional files, allowed
Russo access to this previously unavailable material. He supplemented this crucial archival
research with the secondary source material contained in hundreds of books and articles, as
well as more than 200 personal interviews, and his especially extensive second volume
references this wealth of source material with more than 1500 footnotes. The numerous
laudatory cover-blurbs by prominent prosecutors, former law enforcement agents, and experts
on organized crime strongly attest to the credibility of his research, which certainly must
have absorbed many years of concentrated effort."
Sure explains a lot to me how we wound up with thugs like Bolton and Pompeo. We have
separation of church and state, who knew we needed separation of state and organized crime
too?
There are almost 5,000 criminal gangs in the UK. But the old family firms are gone –
today's big players are multinational, diversified and tech-savvy.
By Duncan
Campbell Main image: Underworlds old and new: Curtis Warren, John Palmer, the Hellbanianz
and others. Photograph: Chris Radburn/PA
Thu 4 Jul 2019 06.01 BST Last modified on Thu 4 Jul 2019 12.22 BST
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W ho rules the underworld today, and where do they conduct their business? Once there were
the familiar mugshots and Runyonesque nicknames, the clubs and pubs where the usual suspects
gathered, plotted and schemed. Now organised crime is run like any other business, and its
leading figures look like every other broker or tycoon. We have entered into a world of what
Sir Rob Wainwright, until recently Europe's most senior police officer, calls "anonymised"
crime. The underworld has become the overworld.
The National Crime Agency has estimated that £90bn of criminal money is being
laundered through the UK every year, 4% of the country's GDP. London has become the global
capital of money-laundering and the beating heart of European organised crime. English is now
the international underworld's lingua franca. Crime is an essential part of the British
economy, providing hundreds of thousands of jobs, not just for professional criminals –
the NCA reckons there are
4,629 organised crime groups in operation – but for police and prison officers,
lawyers and court officials, and a security business that now employs more than half a million
people.
Just as the names of familiar shops have been departing from the high street, the old family
firms of criminals are disappearing, whether in London, Glasgow, Newcastle or Manchester. And
just as British football fans have had to learn how to pronounce the names of the legions of
new foreign players, detectives have had to learn to do the same for the increasing number of
new criminals. Britain was once dealing with drugs imports from half a dozen countries; now it
is more than 30. A young person who would in the past have sought an apprenticeship in a trade
or industry may now find that drug dealing offers better career prospects. And, apart from
drugs and guns, British trading channels now facilitate the trafficking of women from eastern
Europe and Africa for prostitution and children from Vietnam as low-level drug workers.
The underworld's modus operandi has shifted in the past quarter century. "The international
nature of crime and technology are probably the two biggest changes," says Steve Rodhouse, the
NCA's head of operations. Speaking at the NCA's unprepossessing headquarters in Vauxhall, south
London, Rodhouse explains how the agency's work has mushroomed. "Pretty much all of the NCA's
most significant 'high-harm' operations now involve people, commodities or money transferring
across international borders. The days of having a drugs gang, a firearms gang or a
people-trafficking gang have changed because of the concept of polycriminality. Groups
satisfying criminal markets, whatever they may be, is now much more common. These are
businesses and people are looking to exploit markets, so why confine yourself to one
market?"
Wainwright, who served as Europol chief for nine years, has also noted this
internationalisation of crime. Addressing a Police Foundation gathering just after his
retirement last year, he said that Europol, the European equivalent of Interpol, having
expanded since its foundation in 1998 when "it consisted literally, of two men and a dog
– admittedly, a sniffer dog – in Luxembourg," now dealt with 65,000 cases a year.
By 2018, he reckoned that 5,000 organised crime groups were operating across Europe and the
mafia model had been replaced by a "more nimble" model, with 180 different nationalities
operating, mixing legal with illegal business and working with between 400 and 500 major
money-launderers. This was multinational business with specialists in recruitment, movement,
money-laundering and the forging of documents.
The internet, of course, is a major factor. Wainwright likened its effect on crime to that
of the motorcar in the 1920s and 30s, when suddenly criminals could escape at speed and take
advantage of new markets. He cited the dark web, which he said was selling 350,000 different
illegal items – 60% of which were drugs – but including everything from guns to
pornography and even operating a ratings system for speed of dispatch and quality. The
combination of new faces of whom the British police – and often Interpol and Europol
– were unaware, along with an increasingly tech-savvy pool of criminals able to disguise
their identities, made for a toxic cocktail. Crooks anonymous.
O ne group with little interest in anonymity are the Hellbanianz, a gang of cocky young
Albanians based in Barking, east London. They went online in spectacular fashion in 2017 via
Instagram and YouTube rap videos to flaunt their ill-gotten wealth and firepower.
Their most prominent member, Tristen Asllani, who lived in Hampstead, was jailed for 25
years in 2016 for drug dealing and firearms offences which included possessing a
Škorpion submachine gun. He was caught after a police chase in north London which ended
when he crashed his car into a computer repair shop in Crouch End. A photo of Asllani, showing
him stripped to the waist after he had apparently spent long hours in the prison gym, appeared
on a social media page called My Albanian in Jail, with a caption saying "Even inside the
prison we have all conditions, what's missing are only whores".
The flashy cars and bundles of banknotes on display in the Hellbanianz videos were the
result of the importation of cocaine and cannabis, but the gang was also involved in the
weapons trade. The pictures showed £50 notes wrapped around a cake and their HB logo
written in cannabis. After they were arrested and jailed, other gang members have posted
pictures of themselves, taken with smuggled mobile phones, from inside prison where they
cheerfully inscribe their gang name on the walls.
Muhamed Veliu, an Albanian investigative journalist, who knows London well, says that the
Hellbanianz have been on the crime scene in east London for many years. "They are sending a bad
message to young Albanians. By seeing such photos, they think the streets of UK are paved with
gold Bizarrely, despite the fact they are in the prison, they show the outside world photos of
their life behind the bars." He said that there was a concern that the British media
stereotyped all Albanians as criminals but, he added, the 2006 Securitas robbery, in which two
Albanians played key roles in the theft of
£53m from a depot in Kent, was regarded with some national pride back home. "It was 'the
crime of the century', it was seen as very different from making money from prostitution, which
is the lowest form of crime. It is wrong, of course, but they did need bravery to get involved,
and at least they went for a bank – that was the feeling in the Albanian community."
There are currently around 700 Albanians in British jails.
"Albania is Europe's largest producer of cannabis," says Tony Saggers, the former head of
drugs threat and intelligence at the NCA. "It is important not to stereotype, but the Kosovan
war led to Albanians pretending to be Kosovan in order to get asylum in the UK. Many of the
people who came just wanted a better life, but there were criminals among them who were able to
set up illicit networks The UK criminal has a get-rich-quick mentality while the Albanians'
strategy was get-rich-slow, so they have driven down the price of cocaine in the UK. They knew
that if they expanded, they could undercut the market." It helped that their reputation
preceded them. "The Albanian criminals may be ruthless and potentially murderous when
controlling their organised crime," said Saggers, "but when they come to the UK they try to be
more charismatic and they use fear – 'We're here, we need to get on,' that sort of
approach. So there is little violence from the older Albanian criminals in the UK, because they
know that violence attracts more attention."
The Albanians had already established themselves in a darker fashion when 26-year-old Luan
Plackici was jailed in 2003 and said to have made more than £1m from trafficking "poor,
naive and gullible" young women who thought they were on their way to jobs as waitresses or
barmaids. Some had to service up to 20 men a day to pay for the £8,000 "travel bill" from
Romania and Moldova.
The international nature of people-trafficking was exposed fully in 2014 by a trial of a
gang that imported more than 100 women into Britain. The trial ended with the gang leader,
Vishal Chaudhary, being jailed for 12 years. Chaudhary, who lived the high life in Canary Wharf
in London, contacted young women through social networks in Hungary, the Czech Republic and
Poland, offering work as receptionists, nannies or cleaners in England. But when they got to
the UK, the women were forced to work in brothels. Chaudhary's team, all of whom were jailed,
consisted of his brother, Kunal, who worked for Deloitte in Manchester, a Hungarian heavy
called Krisztian Abel and the latter's sister, Szilvia, who helped recruit the women.
A cannabis farm discovered in a house in Oldham in 2013. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The
Guardian
There are numbers of young people involved in what the legal system terms "forced
criminality". The lawyer Philippa Southwell has specialised in such cases, which apply in
particular to
young Vietnamese people brought illegally into the UK by traffickers and forced to work in
cannabis farms to pay back debts of up to £30,000 that their parents have undertaken in
order for them to have a new life in Europe.
"The modus operandi of criminal organisations is to target children or young adults,
trafficking them across the world in a journey that can take months," Southwell says. "Those
being trafficked from Vietnam, often transit via Russia, Germany and France, by boat, lorry and
even by foot. Once at their destination, they will be locked in a premises and made to tend the
cannabis plants, by watering them and ensuring the lighting is on. These cannabis grows are
sophisticated multi-million-pound drug operations, with the electricity often being extracted
illegally and high-value equipment used. The windows of the buildings may be nailed shut. The
farms normally operate in rural areas where the chance of detection is reduced."
The boys and young men were in a form of debt bondage, but no matter how hard they worked,
their debt never seemed to be paid off. "There is a misconception within the criminal justice
system that they are free to leave because the doors may not always be locked," says Southwell,
"but the reality is that they have nowhere to go – they are controlled through threats of
violence, debt bondage, isolation, fear and other complex control methods that are regularly
used by traffickers."
F rom the Chinese opium dealers in the 1920s, the Italian gangsters in the 30s, the Maltese
pimps in the 50s, the West Indian Yardies in the 60s, the Turkish heroin dealers in the 70s to
the east Europeans gangsters and Nigerian fraudsters today, there has long been an unfair
tendency to blame foreigners as dominant figures in the underworld. While they may have all had
their parts to play, the homegrown British villain – whether artful dodger or ruthless
kingpin – has always been the bedrock of the underworld.
"Everyone wants to be a gangster," says BX, a young former gang member from north-west
London. "Everyone's seen it on TV and that's what they want to be. They look at music videos
and it looks like the people in them are making hundreds of thousands of pounds, although the
reality is that they are still living at their mum's house. Most of them come from estates and
they see their parents going to work, struggling to pay the bills. They come home, their mum's
not there, and all the places where kids could play are closing down. Nine times out of 10,
they leave school without qualifications. So if you're broke, if you can't get a job, you're
going to take the opportunity. My parents had no clue what I was up to – I didn't come
back with any marks on my face."
The recent upsurge in knife attacks has focused attention on gangs. At one stage last year,
there were six separate knife murder trials underway at the Old Bailey, all gang-related, all
involving more than one defendant, none older than 22. "It's not a black thing, it's not a
white thing, everyone's doing it," says BX. "There's no: 'I'm black, he's white, we can't get
along' any more." There were still ample opportunities for smaller-time dealers: "You can make
a grand a week."
An organised gang carrying out robberies on scooters in London in 2018. Photograph: MET
Police
The hierarchy of gangs remained a key factor. "If you're a drug dealer, you have to find
people who will do your dirty work for you. The way it works is the elders, who are, say, 24 or
25, they see you doing well, so they might take you under their wing. The young kids acting as
look-outs, they're thinking: 'I'm part of that guy's enterprise. That could be me in however
many years, I could get promotion.' As they say, loyalty brings forth royalty."
Territory is important commercially. "If you're doing five keys (kilos) a week and then
suddenly you're only doing three a week, it doesn't take long to realise that someone's out
there taking your customers. So you have to eliminate the opposition. How do you do that? By
either taking them out, or tipping off the police. You are never supposed to snitch, but I know
one guy, from Southall, who's a millionaire now; he was in competition with a guy from the same
area so he informed the police." There's a not-unfounded suspicion that some informers have
continued to commit crimes while under police protection. "All the old-school rules –
they're gone. I know people who work with the police to get immunity for themselves. I know one
who everyone knows works with the police, he's even been shooting people, but you type his name
into Google you won't find anything about him and, believe me, his record is way longer than my
arm."
The risks are high. "Of the people I grew up with, only three of us haven't been to jail,
although I've been arrested many times. My older brother has been in and out of jail –
nine months here, six weeks there. But there are less police than ever, so that gives you the
incentive, and even if you get arrested, you're not going to do that long."
While the young gangs have largely replaced the old family-based crews, so have young,
helmeted, scooter-riding robbers smashing their ways into jewellers and mobile phone shops
taken on the role of the old sawn-off shotgun-wielding bank robbers.
W hile those smalltime home-grown villains may still thrive, an increasing number of members
of the British underworld have followed old imperial traditions and headed abroad to cut out
the middle-man, establishing themselves not only in the traditional bolt-hole of Spain, but in
the Netherlands, Thailand and South Africa. The person who was to rewrite the rulebook on drug
dealing is the street-smart Liverpudlian Curtis Warren, better known by his nicknames Cocky or
the Cocky Watchman. Born in 1963, his criminal career started at the age of 12 with a
conviction for car theft. By 16, he was on his way to borstal for assaulting the police. Other
offences followed, but it was only when he moved into the drugs business, working out of
Amsterdam, that he established his reputation as one of the most prolific traffickers of modern
times – Interpol's "Target One" and the subject of a joint British–Dutch
investigation codenamed Operation Crayfish.
While Warren's move to Amsterdam, where fellow British dealers also established themselves,
seemed like a smart idea in that he was less exposed to the British police, it was also a
weakness, because the Dutch authorities were able to tap his phone without restriction and
secure the evidence they needed. (Although they also required English help in translating
Liverpudlian for them.) In October 1996, police in the Netherlands seized 400kg of cocaine,
60kg of heroin, 1,500kg of cannabis, handguns and false passports. Nine Britons and a Colombian
were arrested, and Warren was soon portrayed as the biggest fish in the net. He was jailed for
12 years for a conspiracy to import what was claimed to be £125m of drugs into Britain.
The Observer suggested he was "the richest and most successful British criminal who has ever
been caught", and he was the only drug dealer to make it on to the Sunday Times rich list.
T-shirts with an old mugshot of Warren on them were still for sale in Liverpool 20 years after
Operation Crayfish.
Curtis Warren. Photograph: PA
After his release from jail in the Netherlands in June 2007, Warren was only a free man for
five weeks. He headed to Jersey, but was under constant surveillance and soon arrested. In
2009, he was convicted of conspiring to import £1m of cannabis into Jersey and jailed for
13 years. Warren was alleged to have invested his wealth in everything from petrol stations to
vineyards, football clubs to hotels. A Jersey court ordered him to pay £198m after he
failed to prove his business empire was not built on the proceeds of cocaine trafficking.
Detectives had secretly recorded him boasting during a 2004 prison visit of funnelling huge
amounts of cash via a money launderer. "Fuckin' 'ell, mate, sometimes we'd do about £10m
or £15m in a week," he told some of his visitors. "I was bragging like an idiot and just
big-talking in front of them," was Warren's explanation later. The Jersey attorney general,
Timothy Le Cocq QC, described him as "one of Europe's most notorious organised criminals". His
failure to pay the money resulted in a further 10 years' jail time.
He told Guardian journalist Helen Pidd, when she interviewed
him in jail in Jersey, that he disapproved of drugs: "I've never had a cigarette in my life
or a drink. I've never tasted alcohol or anything. No interest." His ambition after he was
freed was to leave England – "and never come back". He added: "I just wish I'd not been
such a worry to me mum."
Few people were better qualified to comment on Warren than former NCA man Tony Saggers, who
was an expert witness in Warren's trial and proceeds hearing. "Curtis Warren was a forerunner,"
he said. "You get people like him who come from a tough background, a council-house
environment, and he had a sort of bare-faced courage in some respects, to put himself in places
like Venezuela and Colombia, which were probably even more dangerous then than they are now. He
put himself at the other end of the supply chain, and in a way established that pattern for the
elite drug trafficker. But nowadays, high-level, high-profile criminals play less and less of a
role, and make use of others below them in a detached way."
Other British criminals have also cast their nets wide during the past two decades. One of
the best-known was Brian Wright, once one of Britain's most active cocaine smugglers, who was
nicknamed The Milkman – because he always delivered. He operated from both
Turkish-controlled Northern Cyprus and Spain. In 1998, he was alleged to have imported almost
two tonnes of the drug, with the result, according to one customs investigator, that "the
cocaine was coming in faster than people could snort it". The Dublin-born Wright owned a villa
near Cadiz, which he named El Lechero – the Spanish for milkman – and had a box at
Ascot, a flat in Chelsea's King's Quay and used some of his proceeds to fix races on which he
then bet, thus laundering his drug profits. Finally arrested in Spain, he was brought back to
England and, in 2007, at the age of 60, found guilty at Woolwich crown court of conspiracy to
supply drugs and jailed for30 years
.
Some very successful scams have been perpetrated on elderly Britons. John Palmer, who had
been involved in the Brink's-Mat bullion robbery (from
whence he got his nickname "Goldfinger") made his fortune in a crooked timeshare business in
Tenerife. A ruthless operator, he took advantage of thousands of gullible souls, many of them
elderly holidaymakers, who believed his spiel about the fortunes they could make by investing
in timeshare apartments that were never built. Outwardly, he appeared to have it all: the
yacht, the cars with the personalised number plates, dozens of properties. He even made it to
No 105 in the Sunday Times rich list. "Remember the golden rule," was the motto he loved to
quote, "he who has the gold makes the rules." But in 2001, he was convicted of a timeshare
fraud in which 16,000 victims lost an estimated £33m and served eight years in
prison.
Then, in 2015, Palmer was
shot dead by a hitman in his garden in Essex. There were rumours that he was killed because
he might have been cooperating with the Spanish police over another fraud case. His co-accused
were convicted in Spain in May this year and the police in Britain have duly issued a fresh
appeal for help to find his killer – with a reminder that there is a
£100,000 reward on offer in case that tempts an elderly underworld grass.
Any notion that Spain might still be a safe haven for expat criminals was dispelled in 2018
when Brian Charrington – a close associate of Curtis Warren and regarded as one of the
major international drug dealers of his generation – was jailed for 15 years
for trafficking and money-laundering in Alicante in 2018. Described in the Spanish press as "
el narco que escribia en Wikipedia ", because of his reputation for updating and
correcting his Wikipedia entry, the former car-dealer from Middlesbrough had been arrested in
2013 at his villa in Calpe, on the Costa Blanca, an area where some estate agents offer
bulletproof glass as a special feature along with the spa bath and barbecue area. There had
been wild rumours of crocodiles in his swimming pool, but disappointingly, the police found
none.
Charrington was alleged to have brought vast quantities of drugs into Spain via a yacht
docking in Altea, north of Benidorm. He claimed his money came legitimately. "I buy and sell
villas and I pay my taxes," he told the court, but was still fined nearly £30m. Following
a lengthy investigation involving Spanish, British, Venezuelan, Colombian and French police,
his assets, including a dozen houses and his cars and boats, were impounded. After his
sentence, his Wikipedia entry was speedily updated.
T he titles of true crime memoirs published in the past decade or so tell their own tale.
The Last Real Gangster by Freddie Foreman came out in 2015; The Last Gangster: My Final
Confession by Charlie Richardson arrived just after his death in 2012; The Last Godfather, the
Life and Crimes of Arthur Thompson, was published in Glasgow in 2007. A requiem for the old
British underworld.
In many ways, it was already slipping into a haze of nostalgia. The television series Peaky
Blinders has spawned its own fashion accessory industry. You can now buy Peaky Blinders
cufflinks shaped like razor-blades, or wear a Peaky Blinders cap and waistcoat from the new
David Beckham clothing line , something that might have prompted a dark smile from the
ruthless and acquisitive 1920s Birmingham gang on whom the series was based. The website
henorstag.com even recommends "the Peaky Blinders look" as perfect for a stag night: "For a
theme the ladies will love, you will need to capture the stylish world of the early 20th
century with black peak caps, stylish grey or black suits with waistcoat, as well as a dusty
black coat and shoes in order to complete the look." (Add a cosh and a cut-throat razor and
you'll really slay 'em.)
While the Kray twins brand continues as the underworld's equivalent of Marks & Spencer
– a framed letter from Ronnie Kray in Broadmoor is currently on offer on eBay for
£650 – changes in the law have made criminals less prepared to boast about past
crimes. In the old days, under the "double jeopardy" rule, once you were acquitted of a murder,
you could never be tried for it again. That rule was overturned with the 2003 Criminal Justice
Act, so the days when a villain could explain in their memoirs how they got away with a crime
have gone. The 2009 Coroners and Justice Act made it an offence for criminals to profit from
accounts of their crimes, so they could no longer sell their stories, or at least officially.
The 2002 Proceeds of Crime
Act and its increasing use against career criminals has meant that illicit incomes can be
seized.
No wonder the Hatton Garden burglary of 2015 – that "
one last job " carried out by the elderly "diamond wheezers" – received such
attention. Even one of the "last of the last", Fred Foreman, was hoping he was going to be
offered a role in it. "I heard that Terry (Perkins, one of the ringleaders) was looking for me,
not long before the burglary took place, so I presume that would have been what it was about,"
he says.
Perkins
died in his cell in Belmarsh prison last year. Foreman, who made his name with the Krays in
the 1960s, now lives in sheltered accomodation in west London. He doubts that the current
generation of gangsters will ever write their memoirs: "I don't think that anyone who has
turned to crime these days is going to live long enough to build up a reputation, are
they?"
But the recruiting sergeants of the underworld – poverty, greed, boredom, envy, peer
pressure, glamour – will never be short of volunteers, whether they live long enough to
make a name for themselves or not.
Underworld : the
Definitive History of Britain's Organised Crime by Duncan Campbell is published by Ebury Press
on 11 July
• Follow the Long Read on Twitter at @gdnlongread , and sign up to the long read weekly email
here
.
"... Trump treats int'l matters like acrid biz negotiations (see art of the deal) - you pressure your carpet installer for your mega hotels with nasty e-mails, bellowing threats on the phone, rustling up the competition, getting a bunch of staff on your side to shore up da ego, etc. When the carpet-seller makes some bigly concessions on price (all understand the game that is played) you relent and make nicey, and the wives get together for tennis and a ruccola crab lunch and later some mega bash with smiling faces is pictured. ..."
Trump strove for some foreign policy triumphs. The art of the deal!
He tried his hand with N. Korea. What happened? (Besides perhaps improved NK-SK
relations ) Nothing.
Syria .. (though there is still plenty going on there) what gave Trump / the USA some
kind of 'victory'? Zilch, disounting missile attacks on a runway in an airport and on an
empty research and teaching facility.
Symbolic moves, as proposed to Iran (a deal, heh) to save face (see b's posts.)
Next, ho ho, regime change in Venezuela, that might be great, get some extra voters in
Florida. Result? The status quo ante, perhaps stronger than before, with the
Dauphin, Random Guaido, shown up to be a cynical petty fraudster, and not even
challenging enough to jail!
Iran? Note the pressure has been building up since last year when The Donald withdrew
the US from the JCPOA.
Real men go to Teheran!
Except Trump and US forces aren't going anywhere at all and most certainly not to Iran. A
real war in that theatre cannot be fought and won by the US. Nor can it be instigated and
subsequently 'let drop' or 'become unimportant, trivial, with some claims of victory' for ex.
Afghanistan. (very costly btw)
Iran has made it clear that economic sanctions are part of hybrid war, rightly so (but
not, as I still claim, by making some minor attacks on tankers round about, to provoke a
reaction, NO) -- at some point, one engages, if not: backing down is the only option.
Trump treats int'l matters like acrid biz negotiations (see art of the deal) - you
pressure your carpet installer for your mega hotels with nasty e-mails, bellowing threats on
the phone, rustling up the competition, getting a bunch of staff on your side to shore up da
ego, etc. When the carpet-seller makes some bigly concessions on price (all understand the
game that is played) you relent and make nicey, and the wives get together for tennis and a
ruccola crab lunch and later some mega bash with smiling faces is pictured.
I think he got on super well with Kim (NK) who understood all this.
Leaves begging what-who-why is the projected aim, potential hoped result of the hybrid
attack on Iran, and which parties (USA MIC, Fin. Trade Cos., Banking, FF industry, many other
industries; Israel, KSA) support it (again, for what precise aim?) Or are against
sanctions...
Stiglitz does not explain us what forces can bring this so called "progressive capitalism". So far I not see social forces
that can enact it.
Why financial oligarchy that is the ruling class under the neoliberalism relinquish the power voluntarily, without a fight?
After all they control the state and counterattack any changes: look at color revolution (aka Russiagate) launched against Trump,
who represent adherents of a different flavor of neoliberalism.
Neoliberalism entered zombie stage as ideology was discredited in 2008, but there is not still a viable alternative to it. Trump
is promoting "national neoliberalism" -- neoliberalism without globalization and with trade wars between rival economic blocks.
It might be worse then classic neoliberalism for common people.
Notable quotes:
"... By contrast, the third camp advocates what I call progressive capitalism , which prescribes a radically different economic agenda, based on four priorities. The first is to restore the balance between markets, the state and civil society. Slow economic growth, rising inequality, financial instability and environmental degradation are problems born of the market, and thus cannot and will not be overcome by the market on its own. Governments have a duty to limit and shape markets through environmental, health, occupational safety and other types of regulation. It is also the government's job to do what the market cannot or will not do, such as actively investing in basic research, technology, education and the health of its constituents. ..."
"... The rise in corporate market power, combined with the decline in workers' bargaining power, goes a long way toward explaining why inequality is so high and growth so tepid. Unless government takes a more active role than neoliberalism prescribes, these problems will likely become much worse, owing to advances in robotisation and artificial intelligence. ..."
"... There is no magic bullet that can reverse the damage done by decades of neoliberalism. But a comprehensive agenda along the lines sketched above absolutely can. Much will depend on whether reformers are as resolute in combating problems like excessive market power and inequality as the private sector is in creating them. ..."
"... This agenda is eminently affordable; in fact, we cannot afford not to enact it. The alternatives offered by nationalists and neoliberals would guarantee more stagnation, inequality, environmental degradation and political acrimony, potentially leading to outcomes we do not even want to imagine. ..."
"... Progressive capitalism is not an oxymoron. Rather, it is the most viable and vibrant alternative to an ideology that has clearly failed. As such, it represents the best chance we have of escaping our current economic and political malaise. ..."
Bill Clinton and Tony Blair represented neoliberalism with a human face but remained beholden to an expired ideology. Photograph:
Mark Lennihan/AP W hat kind of economic system is most conducive to human wellbeing? That question has come to define the current
era, because, after 40 years of neoliberalism in the United States and other advanced economies, we know what doesn't work.
The neoliberal experiment – lower taxes on the rich, deregulation of labour and product markets, financialisation, and globalisation
– has been a spectacular failure. Growth is lower than it was in the quarter-century after the second world war, and most of it has
accrued to the very top of the income scale. After decades of
stagnant or even falling incomes for those below them, neoliberalism must be pronounced dead and buried.
Vying to succeed it are at least three major political alternatives: far-right nationalism, centre-left reformism and the progressive
left (with the centre-right representing the neoliberal failure). And yet, with the exception of the progressive left, these alternatives
remain beholden to some form of the ideology that has (or should have) expired.
The centre-left, for example, represents neoliberalism with a human face. Its goal is to bring the policies of former US president
Bill Clinton and former British prime minister Tony
Blair into the 21st century, making only slight revisions to the prevailing modes of financialisation and globalisation.
Meanwhile, the nationalist right disowns globalisation, blaming migrants and foreigners for all of today's problems. Yet as Donald
Trump's presidency has shown, it is no less committed – at least in its American variant – to tax cuts for the rich, deregulation
and shrinking or eliminating social programmes.
By contrast, the third camp advocates what I call
progressive
capitalism , which prescribes a radically different economic agenda, based on four priorities. The first is to restore the balance
between markets, the state and civil society. Slow economic growth, rising inequality, financial instability and environmental degradation
are problems born of the market, and thus cannot and will not be overcome by the market on its own. Governments have a duty to limit
and shape markets through environmental, health, occupational safety and other types of regulation. It is also the government's job
to do what the market cannot or will not do, such as actively investing in basic research, technology, education and the health of
its constituents.
The second priority is to recognise that the "wealth of nations" is the result of
scientific inquiry – learning about the world around us – and social organisation that allows large groups of people to work
together for the common good. Markets still have a crucial role to play in facilitating social cooperation, but they serve this purpose
only if they are governed by the rule of law and subject to democratic checks. Otherwise, individuals can get rich by exploiting
others, extracting wealth through rent-seeking rather than creating wealth through genuine ingenuity. Many of today's wealthy took
the exploitation route to get where they are. They have been well served by Trump's policies, which have encouraged rent-seeking
while destroying the underlying sources of wealth creation. Progressive capitalism seeks to do precisely the opposite.
There is no magic bullet that can reverse the damage done by decades of neoliberalism
This brings us to the third priority: addressing the growing problem of concentrated
market power . By exploiting information advantages, buying up potential competitors and creating entry barriers, dominant firms
are able to engage in large-scale rent-seeking to the detriment of everyone else. The rise in corporate market power, combined with
the decline in workers' bargaining power, goes a long way toward explaining why inequality is so high and growth so tepid. Unless
government takes a more active role than neoliberalism prescribes, these problems will likely become much worse, owing to advances
in robotisation and artificial intelligence.
The fourth key item on the progressive agenda is to sever the link between economic power and political influence. Economic power
and political influence are mutually reinforcing and self-perpetuating, especially where, as in the US, wealthy individuals and corporations
may spend without limit in elections. As the US moves ever closer to a fundamentally undemocratic system of "one dollar, one vote",
the system of checks and balances so necessary for democracy likely cannot hold: nothing will be able to constrain the power of the
wealthy. This is not just a moral and political problem: economies with less inequality actually
perform better .
Progressive-capitalist reforms thus have to begin by curtailing the influence of money in politics and reducing wealth inequality.
There is no magic bullet that can reverse the damage done by decades of neoliberalism. But a comprehensive agenda along the
lines sketched above absolutely can. Much will depend on whether reformers are as resolute in combating problems like excessive market
power and inequality as the private sector is in creating them.
A comprehensive agenda must focus on education, research and the other true sources of wealth. It must protect the environment
and fight climate change with the same vigilance as the Green New Dealers in the US and Extinction Rebellion in the United Kingdom.
And it must provide public programmes to ensure that no citizen is denied the basic requisites of a decent life. These include economic
security, access to work and a living wage, health care and adequate housing, a secure retirement, and a quality education for one's
children.
This agenda is eminently affordable; in fact, we cannot afford not to enact it. The alternatives offered by nationalists and neoliberals
would guarantee more stagnation, inequality, environmental degradation and political acrimony, potentially leading to outcomes we
do not even want to imagine.
Progressive capitalism is not an oxymoron. Rather, it is the most viable and vibrant alternative to an ideology that has clearly
failed. As such, it represents the best chance we have of escaping our current economic and political malaise.
Joseph E Stiglitz is a Nobel
laureate in economics, university professor at Columbia University and chief economist at the Roosevelt Institute.
Project Syndicate
"... By rolling back the state, neoliberalism was supposed to have allowed autonomy and creativity to flourish. Instead, it has delivered a semi-privatised authoritarianism more oppressive than the system it replaced. ..."
"... Workers find themselves enmeshed in a Kafkaesque bureaucracy , centrally controlled and micromanaged. Organisations that depend on a cooperative ethic – such as schools and hospitals – are stripped down, hectored and forced to conform to suffocating diktats. The introduction of private capital into public services – that would herald a glorious new age of choice and openness – is brutally enforced. The doctrine promises diversity and freedom but demands conformity and silence. ..."
"... Their problem is that neoliberal theology, as well as seeking to roll back the state, insists that collective bargaining and other forms of worker power be eliminated (in the name of freedom, of course). So the marketisation and semi-privatisation of public services became not so much a means of pursuing efficiency as an instrument of control. ..."
"... Public-service workers are now subjected to a panoptical regime of monitoring and assessment, using the benchmarks von Mises rightly warned were inapplicable and absurd. The bureaucratic quantification of public administration goes far beyond an attempt at discerning efficacy. It has become an end in itself. ..."
Thousands of people march through London to protest against underfunding and privatisation of the NHS. Photograph: Wiktor Szymanowicz/Barcroft
Images M y life was saved last year by the Churchill Hospital in Oxford, through a skilful procedure
to remove
a cancer from my body . Now I will need another operation, to remove my jaw from the floor. I've just learned what was happening
at the hospital while I was being treated. On the surface, it ran smoothly. Underneath, unknown to me, was fury and tumult. Many
of the staff had objected to a decision by the National Health Service
to privatise the hospital's cancer scanning . They complained that the scanners the private company was offering were less sensitive
than the hospital's own machines. Privatisation, they said, would put patients at risk. In response,
as the
Guardian revealed last week , NHS England threatened to sue the hospital for libel if its staff continued to criticise the decision.
The dominant system of political thought in this country, which produced both the creeping privatisation of public health services
and this astonishing attempt to stifle free speech, promised to save us from dehumanising bureaucracy. By rolling back the state,
neoliberalism
was supposed to have allowed autonomy and creativity to flourish. Instead, it has delivered a semi-privatised authoritarianism more
oppressive than the system it replaced.
Workers find themselves enmeshed in a
Kafkaesque bureaucracy , centrally controlled and micromanaged. Organisations that depend on a cooperative ethic – such as schools
and hospitals – are stripped down, hectored and forced to conform to suffocating diktats. The introduction of private capital into
public services – that would herald a glorious new age of choice and openness – is brutally enforced. The doctrine promises diversity
and freedom but demands conformity and silence.
Much of the theory behind these transformations arises from the work of Ludwig von Mises. In his book
Bureaucracy , published in 1944, he argued that
there could be no accommodation between capitalism and socialism. The creation of the National Health Service in the UK, the New
Deal in the US and other experiments in social democracy would lead inexorably to the bureaucratic totalitarianism of the Soviet
Union and Nazi Germany.
He recognised that some state bureaucracy was inevitable; there were certain functions that could not be discharged without it.
But unless the role of the state is minimised – confined to defence, security, taxation, customs and not much else – workers would
be reduced to cogs "in a vast bureaucratic machine", deprived of initiative and free will.
By contrast, those who labour within an "unhampered capitalist system" are "free men", whose liberty is guaranteed by "an economic
democracy in which every penny gives a right to vote". He forgot to add that some people, in his capitalist utopia, have more votes
than others. And those votes become a source of power.
His ideas, alongside the writings of
Friedrich
Hayek , Milton Friedman and other neoliberal thinkers, have been applied in this country by Margaret Thatcher, David Cameron,
Theresa May and, to an alarming extent, Tony Blair. All of those have attempted to privatise or marketise public services in the
name of freedom and efficiency, but they keep hitting the same snag: democracy. People want essential services to remain public,
and they are right to do so.
If you hand public services to private companies, either you create a private monopoly, which can use its dominance to extract
wealth and shape the system to serve its own needs – or you introduce competition, creating an incoherent, fragmented service characterised
by the institutional failure you can see every day on our railways. We're not idiots, even if we are treated as such. We know what
the profit motive does to public services.
The Amazon warehouse in Swansea – the company has patented a wristband that can track workers' movements.
Photograph: Matt Cardy/Getty Images
So successive governments decided that if they could not privatise our core services outright, they would subject them to "market
discipline". Von Mises repeatedly warned against this approach. "No reform could transform a public office into a sort of private
enterprise," he cautioned. The value of public administration "cannot be expressed in terms of money". "Government efficiency and
industrial efficiency are entirely different things."
"Intellectual work cannot be measured and valued by mechanical devices." "You cannot 'measure' a doctor according to the time
he employs in examining one case." They ignored his warnings.
Their problem is that neoliberal theology, as well as seeking to roll back the state, insists that collective bargaining and
other forms of worker power be eliminated (in the name of freedom, of course). So the marketisation and semi-privatisation of public
services became not so much a means of pursuing efficiency as an instrument of control.
Public-service workers are now subjected to a panoptical regime of monitoring and assessment, using the benchmarks von Mises
rightly warned were inapplicable and absurd. The bureaucratic quantification of public administration goes far beyond an attempt
at discerning efficacy. It has become an end in itself.
Its perversities afflict all public services. Schools
teach to the test , depriving children of a rounded and useful education. Hospitals manipulate waiting times, shuffling patients
from one list to another. Police forces ignore some crimes, reclassify others, and persuade suspects to admit to extra offences to
improve their statistics . Universities urge their researchers
to
write quick and superficial papers , instead of deep monographs, to maximise their scores under the research excellence framework.
As a result, public services become highly inefficient for an obvious reason: the destruction of staff morale. Skilled people,
including surgeons whose training costs hundreds of thousands of pounds, resign or retire early because of the stress and misery
the system causes. The leakage of talent is a far greater waste than any inefficiencies this quantomania claims to address.
New extremes in the surveillance and control of workers are not, of course, confined to the public sector. Amazon has
patented a wristband
that can track workers' movements and detect the slightest deviation from protocol. Technologies are used to monitor peoples'
keystrokes, language, moods and tone of voice. Some companies have begun to experiment with the
micro-chipping of their staff . As the philosopher
Byung-Chul Han points
out , neoliberal work practices, epitomised by the gig economy, that reclassifies workers as independent contractors, internalise
exploitation. "Everyone is a self-exploiting worker in their own enterprise."
The freedom we were promised turns out to be
freedom
for capital , gained at the expense of human liberty. The system neoliberalism has created is a bureaucracy that tends towards
absolutism, produced in the public services by managers mimicking corporate executives, imposing inappropriate and self-defeating
efficiency measures, and in the private sector by subjection to faceless technologies that can brook no argument or complaint.
Attempts to resist are met by ever more extreme methods, such as the threatened lawsuit at the Churchill Hospital. Such instruments
of control crush autonomy and creativity. It is true that the Soviet bureaucracy von Mises rightly denounced reduced its workers
to subjugated drones. But the system his disciples have created is heading the same way.
"... Mr. Macri has slashed subsidies for electricity, fuel and transportation, causing prices to skyrocket, and recently prompting Ms. Genovesi, 48, to cut off her gas service, rendering her stove lifeless. Like most of her neighbors, she illegally taps into the power lines that run along the rutted dirt streets. ..."
"... "It's a neoliberal government," she says. "It's a government that does not favor the people." ..."
"... The tribulations playing out under the disintegrating roofs of the poor are a predictable dimension of Mr. Macri's turn away from left-wing populism. He vowed to shrink Argentina's monumental deficits by diminishing the largess of the state. The trouble is that Argentines have yet to collect on the other element the president promised: the economic revival that was supposed to follow the pain. ..."
"... But as Mr. Macri seeks re-election this year, Argentines increasingly lament that they are absorbing all strife and no progress. Even businesses that have benefited from his reforms complain that he has botched the execution, leaving the nation to confront the same concoction of misery that has plagued it for decades. The economy is contracting. Inflation is running above 50 percent, and joblessness is stuck above 9 percent ..."
"... Poverty afflicts a third of the population, and the figure is climbing. ..."
"... Mr. Macri sold his administration as an evolved form of governance for these times, a crucial dose of market forces tempered by social programs. ..."
"... In the most generous reading, the medicine has yet to take effect. But in the view of beleaguered Argentines, the country has merely slipped back into the rut that has framed national life for as long as most people can remember. ..."
"... "We live patching things up," said Roberto Nicoli, 62, who runs a silverware company outside the capital, Buenos Aires. "We never fix things. I always say, 'Whenever we start doing better, I will start getting ready for the next crisis.'" ..."
"... "When our president Cristina was here, they sent people to help us," she says. "Now, if there's problems, nobody helps us. Poor people feel abandoned." ..."
On the ragged streets of the shantytown across the road, where stinking outhouses sit alongside shacks fashioned from rusted sheets
of tin, families have surrendered hopes that sewage lines will ever reach them.
They do not struggle to fashion an explanation for their declining fortunes: Since taking office more than three years ago, President
Mauricio Macri has broken with the budget-busting populism that has dominated Argentina for much of the past century, embracing the
grim arithmetic of economic orthodoxy.
Mr. Macri has slashed subsidies for electricity, fuel and transportation, causing prices to skyrocket, and recently prompting
Ms. Genovesi, 48, to cut off her gas service, rendering her stove lifeless. Like most of her neighbors, she illegally taps into the
power lines that run along the rutted dirt streets.
"It's a neoliberal government," she says. "It's a government that does not favor the people."
The tribulations playing out under the disintegrating roofs of the poor are a predictable dimension of Mr. Macri's turn away
from left-wing populism. He vowed to shrink Argentina's monumental deficits by diminishing the largess of the state. The trouble
is that Argentines have yet to collect on the other element the president promised: the economic revival that was supposed to follow
the pain.
Mr. Macri's supporters heralded his 2015 election as a miraculous outbreak of normalcy in a country with a well-earned reputation
for histrionics. He would cease the reckless spending that had brought Argentina infamy for defaulting on its debts eight times.
Sober-minded austerity would win the trust of international financiers, bringing investment that would yield jobs and fresh opportunities.
But as Mr. Macri seeks re-election this year, Argentines increasingly lament that they are absorbing all strife and no progress.
Even businesses that have benefited from his reforms complain that he has botched the execution, leaving the nation to confront the
same concoction of misery that has plagued it for decades. The economy is contracting. Inflation is running above 50 percent, and
joblessness is stuck above 9 percent.
Poverty afflicts a third of the population, and the figure is climbing.
Far beyond this country of 44 million people, Mr. Macri's tenure is testing ideas that will shape economic policy in an age of
recrimination over widening inequality. His presidency was supposed to offer an escape from the wreckage of profligate spending while
laying down an alternative path for countries grappling with the worldwide rise of populism. Now, his presidency threatens to become
a gateway back to populism. The Argentine economy is contracting. Inflation is running above 50 percent, and joblessness is stuck
above 9 percent. Poverty afflicts a third of the population. Credit Sarah Pabst for The New York Times
Image
The Argentine economy is contracting. Inflation is running above 50 percent, and joblessness is stuck above 9 percent. Poverty afflicts
a third of the population. Credit Sarah Pabst for The New York Times
As the October election approaches, Mr. Macri is contending with the growing prospect of a challenge from the president he succeeded,
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who faces a
series of criminal indictments for corruption . Her unbridled spending helped deliver the crisis that Mr. Macri inherited. Her
return would resonate as a rebuke of his market-oriented reforms while potentially yanking Argentina back to its accustomed preserve:
left-wing populism, in uncomfortable proximity to insolvency.
The Argentine peso lost half of its value against the dollar last year, prompting the central bank to lift interest rates to a
commerce-suffocating level above 60 percent. Argentina was forced to secure a $57 billion
rescue from the International
Monetary Fund , a profound indignity given that the fund is widely despised here for the austerity it imposed in the late 1990s,
turning an economic downturn into a depression.
For Mr. Macri, time does not appear to be in abundant supply. The spending cuts he delivered hit the populace immediately. The
promised benefits of his reforms -- a stable currency, tamer inflation, fresh investment and jobs -- could take years to materialize,
leaving Argentines angry and yearning for the past.
In much of South America, left-wing governments have taken power in recent decades as an angry corrective to dogmatic prescriptions
from Washington, where the Treasury and the I.M.F. have focused on the confidence of global investors as the key to development.
Left-wing populism has aimed to redistribute the gains from the wealthy to everyone else. It has aided the poor, while generating
its own woes --
corruption and depression in
Brazil , runaway inflation and financial ruin in Argentina. In Venezuela, uninhibited spending has turned the country with the
world's largest proven oil reserves into a land where
children starve .
Mr. Macri sold his administration as an evolved form of governance for these times, a crucial dose of market forces tempered
by social programs.
In the most generous reading, the medicine has yet to take effect. But in the view of beleaguered Argentines, the country
has merely slipped back into the rut that has framed national life for as long as most people can remember.
"We live patching things up," said Roberto Nicoli, 62, who runs a silverware company outside the capital, Buenos Aires. "We
never fix things. I always say, 'Whenever we start doing better, I will start getting ready for the next crisis.'"
Cultivating wealth
... ... ...
In the beginning, there was Juan Domingo Perón, the charismatic Army general who was president from 1946 to 1955, and then again
from 1973 to 1974. He employed an authoritarian hand and muscular state power to champion the poor. He and his wife, Eva Duarte --
widely known by her nickname, Evita -- would dominate political life long after they died, inspiring politicians across the ideological
spectrum to claim their mantle.
Among the most ardent Peronists were Néstor Kirchner, the president from 2003 to 2007, and his wife, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner,
who took office in 2007, remaining until Mr. Macri was elected in 2015.
Their version of Peronism -- what became known as Kirchnerism -- was decidedly left-wing, disdaining global trade as a malevolent
force. They expanded cash grants to the poor and imposed taxes on farm exports in a bid to keep Argentine food prices low.
As the country's farmers tell it, Kirchnerism is just a fancy term for the confiscation of their wealth and the scattering of
the spoils to the unproductive masses. They point to Ms. Kirchner's 35 percent tax on soybean exports.
"We had a saying," Mr. Tropini says. "'For every three trucks that went to the port, one was for Cristina Kirchner.'"
reduction in export taxes.
"You could breathe finally," Mr. Tropini, the farmer, says.
He was free of the Kirchners, yet stuck with nature. Floods in 2016 wiped out more than half of his crops. A drought last year
wreaked even more havoc.
"This harvest, this year," he says, "is a gift from God."
But if the heavens are now cooperating, and if the people running Buenos Aires represent change, Mr. Tropini is critical of Mr.
Macri's failure to overcome the economic crisis.
A weaker currency makes Argentine soybeans more competitive, but it also increases the cost of the diesel fuel Mr. Tropini needs
to run his machinery. High interest rates make it impossible for him to buy another combine, which would allow him to expand his
farm.
In the first years of Mr. Macri's administration, the government lifted controls on the value of the peso while relaxing export
taxes. The masters of international finance delivered a surge of investment. The economy expanded by nearly 3 percent in 2017, and
then accelerated in the first months of last year.
But as investors grew wary of Argentina's deficits, they fled, sending the peso plunging and inflation soaring. As the rout continued
last year, the central bank mounted a futile effort to support the currency, selling its stash of dollars to try to halt the peso's
descent. As the reserves dwindled, investors absorbed the spectacle of a government failing to restore order. The exodus of money
intensified, and another potential default loomed, leading a chastened Mr. Macri to accept a rescue from the dreaded IMF.
Administration officials described the unraveling as akin to a natural disaster: unforeseeable and unavoidable. The drought hurt
agriculture.
Money was flowing out of developing countries as the Federal Reserve continued to lift interest rates in the United States, making
the American dollar a more attractive investment.
But the impact of the Fed's tightening had been widely anticipated. Economists fault the government for mishaps and complacency
that left the country especially vulnerable.
.... ... ...
Among the most consequential errors was the government's decision to include Argentina's central bank in a December 2017 announcement
that it was raising its inflation target. The markets took that as a signal that the government was surrendering its war on inflation
while opting for a traditional gambit: printing money rather than cutting spending.
... ... ...
The government insists that better days are ahead. The spending cuts have dropped the budget deficit to a manageable 3 percent
of annual economic output. Argentina is again integrated into the global economy.
"We haven't improved, but the foundations of the economy and society are much healthier," said Miguel Braun, secretary of economic
policy at the Treasury Ministry. "Argentina is in a better place to generate a couple of decades of growth."
... ... ...
Their television flashes dire warnings, like "Danger of Hyper Inflation." Throughout the neighborhood, people decry the sense
that they have been forsaken by the government.
Trucks used to come to castrate male dogs to control the packs of feral animals running loose. Not anymore. Health programs for
children are less accessible than they were before, they said.
Daisy Quiroz, 71, a retired maid, lives in a house that regularly floods in the rainy season.
"When our president Cristina was here, they sent people to help us," she says. "Now, if there's problems, nobody helps us.
Poor people feel abandoned."
... ... ...
Daniel Politi contributed reporting from Buenos Aires. Peter S. Goodman is a London-based European economics correspondent.
He was previously a national economic correspondent in New York. He has also worked at The Washington Post as a China correspondent,
and was global editor in chief of the International Business Times. @
petersgoodman
However, when virtually no one in the upper circles of power in Caracas ended up backing
Guaidó, Trump thought that his national security adviser John Bolton and his director
for Latin American policy, Mauricio Claver-Carone, "got played" by the opposition and key
Maduro officials, The Post reported.
Two senior White House officials told
The Post that the president "chewed out the staff" after the failure on April 30 to
shift Maduro from power and that now Trump's administration has no fixed strategy to remove
him.
Trump had "always thought of" Venezuela "as low-hanging fruit" on which he "could get a win
and tout it as a major foreign policy victory," the former official said. "Five or six months
later . . . it's not coming together," the unnamed official added.
However, this was rejected by National Security Council spokesman Garrett Marquis who
described the official's claims as, "patently false."
Gina Haspel is
facing a Congressional grilling as her confirmation hearings for the CIA director's position
get underway.
Should she overcome it, she'll be the first woman to hold the director's job. It's a high
profile position, but Haspel has been a pretty low profile person up until this point. So who
is Trump's nominee to run the government's spy agency?
Haspel, who would replace new secretary of state Mike Pompeo , has been
with the agency since 1985, spending much of her career undercover. She has received several
awards, including the George H. W. Bush Award for excellence in counterterrorism and the
Presidential Rank Award, the highest award in the federal civil service. She also has overseen
the
torture of some terror suspects , which is what critics and former ambassadors are worried
about.
A 2017 New York Times report says Haspel, in 2002, oversaw the torture of two
suspects at a secret prison in Thailand and later was involved in the destruction of videotapes
documenting that torture.
One of those prisoners was waterboarded 83 times in a
single month, had his head repeatedly slammed into
walls , and endured other harsh methods before interrogators decided he had no useful
information to provide, says the Times .
As a result of such torture, she was shifted out of her role as head of the CIA's
clandestine service.
Haspel was picked to run the CIA's clandestine operations unit in 2013, but Senator
Dianne Feinstein , who was the senior Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee at the
time, blocked the promotion because of Haspel's history of torture.
Within the agency, though, Haspel is reportedly widely respected – and has support
from members of both the Bush and Obama administrations. Where she stands personally on issues
such as extreme interrogation techniques is an unknown, as she has not offered any public
comments on policy, as you would expect for an undercover officer.
And that's what Senators are hoping to learn more about as their questioning gets
underway.
Trump was eager to boast about Moscow's withdrawal of its troops from Venezuela, but it
turned out that he or someone else in the administration just made it up:
The Kremlin said on Tuesday it didn't know where U.S. President Donald Trump had got the
idea Moscow had removed most of its military specialists from Venezuela, who it said
continued to work there.
Trump tweeted on Monday that Russia had told the United States it had removed "most of
their people" from Venezuela, where Moscow has maintained close military and economic ties
with socialist President Nicolas Maduro.
Trump's Venezuela policy is a shambles, and Russia previously brushed off his ultimatum to
remove their forces from the country. It isn't surprising that he would try to spin any
development in his favor, but in this case it seems that he just invented something out of thin
air so that his Venezuela policy wouldn't look quite so feckless. He has no genuine successes
that he can talk about, so he has to have pretend victories instead. The original tweet is
still up:
Claiming that "Russia informed" him of this thing that didn't happen makes it even sillier,
because it immediately prompted the Russian government to announce that they couldn't have
informed Trump about something that hadn't occurred. Now that Russia has corrected the record,
the president looks even more ridiculous than usual.
This episode isn't that important by itself, but it shows how easily Trump can be convinced
of the reality of things that haven't happened and how readily he will accept any story, no
matter how unfounded it may be, if it flatters him and bolsters his agenda. That makes him
unusually easy to manipulate and provoke, and it makes him an exceptionally easy mark for
misinformation. That puts the president's decision-making completely at the mercy of the
advisers that control what he sees and hears.
that his Venezuela policy wouldn't look quite so feckless.
Not a Trump fan, but is Trump's Venezuela policy feckless? Or just Trump somehow
understands that it is not our problem and/or military intervention is just a bad investment.
For the life of me, I don't understand why Russia desires to part of the Venezuelan mess, but
most of their interference is minimal in nature and really has little impact on the
situation. I get the Bay Of Bolton was half assed coup that probably did more damage to
Guaido chances for new elections. (Guaido is being painted as the Trump Imperialism candidate
which is not popular.)
The big question is why this is not China's problem? At this point, Venezuela is
completely with them.
Re: "Trump's Venezuela policy is a shambles, and Russia previously brushed off his
ultimatum to remove their forces from the country."
Agree. But the larger subtext is that the U.S. now has zero credibility with
anything . The assumption by every country on the planet has to be that the U.S. word
is not worth squat.
Fat Pompeo with his big mouth, "We lie, cheat and steal" mind-dump says it all. The
Russians are anything but saints, but they knew that the U.S. planned on having Russia
ejected from its Crimean Naval Base in Sevastopol after the coup that Nitwit Nuland and her
barrel of CIA monkeys engineered.
Similarly, the Russians know that if/when the U.S. puts sock puppet Guaido in power, they
will ensure he stiffs the Russians out of all of their claims and assets in Venezuela.
The Russians don't want to wrestle with the Gorilla, but they have no other choice.
Given the way the dealings with North Korea have gone, I expect that Trump will soon be
announcing that Kim Jong-Un has destroyed all his nuclear weapons and pledged not to build
any more. Needless to say, it will not have happened.
But, as they say, fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice shame on me. The question
really becomes why so many of Trump's followers continue to believe everything he says when
he lies so blatantly so often.
"The question really becomes why so many of Trump's followers continue to believe
everything he says when he lies so blatantly so often."
I don't know that they do. I tend to think that they just hate what has happened to the
country since Reagan and Clinton so much that they just want Trump to keep bashing Congress
over the head, even with stupidity.
Not to mention that humans have an innate exploitable weakness: the desire to transfer
someone else's perceived greatness on to themselves. Hence the inclination of sports fans and
adoration of the military.
So "Team America" is great, therefore I am great, and Trump represents us, therefore Trump
is great.
One should not wish ill on any other human being, even though i have contemplated several
slapstick scenarios involving certain politicians, however
Donald Trump is in the process of discovering that one cannot ignore Reality, since it
Bites, that live is not a reality TV show (the most unreal thing on television), and that
chickens do indeed come home to roost.
Unfortunately, it's been a difficult learning curve, and pathetic boasts to the contrary,
he has managed to turn both the Conservative Movement and the Republican Party into a pile of
smoking rubble.
It conservatism can be rebuilt in a score of years, it would be a miracle. More like, a
generation.
Trump's Venezuelan policy is a series of hallucination's. This article just describes the
most recent. It begins with the hallucination that Maduro is a dictator, when in reality he
won an election in May 2018 with 67% of the vote in an election that more than 150
international election observers unanimously agreed met all international standards for
democratic elections. It follows with the hallucination that the Venezuelan military would
join the US in rising up against their elected president rather than support the
constitutional government. It continues with the hallucination that the people of Venezuela
would join a US-inspired coup against the president they had just re-elected rather than join
a 2 million person plus civilian militia to defend against a US attack. And, it continues
with the hallucination that Juan Guaido is the interim president when his self-appointment
violated the Venezuelan Constitution and the United Nations and Venezuelan law recognize
Nicolas Maduro as the legitimate president of Venezuela.
The antidote of these ongoing hallucinatory experiences is for Trump to no longer trust
his advisors and end the US coup attempt, which has already failed multiple times in
Venezuela. John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, and Elliot Abrams have made Trump see hallucinations
that are complete falsehoods. They have led the president into an embarrassing trap that he
now needs to get out of. They have made Trump look like a fool.
It is time for Trump to take steps to normalize relations with Venezuela. That begins with
a mutual Protecting Power Agreement between the US and Venezuela for Switzerland to be a
Protecting Power of the US Embassy in Caracas and Turkey to be a Protecting of the Venezuelan
Embassy in Washington, DC. Following from that the US and Venezuela should negotiate the sale
of Venezuelan resources, primarily oil, in return for the end of the illegal unilateral
coercive measures (inaccurately called sanctions) against Venezuela. Negotiating with
Venezuela will be less expensive than a war that will become a quagmire that will end in
failure after costing more than $1 trillion and causing chaos in the region. Then, Trump and
Maduro should meet to chart a course that begins with mutual respect for the independence and
sovereignty of each nation and then determines where the two nations interests are consistent
with each other. It is time to leave the hallucinations behind and come back to reality.
The ease with which Trump is manipulated and provoked can be added to the explanation of why
Bibi is now in possession of Jerusalem and war against Iran is a high probability. That
should terrify Americans.
This was true about Iraq war. This is true about Venezuela and Syria.
Notable quotes:
"... In a rather odd article in the London Review of Books , Perry Anderson argued that there wasn't, and wondered aloud why the U.S. war on Iraq had excited such unprecedented worldwide opposition - even, in all places, within the U.S. - when earlier episodes of imperial violence hadn't. ..."
"... Lots of people, in the U.S. and abroad, recognize that and are alarmed. And lots also recognize that the Bush regime represents an intensification of imperial ambition. ..."
"... Why? The answers aren't self-evident. Certainly the war on Iraq had little to do with its public justifications. Iraq was clearly a threat to no one, and the weapons of mass destruction have proved elusive. The war did nothing for the fight against terrorism. Only ideologues believe that Baghdad had anything to do with al Qaeda - and if the Bush administration were really worried about "homeland security," it'd be funding the defense of ports, nuclear reactors, and chemical plants rather than starting imperial wars and alienating people by the billions. Sure, Saddam's regime was monstrous - which is one of the reasons Washington supported it up until the invasion of Kuwait. The Ba'ath Party loved to kill Communists - as many as 150,000 according to some estimates - and the CIA's relationship with Saddam goes back to 1959 . ..."
"... Iraq has lots of oil , and there's little doubt that that's why it was at the first pole of the axis of evil to get hit. (Iran does too, but it's a much tougher nut to crack - four times as big, and not weakened by war and sanctions.) ..."
Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small c rappy little country and
throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business.
- Michael
Ledeen , holder of the Freedom Chair at the American Enterprise Institute
Actually, the U.S. had been beating Iraq's head against the wall for a dozen years, with
sanctions and bombing. The
sanctions alone killed over a million Iraqis, far more than have been done in by weapons of
mass destruction throughout history. But Ledeen's indiscreet remark, delivered at an AEI
conference and reported by Jonah Goldberg in National Review Online , does capture some
of what the war on Iraq is about.
And what is this "business" Ledeen says we mean? Oil, of course, of which more in a bit.
Ditto construction contracts for Bechtel. But it's more than that - nothing less than the
desire, often expressed with little shame nor euphemism, to run the world. Is there anything
new about that?
The answer is, of course, yes and no. In a rather odd article in the London Review of Books ,
Perry Anderson argued that there wasn't, and wondered aloud why the U.S. war on Iraq had
excited such unprecedented worldwide opposition - even, in all places, within the U.S. - when
earlier episodes of imperial violence hadn't. Anderson, who's edited New Left Review for years, but who has almost no
connection to actual politics attributed this strange explosion not to a popular outburst of
anti-imperialism, but to a cultural antipathy to the Bush administration.
Presumably that antipathy belongs to the realm of the " merely cultural ," and is of no great
political significance to Anderson. But it should be. U.S. culture has long been afflicted with
a brutally reactionary and self-righteous version of Christian fundamentalism, but it's never
had such influence over the state. The president thinks himself on a mission from God, the
Attorney General opens the business day with a prayer meeting, and the Pentagon's idea of a
Good Friday service is to invite Franklin Graham , who's pronounced Islam a "wicked and
evil religion," to deliver the homily, in which he promised that Jesus was returning soon. For
the hard core, the Iraq war is a sign of the end times, and the hard core
are in power.
Lots of people, in the U.S. and abroad, recognize that and are alarmed. And lots also
recognize that the Bush regime represents an intensification of imperial ambition. Though the
administration has been discreet, many of its private sector intellectuals
have been using the words "imperialism" and " empire " openly and with
glee. Not everyone of the millions who marched against the war in the months before it started
was a conscious anti-imperialist, but they all sensed the intensification, and were further
alarmed.
While itself avoiding the difficult word "empire," the Bush administration has been rather
clear about its long-term aims. According to their official national security strategy and the
documents published by the Project
for a New American Century (which served as an administration-in-waiting during the Clinton
years) their goal is to assure U.S. dominance and prevent the emergence of any rival powers.
First step in that agenda is the remaking of the Middle East - and they're quite open
about this as well. We all know the countries that are on the list; the only remaining issues
are sequence and strategy. But that's not the whole of the agenda. They're essentially
promising a permanent state of war, some overt, some covert, but one that could take
decades.
Imperial returns?
Why? The answers aren't self-evident. Certainly the war on Iraq had little to do with its
public justifications. Iraq was clearly a threat to no one, and the weapons of mass destruction
have proved elusive. The war did nothing for the fight against terrorism. Only ideologues
believe that Baghdad had anything to do with al Qaeda - and if the Bush administration were
really worried about "homeland security," it'd be funding the defense of ports, nuclear
reactors, and chemical plants rather than starting imperial wars and alienating people by the
billions. Sure, Saddam's regime was monstrous - which is one of the reasons Washington
supported it up until the invasion of Kuwait. The Ba'ath Party loved to kill Communists - as
many as 150,000 according to some estimates - and the CIA's relationship with Saddam goes back
to 1959
.
Iraq has lots of oil , and there's little doubt that that's why
it was at the first pole of the axis of evil to get hit. (Iran does too, but it's a much
tougher nut to crack - four times as big, and not weakened by war and sanctions.)
It now looks
fairly certain that the U.S. will, in some form, claim some large piece of Iraq's oil. The
details need to be worked out; clarifying the legal situation could be very complicated, given
the rampantly illegal nature of the regime change. Rebuilding Iraq's oil industry will be very
expensive and could take years. There could be some nice profits down the line for big oil
companies - billions a year - but the broader economic benefits for the U.S. aren't so clear. A
U.S.-dominated Iraq could pump heavily and undermine OPEC, but too low an oil price would wreck
the domestic U.S. oil industry, something the Bush gang presumably cares
about. Mexico would be driven into penury, which could mean another debt crisis and lots of
human traffic heading north over the Rio Grande. Lower oil prices would be a boon to most
industrial economies, but they'd give the U.S. no special advantage over its principal economic
rivals.
It's
sometimes said that U.S. dominance of the Middle East gives Washington a chokehold over oil
supplies to Europe and Japan. But how might that work? Deep production cutbacks and price
spikes would hurt everyone. Targeted sales restrictions would be the equivalent of acts of war,
and if the U.S. is willing to take that route, a blockade would be a lot more efficient. The
world oil market is gigantic and complex, and it's not clear how a tap could be turned in
Kirkuk that would shut down the gas pumps in Kyoto or Milan.
Writers like David Harvey argue
that the U.S. is trying to compensate for its eroding economic power by asserting its military
dominance. Maybe. It's certainly fascinating that Bush's unilateralism has to be financed by
gobs of foreign money - and he gets his tax cuts, he'll have to order up even bigger gobs. But
it's hard to see what rival threatens the U.S. economically; neither the EU nor Japan is
thriving. Nor is there any evidence that the Bush administration is thinking seriously about
economic policy, domestic or international, or even thinking at all. The economic staff is
mostly dim and marginal. What really seems to excite this gang of supposed conservatives is the
exercise of raw state power.
Jealous rivals
And while the Bushies want to prevent the emergence of imperial rivals , they may only be encouraging that. Sure, the EU
is badly divided within itself; it has a hard enough time picking a top central banker , let alone deciding on a common
foreign policy. German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder is already semi-apologizing to Bush for
his intemperate language in criticizing the war - not that Bush has started taking his calls.
But over the longer term, some kind of political unification is Europe's only hope for acting
like a remotely credible world power. It's tempting to read French and German objections to the
Iraq war as emerging not from principle, but from the wounded narcissism of former imperial
powers rendered marginal by American might. Separately, they'll surely hang. But a politically
united Europe could, with time, come to challenge U.S. power, just as the euro is beginning to look like a credible rival to the dollar.
(Speaking of the euro, there's a theory circulating on the net that the U.S. went to war
because Iraq wanted to price its oil in euros, not dollars. That's grossly overheated
speculation. More on this and related issues when LBO begins an investigation of the
political economy of oil in the next issue.)
An even more interesting rivalry scenario would involve an alliance of the EU and Russia.
Russia is no longer the wreck it was for most of the 1990s. The economy has been growing and
the mildly authoritarian Putin has imposed political stability. Russia, which has substantial
oil interests in Iraq that are threatened by U.S. control, strongly opposed the war, and at
least factions within the Russian intelligence agency were reportedly feeding information
unfriendly to the U.S. to the website Iraqwar.ru . There's a lot recommending an EU-Russia
alliance; Europe could supply technology and finance, and Russia could supply energy, and
together they could constitute at least an embryonic counterweight to U.S. power.
So the U.S. may not get out of Iraq what the Bush administration is hoping for. It certainly
can't want democracy in Iraq or the rest of the region, since free votes could well lead to
nationalist and Islamist governments who don't view ExxonMobil as the divine agent that Bush seems to. A
New York Times piece celebrated the outbreak of democracy in Basra, while conceding that
the mayor is a former Iraqi admiral appointed by the British. The lead writers of the new
constitution are likely to be American law professors; Iraqis, of course, aren't up to the task
themselves.
Certainly the appointment of Lt. Gen. Jay M. Garner (Ret.) - one of the
few superannuated brass not to have enjoyed a consulting contract with a major TV network - to
be the top civilian official guiding the postwar reconstruction of Iraq speaks volumes. A
retired general is barely a civilian, and Garner's most recent job was as president of
SY Technology , a military
contractor that worked with Israeli security in developing the Arrow antimissile system. He
loves antimissile systems; after the first Gulf War, he enthused about the Patriot's
performance with claims that turned out to be nonsense. He's on record as having praised
Israel's handling of the intifada. If that's his model of how to handle restive subject
populations, there's lots of trouble ahead.
lightness
In the early days of the war, when things weren't going so well for the "coalition,"
it was said that the force was too light. But after the sandstorm cleared and the snipers
were mowed down, that alleged lightness became a widely praised virtue. But that force
was light only by American standards: 300,000 troops; an endless rain of Tomahawks,
JDAMs, and MOABs; thousands of vehicles, from Humvees to Abrams tanks; hundreds of
aircraft, from Apaches to B-1s; several flotillas of naval support - and enormous
quantities of expensive petroleum products. It takes five gallons of fuel just to start
an Abrams tank, and after that it gets a mile per gallon. And filling one up is no
bargain. Though the military buys fuel at a wholesale price of 84¢ a gallon, after
all the expenses of getting it to the front lines are added in, the final cost is about
$150 a gallon. That's a steal compared to Afghanistan, where fuel is helicoptered in,
pushing the cost to $600/gallon. Rummy's "lightness" is of the sort that only a $10
trillion economy can afford.
The Bush gang doesn't even try to keep up appearances, handing out contracts for Iraq's
reconstruction to U.S. firms even before the shooting stopped, and guarding only the oil and
interior ministries against looters. If Washington gets its way, Iraq will be rebuilt according
to the fondest dreams of the Heritage Foundation staff, with the educational system reworked by
an American contractor, the TV programmed by the Pentagon, the ports run by a rabidly antiunion
firm, the police run by the Texas-based military contractor Dyncorp , and the oil taken out of
state hands and appropriately privatized.
That's the way they'd like it to be. But the sailing may not be so smooth. It looks like
Iraqis are viewing the Americans as occupiers, not liberators. It's going to be hard enough to
remake Iraq that taking on Syria or Iran may be a bit premature. But that doesn't mean they
won't try. It's a cliché of trade negotiations that liberalization is like riding a
bicycle - you have to keep riding forward or else you'll fall over. The same could be said of
an imperial agenda: if you want to remake the world, or a big chunk of it, there's little time
to pause and catch your breath, since doubt or opposition could gain the upper hand. Which
makes stoking that opposition more
urgent than ever.
Losing it all
There's a feeling around that Bush is now politically invulnerable . Certainly the atmosphere
is one of almost coercive patriotism. That mood was nicely illustrated by an incident in
Houston in mid-March. A teenager attending a rodeo failed to stand along with the rest of the
crowd during a playing of Lee Greenwood's "Proud to be an American," a dreadful country song
that has become a kind of private-sector national anthem for the yahoo demographic, thanks to
its truculent unthinking jingoism. A patriot standing behind the defiantly seated teen started
taunting him, tugging on his ear as an additional provocation. The two ended up in a fight, and
then under arrest.
There's a lot of that going around, for sure. Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins get disinvited
from events, websites nominate
traitors for trial by military tribunal, and talk radio hosts organize CD-smashings. But things
aren't hopeless. A close analysis of Greenwood's text might suggest why. The song's core
argument is contained in its two most famous lines: "I'm proud to be an American/where at least
I know I'm free." But the oft-overlooked opening reads: "If tomorrow all the things were
gone/I'd worked for all my life," the singer would still be a grateful patriot. That's
precisely the condition lots of Americans find themselves in. More than two million jobs have
disappeared in the last two years. Millions of Americans have seen their retirement savings
wiped out by the bear market, and over a million filed for bankruptcy last year. Most states and
cities are experiencing their worst fiscal crises since the 1930s, with massive service cuts
and layoffs imminent. In the song, such loss doesn't matter, but reality is often less
accommodating than a song.
As the nearby graphs show, W's ratings are much lower than his father's at the end of Gulf
War I, and his disapproval ratings much higher. Their theocratic and repressive agenda is
deeply unpopular with large parts of the U.S. population. Spending scores of billions on
destroying and rebuilding Iraq while at home health clinics are closing and teachers working
without pay is potentially incendiary. Foreign adventures have never been popular with the
American public (much to the distress of the ruling elite). An peace movement that could draw
the links among warmongering, austerity, and repression has great political potential. Just a
month or two ago, hundreds of thousands were marching in American streets to protest the
imminent war. Though that movement now looks a bit dispirited and demobilized, it's unlikely
that that kind of energy will just disappear into the ether.
Speaking of getting led around by the nose, we come to one Gina Haspel's great deceptions.
This deception plays directly into the hands of Russiagaters. This woman, supposedly brought
into CIA leadership in order to demolish the agency, is proving quite adept in perpetuating its
reign of terror. Again, we have a neocon undermining Trump's prestige and authority.
(EIRNS) -- The New York Times ran a story yesterday titled, "Gina Haspel
Relies on Spy Skills To Connect with Trump. He Doesn't Always Listen." Based on interviews with
former and current CIA agents who worked with CIA Director Haspel (but not interviewing her),
the Times praises her skills and attempts to denigrate Trump, but they also retail a story
about her and Trump which could cost Haspel deeply.
Following the March 2018 breaking of the Skripal poisoning story in England, the Times
writes, Trump had initially "written off the poisoning as part of legitimate spy games,
distasteful but within the bounds of espionage." Haspel, on the other hand, was backing
London's demand for Trump to blame Russia immediately and expel dozens of Russian
diplomats.
Writes the Times:
"During the discussion, Ms. Haspel, then deputy CIA director, turned toward Mr. Trump. She
outlined possible responses in a quiet but firm voice, then leaned forward and told the
President that the 'strong option' was to expel 60 diplomats.
"To persuade Mr. Trump, according to people briefed on the conversation, officials
including Ms. Haspel also tried to show him that Mr. Skripal and his daughter were not the
only victims of Russia's attack.
"Ms. Haspel showed pictures the British government had supplied her of young children
hospitalized after being sickened by the Novichok nerve agent that poisoned the Skripals. She
then showed a photograph of ducks that British officials said were inadvertently killed by
the sloppy work of the Russian operatives."
This appeal reportedly swayed Trump to go along with Haspel's advice.
If it sounds like the British "White Helmet" terrorists in Syria faking pictures of children
being hit with chemical weapons to convince Trump to bomb Syrian targets, it is indeed
precisely the same.
Former British Ambassador Craig Murray, an outspoken critic of these British imperial lies
and atrocities, posted a response today to the Times garbage on his blog. He states first that
yet another truth behind the Skripal lies was revealed recently by police, acknowledging that
"the perfume bottle Charlie Rowley found was sealed and could not have been the container used
on the Skripals." He goes on: "It took nine months for us to learn that, by a truly wonderful
coincidence, the first person to find the Skripals ill on the bench was the Chief Nurse of the
British Army."
But on the Haspel story in the Times, Murray is furious. "The problem is," he writes,
"there were no hospitalized children. No children have been reported as becoming ill
following their duck feeding with the Skripals. We have heard from one of the parents that
they were shown by the police extremely clear [closed-circuit surveillance] CCTV footage of
the duck feeding, which has never been made public. Surely if the child had been
hospitalized, the parent would have mentioned it?"
He quotes Dr. Stephen Davies of Salisbury Hospital, who wrote to the New York Times on March
14 stating clearly that no children had been hospitalized, and that every person who came to
the hospital fearing they had been contaminated had no symptoms and tests turned out negative.
Murray states:
"We also know that the duck feeding was the time that Boshirov and Petrov [the alleged
Russian culprits] were physically closest to the Skripals. But this is the first time there
has ever been any mention of any harm to the ducks. Dead ducks would have been noticed by the
public."
It appears that the British Empire is the dead duck in this myth.
"... Particularly shameless was Florida Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart, who went on Tucker Carlson's show to peddle half-baked innuendo as brazen as anything claimed in the lead up to the Iraq War. If Maduro's government survived, he claimed, it would be "a green light, an open door for the Russians and for the Chinese and for others to increase their activity against our national security interest right here in our hemisphere." ..."
Russiagate hysteria is already being used to push Trump into an act of armed aggression against Venezuela. It's a disastrous result
of a pointless delusion.
One of the things Russiagate skeptics found unsettling about the frenzy over supposed "collusion" was that it made war more likely.
Not only did the now-debunked conspiracy theories and resulting political climate push officials into a more aggressive posture toward
Russia, but once the Kremlin was returned to its status as the foreign policy elite's Big Bad, it was easy to imagine a situation
where the threat of a Russian bogeyman could be used to justify any number of unrelated foreign adventures. This appears to be exactly
what's happening with
Venezuela
right now.
First there was Fareed Zakaria, who two months ago
tried to goad Trump into attacking Venezuela by pointing to Russia's support for Maduro. "Putin's efforts seem designed to taunt
the United States," he said (it might also have something to do with the
billions of dollars Russia
sank into the country), making reference to the Monroe Doctrine. He asked if Washington would "allow Moscow to make a mockery of
another American red line," warning that "if Washington does not back its words with deeds" the country could become another Syria.
Zakaria concluded: "will Venezuela finally be the moment when Trump finally ends his appeasement?"
More recently, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
charged that Russia had "invaded" Venezuela before claiming the Kremlin had dissuaded Maduro from fleeing the country at the
last moment, something Pompeo has provided no evidence for but much of the media has treated as fact since.
National Security Advisor
John Bolton has
said that "this is our hemisphere"
and "not where the Russians ought to be interfering." Democratic Sen. Doug Jones
echoed this sentiment on CNN, praising the Trump
administration for saying "all options are on the table" to deal with Venezuela, something he suggested may have to be acted on "if
there is some more intervention [by] Russia."
The national press, taking a break from warning about Trump being a dangerous authoritarian, has been
demanding to know why he hasn't been more aggressive toward the country over this.
Particularly shameless was Florida Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart, who went on Tucker Carlson's show to
peddle half-baked
innuendo as brazen as anything claimed in the lead up to the Iraq War. If Maduro's government survived, he claimed, it would be "a
green light, an open door for the Russians and for the Chinese and for others to increase their activity against our national security
interest right here in our hemisphere."
He went on to claim that Russia had already placed nuclear missiles in the country, and that it could lead to a Cuban missile
crisis-like conflict. There is no evidence this is true, and Díaz-Balart didn't provide any.
Of course, no coverage of the Trump administration's relations with Russia would be complete without a trip into Rachel Maddow's
fractured psyche. After Trump repeated Putin's personal assurances that he wasn't interested in getting involved in Venezuela --
contradicting Pompeo and Bolton -- Maddow addressed the two
officials :
Hey John Bolton, hey Mike Pompeo, are you guys enjoying your jobs right now? You each thought your job this week was to name
and shame and threaten and counter Russian government involvement in Venezuela while saber-rattling about how everybody else better
get out of the way because the US is really mad about it. Guys, turns out your actual job is figuring out how and why you work
for a president who says whatever Vladimir Putin tells him.
Maddow went on to express her sympathy for one of the
most unhinged warmongers
in a city teeming with them ("I mean, John Bolton, God bless you"), and again seemed to suggest that Bolton's "job" of "push[ing]
Russia back because of what they're doing in Venezuela" was the correct course of action.
It's now clear there is nothing -- not Trump's years-long belligerence toward Russia's Venezuelan ally, not his
near-constant
bellicosity toward Russia since taking office, not
Robert Mueller's failure
to indict a single person for conspiring with Russia, not even his report's explicit and implicit denial that any such conspiracy
existed -- that will make these people give up the talking point that Trump is secretly in bed with Putin. If Mueller himself denied
it, they would claim he was a Russian in disguise. It's simply too convenient an attack line, and too professionally embarrassing
to admit otherwise.
There is also an Orwellian level of doublethink going on here. Russia, a Venezuelan ally, has sent personnel and equipment to
the country with the consent of its government at a time when it's being threatened by multiple hostile regional powers. Meanwhile
the US, one of those hostile powers, has for years been
laying siege to the country
and killing its people, trying to destabilize and oust its leadership, and even threatening to invade it.
Yet according to the media and political class, it's Russia's actions that are an unacceptable intrusion into another country's
affairs -- an "invasion," even. They are holding up four fingers to your face and telling you you're seeing five.
Meanwhile, these same quarters, after spending close to three years hyperventilating about Russia's meddling in domestic US affairs
-- an "act of war," in some minds -- have now seamlessly pivoted to cheering Trump as he attempts to
engineer a change
of Venezuela's government, even calling for him to possibly attack the country. This is glaringly hypocritical, but the
Russiagate
frenzy was never about principled outrage or any sort of moral consistency.
Lastly and most significantly, the rhetoric around Venezuela is now taking on an explicitly imperialistic character, in the most
literal sense of that word. Zakaria invoked the Monroe Doctrine to urge Trump to intervene in Venezuela; National Security Advisor
John Bolton "proudly proclaim[ed]" upon
launching
a fresh round of sanctions that "the Monroe Doctrine is alive and well," and one MSNBC guest
insisted the Trump administration was "right in being completely flabbergasted" at Russia's presence in the country because "this
is our hemisphere," echoing
Bolton
.
When these figures talk about "our hemisphere," they don't mean the hemisphere in which the US happens to be located; they mean
this is literally their hemisphere. The US is the imperial power with dominion over this part of the world, and only it has
the right to interfere in the countries that populate it.
Their objection is not that an outside power is involving itself in a Latin American country's business, but that this outside
power isn't the one in Washington. The fact that the US has been doing this very thing for years in Russia's part of the world --
expanding NATO right up to its
border, sending weapons to Ukraine -- goes conveniently unmentioned.
Russiagate skeptics were criticized for being hyperbolic in
comparing that scandal to the bogus
WMD tale that led to the Iraq War; the latter, after all, killed hundreds of thousands and destabilized an entire region. But the
full consequences of Russiagate will not be felt immediately; they will unfold over time. And while floating the specter of Russia
might not work this time, expect it to be used over and over in the coming years to justify all manner of
military aggression
.
"... It was comprehensive -- directing military, diplomatic, and propaganda, policies -- regarding the Trump Administration's planned "Overthrow" of Venezuela's Government. His plan has since guided the Administration's entire operation, including "the capacities of the psychological war," regarding Venezuela. ..."
"... Encouraging popular dissatisfaction by increasing scarcity and rise in price of the foodstuffs, medicines and other essential goods for the inhabitants. Making more harrowing and painful the scarcities of the main basic merchandises." ... ..."
"... intensifying the undercapitalization of the country, the leaking out of foreign currency and the deterioration of its monetary base, bringing about the application of new inflationary measures." ... ..."
"... Fully obstruct imports, and at the same time discouraging potential foreign investors in order to make the situation more critical for the population." ... compelling him to fall into mistakes that generate greater distrust and rejection domestically" ... ..."
"... To besiege him, to ridicule him and to pose him as symbol of awkwardness and incompetence. To expose him as a puppet of Cuba." ... ..."
"... Structuring a plan to get the profuse desertion of the most qualified professionals from the country, in order 'to leave it with no professionals at all', which will aggravate even more the internal situation and along these lines putting the blame on of Government." ..."
A detailed plan from "UNITED STATES SOUTHERN COMMAND" dated "23 FEBRUARY 2018" was issued with the title "PLAN TO OVERTHROW THE
VENEZUELAN DICTATORSHIP 'MASTERSTROKE'" and is here presented complete.
This document was personally signed by
Admiral Kurt W. Tidd , who was the Commander (the chief), at
SOUTHCOM , and he was thus the top U.S.
military official handling Venezuela. But this was far more than just a military plan.
It was comprehensive -- directing military, diplomatic, and propaganda, policies -- regarding the Trump Administration's planned
"Overthrow" of Venezuela's Government. His plan has since guided the Administration's entire operation, including "the capacities
of the psychological war," regarding Venezuela.
It instructed SOUTHCOM:
Encouraging popular dissatisfaction by increasing scarcity and rise in price of the foodstuffs, medicines and other essential
goods for the inhabitants. Making more harrowing and painful the scarcities of the main basic merchandises." ...
intensifying the undercapitalization of the country, the leaking out of foreign currency and the deterioration of its monetary
base, bringing about the application of new inflationary measures." ...
Fully obstruct imports, and at the same time discouraging potential foreign investors in order to make the situation more
critical for the population." ... compelling him to fall into mistakes that generate greater distrust and rejection domestically"
...
To besiege him, to ridicule him and to pose him as symbol of awkwardness and incompetence. To expose him as a puppet of
Cuba." ...
Appealing to domestic allies as well as other people inserted from abroad in the national scenario in order to generate protests,
riots and insecurity, plunders, thefts, assaults and highjacking of vessels as well as other means of transportation, with the
intention of deserting this country in crisis through all borderlands and other possible ways, jeopardizing in such a way the
National Security of neighboring frontier nations. Causing victims and holding the Government responsible for them. Magnifying,
in front of the world, the humanitarian crisis in which the country has been submitted to."
Structuring a plan to get the profuse desertion of the most qualified professionals from the country, in order 'to leave it
with no professionals at all', which will aggravate even more the internal situation and along these lines putting the blame on
of Government."
the presence of combat units from the United States of America and the other named countries, under the command of a Joint
General Staff led by the USA."
It was posted online at the Voltairenet site , and
was first copied to a
web archive on
14 May 2018 . So, it has been online since at least that date. However, because the photo in it of the document wasn't made available
via software which includes the individual symbols, but presented only the full visual image of the paper document, it still hasn't
yet gone viral on the Web.
Here, therefore, is the first appearance, on the Web, of the full document, that's manually copied, character-by-character, so
that each phrase in this document becomes, for the first time, web-searchable, and thereby conveniently available for journalists
and historians to quote from.
This prophetic document -- the source for what has happened afterward in and to Venezuela -- might therefore finally receive the
public attention that it so clearly merits.
The document starts with propaganda against Venezuela's existing Government (and
it totally ignores the extent
to which the pre-existing
U.S. economic sanctions
against Venezuela had actually caused these problems ), and it then proceeds to present the U.S. plan to overthrow the 'dictatorship'.
(Tidd refers to Maduro only as "the Dictator," except at the very start and very end.
At the end, he commands "the denouncement toward Maduro's regimen" and he also uses the phrase "the enemy" to refer to him --
as if there had been the U.S. Constitutionally required authorization, by the U.S. Congress, of this "war." The close urges "the
dispatch of a UNO military force for the imposition of peace, once Nicolas Maduro's corrupt dictatorship is defeated." The U.N. is
militarily to "impose" "peace," after the U.S. and its allies have conquered Venezuela.)
Although Tidd placed 100% of the blame for Venezuela's problems upon Maduro, and ignored the crucial extent to which U.S. economic
sanctions had caused them, his plan emphasized that the U.S. must actively make things even worse for the Venezuelan public than
America's economic sanctions had yet done.
His coup-plan is loaded with such statements, and, in fact, opens with one:
"Encouraging popular dissatisfaction by increasing scarcity and rise in price of the foodstuffs, medicines and other essential
goods for the inhabitants. Making more harrowing and painful the scarcities of the main basic merchandises."
So: he wasn't naive. America's induced suffering upon Venezuelans was part of his plan for Venezuelans, in order to get them to
do what the U.S. regime wants them to do -- overthrow Maduro. Furthermore, the United States Government has had extensive successes
in previous such operations. One example is that this was how Chile's Salvador Allende was brought down in 1973 (at a time when the
U.S. Government's claims to have done it for 'national security' reasons had much more credibility than its current excuse of helping
the Venezuelan people does, because the supposedly ideological Cold War was still on).
The only excuse that the perpetrators can come up with, this time around, is "to put an end to the Venezuelan nightmare and the
awakening of theirs beloved nation at a luminous dawn, in which the vision of fortune, true peace and tranquility predominate for
their fellow citizens."
Impoverish the nation, in order to help Venezuelans attain "true peace and tranquility." That's the plan.
Here is the document's entire text:
SOUTHCOM
TOP SECRET
23 FEB 2018
PLAN TO OVERTHROW THE VENEZUELAN DICTATORSHIP "MASTERSTROKE"
UNITED STATES SOUTHERN COMMAND 23 FEBRUARY 2018
TOP SECRET/20180223
CURRENT SITUATION
The Venezuelan Chavista dictatorship staggers as a result of its frequent internal problems; there is a great shortage of foodstuffs,
an exhaustion of the sources of foreign currency and a rampant corruption. The international support, won with petrodollars, becomes
scarcer each time and the purchasing power of its national currency is in a constant downfall.
Such scenario is not supposed to change, but the Venezuelan present-day leaders, as they usually do, in their despair to preserve
their power, are capable to appeal to new populist measures that perpetuate their positions of privilege; the only mechanism that
sustains them obstinate to the struggle to hold on their positions.
Maduro's corrupt regimen will collapse but regrettably, the divided opposing forces, legitimate defenders of democracy and
the well-being of their people, do not have power enough to put an end to the Venezuelan nightmare and the awakening of theirs
beloved nation at a luminous dawn, in which the vision of fortune, true peace and tranquility predominate for their fellow citizens.
The internal disputes, the supreme particular likings, the corruption similar to the one of their rivals, as well as the scarcity
of rooting, do not grant them the opportunity to make the most of this situation and to give the necessary step to overturn the
state of penury and precariousness in which the pressure group, that exercises the leftist dictatorship, has submerged the country.
We are at the presence of an unprecedented criminal action in Latin America.
This affects the entire region, there is no respect to international right and local political alternatives are unacceptable.
Democracy spreads out in America, continent in which radical populism was intended to take over. Argentina, Ecuador and Brazil
are examples of it. The rebirth of democracy has the support of the most valuable determinations, and the conditions in the regions
run in its favour.
It is the time for the United States to prove, with concrete actions, that they are implicated in that process, where overthrowing
Venezuelan dictatorship will surely mean a continental turning point.
It is the first opportunity of the Trump Administration to bring forward the vision in reference to security and democracy.
Showing its active commitment is crucial, not only for the administration, but also for the continent and for the world.
The time has come to
Step to speed up the definite overthrow of Chavismo and the expulsion of its representative:
Undermining the decadent popular support to Government.
Encouraging popular dissatisfaction by increasing scarcity and rise in price of the foodstuffs, medicines and other essential
goods for the inhabitants. Making more harrowing and painful the scarcities of the main basic merchandises.
Securing he the present-day dictator's irreversible deterioration
Developing actions to encourage the egocentrism and the verbal incontinence of the Dictator, compelling him to fall into
mistakes that generate greater distrust and rejection domestically, while continuing to minimize the international significance
of his public figure.
To beseige him, to ridicule him and to pose him as symbol of awkwardness and incompetence. To expose him as a puppet of
Cuba. Exacerbating the division among members of the governing group. Revealing the differences in his living conditions with
respect to those of his followers, at the same time to incite them to keep on increasing those divergences. Highlighting examples
as the ones of Rafael Ramirez from PDVSA and Nelson Mercengtes from gthe BCV.
Making his government unsustainable, forcing him to claudication, to negotiate or to run away, as other close collaborators
have done.
Making provisions for a back or escaping door, in case he finally chooses to look for a safe port out of his country.
Increasing the internal instability to a critical level.
Intensifying the undercapitalizatioin of the country, the leaking out of foreign currency and the deterioration of its
monetary base, bringing about the application of new inflationary measures that increase its deterioration and that simultaneously
provoke the citizens with less access -- who support the present-day rulers -- and those who are best positioned, to see their
social status threatened or affected. Establishing that the use of bitcoin, Petro, is a key element in the deterioration of
the economy, which is an unconstitutional and illegal manipulation of the national currency, useable for money laundering.
Fully obstructing imports, and at the same time, discouraging potential foreign investors in order to contribute to make
more critical the situation of the population -- mainly in the sphere of oil, essential for any attempt of recuperation of
the national economy.
Appealing to domestic allies as well as other people inserted from abroad in the national scenario in order to generate
protests, riots and insecurity, plunders, thefts, assaults and highjacking of vessels as well as other means of transportation,
with the intention of deserting this country in crisis through all borderlands and other possible ways, jeopardizing in such
a way the National Security of neighboring frontier nations. Causing victims and holding the Government responsible for them.
Magnifying, in front of the world, the humanitarian crisis in which the country has been submitted to.
Making use of the generalized corruption and the originating profits from their operations with prohibited drugs, to do
away with their image in front of the world and their domestic followers.
Promoting fatigue inside the members of the PSUV, inciting the annoyance and nonconformity among themselves, for them to
break noisily away from the line of the Government; for them to refuse the measures and restrictions which also affect them,
inciting the rising of internal politic factions, which divides it in its schism, making it as weak as the the opposition is.
Creating frictions between the PSUV and "Somos Venezuela".
Structuring a plan to get the profuse desertion of the most qualified professionals from the country, in order "to leave
it with no professionals at all", which will aggravate even more the internal situation and along these lines putting the blame
on of Government.
Using the army officers as an alternative of definite solution.
Continuing hardening the conditions inside the Armed Forces to carry out a coup d'etat before concluding 2018, if the crisis
does not make the dictatorship to collapse or the dictator does not decide to move aside.
Continuing setting fire to the common frontier with Colombia. Multiplying the traffic of fuel and other goods. The movement
of paramilitaries, armed raids and drug trafficking. Provoking armed incidents with the Venezuelan frontier security forces.
Recruiting paramilitaries mainly in the campsites of refugees in Cucuta, La Guajira and the north of Santander, areas largely
populated by Colombian citizens who emigrated to Venezuela and now return, run away from the regimen to intensify the destabilizing
activities in the common frontier between both countries. Making use of the empty space left by the FARC, the belligerency
of the ELN and the activities in the area of the Gulf Clan.
Preparing the involvement of allied forces in support of the Venezuelan army officers or to control the internal crisis,
in the event they delay too much in taking the initiative.
Establishing a speedy time line that prevents the Dictator to continue winning control on the internal scenario. If it's
necessary, act before the elections stipulated for next April.
Getting the support of the allied authorities of friendly countries (Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Panama and Guyana).
Organizing the provisioning, relief of troops, medical and logistic support from Panama. Making good use of the facilities
of electronic surveillance and signals intelligence, the hospitals and its deployed endowments in Danen, the equipped airdromes
for the Colombian Plan, as well as the landing fields of the old-time military bases of Howard and Albrook, as well as the
one belonging to "Rio Halo". In addition, the Humanitarian Regional Center of the United Nations, designed for situations of
catastrophes and humanitarian emergency, which has an aerial landing field and its own warehouses.
Moving on the basification of combat airplanes and choppers, armored conveyances, intelligence positions, and special military
and logistics units (police and military district attorneys and prisons).
Developing the military operation under international flag, patronized by the Conference of American Armies, under the
protection of the OAS and the supervision, in the legal and media context, of the Secretary General Luis Almagro. Declaring
the necessity that the continental commandment be strengthened to act, using the instrument of the Inter-American Democratic
Charter, in order to avoid the democratic rupture.
Binding Brazil, Argentina, Colombia and Panama to the contribution of greater number of troops, to make use of their geographic
proximity and experience in operations in forest regions. Strengthening their international condition with the presence of
combat units from the United States of America and the other named countries, under the command of a Joint General Staff led
by the USA.
Using the facilities at Panamanian territory for the rear guard and the capacities of Argentina for the securing of the
ports and the maritime positions.
Leaning on Brazil and Guyana to make use of the migratory situation that we intend to encourage in the border with Guyana.
Coordinating the support to Colombia, Brazil, Guyana, Aruba, Curacao, Trinidad and Tabago and other States in front of
the flow of Venezuelan immigrants in the event of the crisis. Promoting international participation in this effort, as part
of the multilateral operation with contribution of the States, Non-Profit Organizations and international bodies. Supplying
the adequate logistic, intelligence, surveillance and control support.
Anticipating, specially, the most vulnerable points in Arauca, Puerto Carreno and Ininda, Maicao, Barranquilla and Sincelejo,
in Colombia, and Roramia, Manaos and Boa Vista, in Brazil.
Information Strategie
Silencing the symbolic presence of Chavez-representative of unit and popular support-, and in the other way around, keeping
the harassment to the Dictator as the only responsible of the crisis in which he has submerged the nation.
Holding the Dictator and his closer followers responsible, in the first place, for the prevailing crisis due to his inability
to find the way out that the Venezuelans are in need of.
Intensifying the media denouncement about the cubanization of Venezuela.
Outstandingly intensifying the denouncement toward Maduro's regimen, considering him:
A criminal
A illegitimate
A thief of the wealth of the Venezuelan people
Someone who plunders the national treasury to carry out his evasion
Highlighting the incompetence of the mechanisms of integration created by the regimens of Cuba and Venezuela, specially
the ALBA and PETROCARIBE, in order to tackle the situation of the country and their inability to find solutions to the problems
that the citizens are facing.
Increasing, inside the country and through the mass media established abroad, the dissemination of designed messages based
on testimonies and publications originated in the country, making use of all the possible capacities, including the social
networks.
Claiming, through that mass media, the need to put an end to this situation because of its unsustainable essence.
Justifying and assuring through violent means the international backup to the deposal of the dictatorship, displaying an
extensive dissemination, inside the country and to the entire world, through all the open means and the capacities of the psychological
war of the US ARMY.
Assuring that the disclosed images and reports of the military actions are approved by the General Staff to prevent their
manipulation and use by the enemy.
The United States should entirely back up the OAS, strengthening the image of the OAS and other multilateral institutions
for the inter-American system, as instruments for the solution to the regional problems.
Promoting the request of the the dispatch of a UNO military force for the imposition of peace, once Nicolas Maduro's corrupt
dictatorship is defeated.
The US military learned their international terrorism activities from the best, the Mossad. This country is run (since at least
Lincoln) by terrorists. Money stolen from us every year in the form of taxes used for ******** that destabilizes nations, destroys
heritage and expands greater isn'treal.
All this and **** none of us even heard of yet...while our own borders remain wide open and our infrastructure crumbles.
It's fake. The military doesn't engage in such things, the spooks at the CIA do-along with the NSA. Just looking at that pic
is humorous -- as if that's what they would title the document.
BLah, blah, blah... in other words, the usual.... same as always... CIA's Crowley complained about these idiots after he retired...
one example is the difference in Bush 1 and Bush Jr....
This plan is just the usual regime change script written about in many books... the only difference is how 'western' it is
in targeting the mind of the masses... which only happens in 'democracies'.... real ones make you do that....
Wait till the puppets in DC really get frustrated... .and then see how frustrated their puppet masters get when their plans
go awry as well... time is running out for both puppet and its master... Imagine being Putin and having to deal with these freaks.
I have a conspiracy theory. Since one of my theories is this: We want to gain control of Venezuela oil in order to secure oil
imports coming into the US for when we attack Iran for the sake of Israel. The 22% of imports we get from the middle east, much
of which comes from the Persian Gulf region, will be disrupted due to this war. And we would have a shortage here in the US along
with skyrocketing oil prices. And we would surely bitch about it. But Venezuela oil will keep the oil coming into the US uninterrupted.
And for those of you who believe we are energy independent, we are not. We use about 19 million barrels of oil per day, we produce
about 12 million barrels per day, and we import about 6-7 million barrels of oil per day to help feed our craving for oil.
But to add to this conspiracy theory, I believe the window of opportunity is closing and the Zionists have to act quickly.
So they will just say, OK, lets take Venezuela with our military and see how the world responds. We will never know until we try,
so let's do it. And if it was a bad idea, don't worry boys, we are untouchable. We got away with it in Iraq, so let's do it again.
Venezuela today, Iran tomorrow, and Israel always. They pay very well.
But this is just a conspiracy theory of mine, perhaps even a foolish one.
As usual. When
it suits, the rule book goes out the window. But equally when it suits they will quote rule after rule from the very
same book when it suits their agenda.
When a CIA-backed military coup is attempted by a long term CIA puppet, roared on by
John Bolton and backed with
the offer of Blackwater mercenaries, in the country with the world's largest oil reserves,
I have no difficulty whatsoever in knowing which side I am on.
Juan Guaido has been
groomed for 15 years as a long-term CIA project. His coup attempt yesterday, which so far
appears to have stalled, was the culmination of these efforts to return Venezuela's oil
reserves to US hegemony.
It is strange how the urgent installation of liberal democracy by force correlates so often
with oil reserves not aligned to the USA, as in Libya, Iraq or Venezuela, while countries with
massive oil reserves which permit US military domination and align with the West and Israel can
be as undemocratic as they wish, eg Saudi Arabia. Venezuela is an imperfect democracy but it is
far, far more of a democracy than Saudi Arabia and with a much better human rights record. The
hypocrisy of Western media and politicians is breathtaking.
Hypocrisy and irony are soulmates, and there are multiple levels of irony in seeing the
"liberal" commentators who were cheering on an undisguised military coup, then complaining
loudly that people are being injured or killed now their side is losing. Yesterday the MSM had
no difficulty in calling the attempted coup what anybody with eyes and ears could see it
plainly was, an attempted military coup. Today, miraculously, the MSM line is no coup attempt
happened at all, it was just a spontaneous unarmed protest, and it is the evil government of
Venezuela which attempts to portray it as a coup. BBC Breakfast this morning had the headline
"President Maduro has accused the opposition of mounting a coup attempt" Yet there is no doubt
at all that, as a matter of plain fact, that is what happened.
The MSM today is full of video of water cannons against "protestors" and a horrible video of
a military vehicle ramming a group. But it has all been very carefully edited to exclude hours
of footage of the same military vehicles being pelted and set alight with molotov cocktails,
and shot at. The presentation has been truly shocking.
In any civilised country, attempting to mount a military coup would lead to incarceration
for life, and that is what should now happen to Juan Guaido. The attempt by the West to protect
their puppet by pretending the failed military coup never happened, must be resisted, if only
in the cause of intellectual honesty.
The resort to violence forces binary choice. I have been and am a critic of Maduro in many
respects. I believe the constitutional changes to bypass Parliament were wrong, and the
indirectly elected Constituent Assembly is not a good form of democracy. Venezuela does have a
rampant corruption problem. US sanctions exacerbate but are not the root cause of economic
mismanagement. There are human rights failings. But Chavez made revolutionary changes in
educating and empowering the poor, and it is a far better governed country for the mass of its
population than it would ever be under a US installed CIA puppet regime. Maduro was
legitimately elected. The attempt at violence forces a binary choice.
I know which side I am on. It is not Guaido and the CIA.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
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"... We absolutely have won most of those little wars it's just that majority of the population doesn't have the same definition of victory that our Neocon masters do. As long as we leave a county in ruins so it's development is set back for decades and there are multiple factions fighting for power, the Neocons cobble together a wonderful democratic election and call it a victory. ..."
"... Stay as long as it takes to make sure no major faction is strong enough to set nationwide policy, bomb everything that's required for a 20th Century society, then leave. If one faction plays nice by scraping and bowing to the US, fine, let them have a bit of electricity and running water. Otherwise, leave the factions to fight one another in the rubble and enjoying their new found freedom and democracy. ..."
"... Considering all the oil Venezuela has, they're just begging for some freedom and democracy. ..."
Sure. Let's invade Venezuela. Another jolly little war. It's full of commies and has a sea of oil. The only thing those Cuban-loving
Venezuelans lack are weapons of mass destruction.
This week, leading US neocons openly threatened that if the CIA's latest attempts to stage a coup to overthrow Venezuela's Maduro
government failed, Washington might send in the Marines.
Well, the coup was a big fiasco and the Venezuelan army didn't overthrow President Maduro. The CIA also failed to overthrow governments
in Moscow, Tehran and Damascus. Its only 'success' to date has been in overthrowing Ukraine's pro-Moscow government and putting a
bunch of corrupt clowns in its place at a cost near $10 billion.
The US has not waged a major successful war since World War II – unless you count invading Grenada, Panama and Haiti, or bombing
the hell out of Iraq, Syria, Somalia and Libya. That's a sobering thought given the Pentagon's recent announcement that it is cutting
back on little colonial wars (aka 'the war on terror') to get ready for real big wars against Russia and China, or even North Korea.
Venezuela is in a huge economic mess thanks to the crackpot economic policies of the Chavez and Maduro governments – and US economic
sabotage. But my first law of international affairs is: 'Every nation has the absolute god-given right to mismanage its own affairs
and elect its own crooks or idiots.'
Now, however, the administration's frenzied neocons want to start a war against Venezuela, a large, developed nation of 32.7 million,
at the same time we are threatening war against Iran, interfering all around Africa, and confronting Russia, China and perhaps North
Korea. Large parts of the Mideast and Afghanistan lie in ruins thanks to our 'liberation' campaigns.
Invading Venezuela would not be much of a problem for the US military: half the population hates the current government and might
welcome the Americans. Venezuela's military has only limited combat value. Right-wing regimes in neighboring Colombia and Brazil
might join the invasion.
But what then? Recall Iraq. The US punched through the feeble Iraqi Army whose strength had been wildly exaggerated by the media.
Once US and British forces settled in to occupation duties, guerilla forces made their life difficult and bloody. Iraqi resistance
continues today, sixteen years later. The same would likely happen in Venezuela.
There is deep anti-American sentiment in Latin America that existed long before Col. Chavez. Recall, for example, the large anti-American
riots that greeted Vice President Nixon's visit to Caracas in 1958.
'Yankees Go Home' is a rallying cry for much of Latin America. Blundering into Venezuela, another nation about which the Trump
administration knows or understands little, would stir up a hornet's next. Their ham-handed efforts to punish Cuba and whip up the
far right Cuban-American vote in Florida would galvanize anti-American anger across Latin America. Beware the ghost of Fidel.
ORDER IT NOW
Talks over Venezuela are underway between Washington and Moscow. Neither country has any major interest in Venezuela. Moscow is
stirring the pot there to retaliate for growing US involvement in Russia's backyard and Syria. Both the US and Russia should get
the hell out of Venezuela and mind their own business.
Instead, we hear crazy proposals to send 5,000 mercenaries to overthrow the Maduro regime. How well did the wide-scale use of
US-financed mercenaries work in Iraq and Afghanistan? A complete flop. The only thing they did competently was wash dishes at our
bases, murder civilians, and play junior Rambos.
For those who don't like the American Raj, a US invasion of Venezuela would mark a step forward in the crumbling of the empire.
More aimless imperial over-reach, more lack of strategy, more enemies generated.
The big winner would, of course, be the Pentagon and military industrial complex. More billions spent on a nation most Americans
could not find on a map if their lives depended on it, more orders for 'counter-insurgency' weapons, more military promotions, and
cheers from Fox News and wrestling fans.
Worst of all, the US could end up feeding and caring for wrecked Venezuela. How did we do with storm-ravaged Puerto Rico? It's
still in semi-ruin. Few want Venezuela's thick, heavy oil these days.
Venezuela could turn out to be a big, fat Tar Baby.
The "crackpot economic policies" of Chavez and Madero increased the health of the people through access to medical care, improved
housing, brought the literacy rate to one of the highest in Latin Americs, added years to average lifespan among other things
by emphasizing that the country's resources should improve the lives of Venezuela's citizens. This was accomplished by selling
resources in the capitalistic market -crackpot I grant you. The American sanctions and the seizure of Venezuelan assets are all
illegal under American law and Constitution given the treaties we have signed, but then if you want to know what those laws mean
all you have to do is ask any Native American tribe.
Who would pay Eric Prince's 5000 Blackwater hired assassins? Would the cash come from the pirate booty war chest or would the
citizens of America be stuck with the tab, once again?
@Walter Duranty Something
seems different. With Russian and Chinese intelligence help, the Guaido coup was a laughable joke. It made the US look like bozos.
I think Venezuela and allies tipped their hand there, and it is a strong one. I fear the US may be walking into a trap
It is interesting but several Pentagon/military officers are saying the Pentagon is not enthusiastic about invading Venezuela.
It is a rugged, jungle cloaked, country that is quite large and an American effort may end up being like the one in Vietnam.
I wonder how many are aware that Venezuela owns a majority of the oil company Citgo?
I wonder how many Americans know that for many years during Winter Citgo gave free heating oil to a large number of low income
households in the US northeast? while our own government was cutting back on low income heating oil subsidies.
We absolutely have won most of those little wars it's just that majority of the population doesn't have the same definition
of victory that our Neocon masters do. As long as we leave a county in ruins so it's development is set back for decades and there
are multiple factions fighting for power, the Neocons cobble together a wonderful democratic election and call it a victory.Stay as long as it takes to make sure no major faction is strong enough to set nationwide policy, bomb everything that's required
for a 20th Century society, then leave. If one faction plays nice by scraping and bowing to the US, fine, let them have a bit
of electricity and running water. Otherwise, leave the factions to fight one another in the rubble and enjoying their new found
freedom and democracy.Considering all the oil Venezuela has, they're just begging for some freedom and democracy.
It may be true that neither the US or Russia 'has any major interest in Venezuela', and that Putin may be 'stirring the pot'.
The real danger is, and globally the evidence points to this, an eventual clash between the major nuclear powers (world war).
It is ominous if Washington is getting for 'ready for real big wars against Russia and China, or even North Korea.' https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/
Sure. Let's invade Venezuela. Another jolly little war. It's full of commies and has a sea
of oil. The only thing those Cuban-loving Venezuelans lack are weapons of mass destruction.
... ... ...
Venezuela is in a huge economic mess thanks to the crackpot economic policies of the Chavez
and Maduro governments – and US economic sabotage. But my first law of international
affairs is: 'Every nation has the absolute god-given right to mismanage its own affairs and
elect its own crooks or idiots.'
Color revolution is a military operation in which protesters are just a tip of the iceberg. the key
players are Embassy staff, three letter agencies, NGOs, bought and foreign owned neoliberal press,
some oligarchs (who might be pressed into submission with the threat of confiscating their
assets), compradors and bought players within the government.
The initial crash with police was organized by one of such players (supposedly Lyovochkin). One of the key instruments were huge cash
flows in diplomatic mail that feed the protest ("bombing country with dollars"). In a
sense in any neoliberal republic color revolution is designed to be a success, the fact which
EuroMaidan proved quite convincingly.
Ukraine actually was a very easy target. Yanukovich was
essentially neutralized and paralyzed by threats from Biden. Security services were
infiltrated and partially work for Americans. Several bought members of the government (Lyovochkon?)
did their dirty job in organizing the necessity clashes with policy to feed the protest.
Notable quotes:
"... The script writers of the Maidan, in his opinion, were Americans. ..."
Former Prime Minister Azarov explained his version of events on the Maidan. The script
writers of the Maidan, in his opinion, were Americans.
Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov told the NTV about how coup d'état of February of
the last year was organized. According to him, the script of the coup d'état was written at the
U.S. Embassy.
"The main puppeteers were not on the Maidan," Azarov said. The protests started because of the
decision of Ukrainian authorities to suspend the signing of the Association agreement with the EU.
"There was, of course, the enormous pressure from the leaders of the European Union, from
several European countries. The meaning of this pressure was the fact that we must put aside
all doubts and to sign this agreement," said the former Prime Minister. "They just needed an
excuse, a reason to overthrow our government. Because we were frankly told: "If you do not you sign
this agreement, it will sign another government, another President,"
In this regard, according to Azarov, they needed a provocation to start protest and such a
provocation became the use of force on Independence square in Kiev, where supporters of European
integration were staying for several nights. "The action was slow. The organizers understood
that without the sacred victims they will be unable to ignite the crowd. Suddenly around 3 am
several TV crews arrive, set lights, camera. What to shoot? This ordinary situation, when people
spend the night at the square?" - said Azarov.
Ukrainian people were cynically played. According to Azarov at this moment
"prepared by gunmen in masks" arrived to the square. They started beating on duty policemen with
metal sticks. When police called reinforcements instigators quickly disappeared. And when riot
police began detention, "they detain generally innocent people who spend night at the square as a
part of peaceful protest."
Speaking about the negotiations Yanukovich with the opposition, Azarov noted that the current
Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk "every day spend most of his time in the American Embassy and
following their instructions to the letter."
In the end, an agreement was signed between the President and opposition leaders on the peaceful
resolution of the conflict, the guarantor which were several European countries, but no one except
the Yanukovich, fulfilled their obligations. "I still do not understand, how foreign Ministers of
Poland, Germany, France, which signed an agreement on February 21 feel themselves. In the history
of diplomacy this agreement will be included as an example of the utmost degree of cynicism and
deceit," said Azarov.
"... "What I am saying is that I am confident that the people of Venezuela know a thing or two about what happened in Chile." ..."
"... They also know what happened when the "militares" took over in Argentina (Videla), Paraguay (Stroessner), Brazil (1964-1985), Nicaragua (Somoza), Dominican Republic (Trujillo), Guatemala (1954), Honduras (2009) Panama 1983 (Noriega – see Confessions of an Economic Hit Man on plane crash of Omar Torrijos), and on and on. ..."
"... If there is a US military attack on Venezuela one thing's for sure; many, many young men and women will be making their way from all over Latin America to take on the Gringos. ..."
"... I'm sure the Venezuelan govt knows all about Operation Condor and how that lost the entire South American continent a generation of its best people and degraded its progress and development. ..."
"... Bolton and Abraham are senile. They are totally out of touch with the new realities of the new millenium. they stupidly think that their old tricks still work... in my view both and also Pompeo are near the door out of the White House for good... they won't survive the summer. ..."
"... Clearly, Venezuelans take their oaths of allegiance far more seriously. By comparison, the Outlaw US Empire's entire Neocon and Neoliberal cabal are traitors to their nation and their oaths of office. And it's that very major distinction that's known by the vast majority of Venezuelans that's the real difference maker whereas the US public's mostly illiterate. ..."
"... One curious aspect of the recent events in Venezuela is the lack of signs of wider support for Guaido compared with "energetic" demonstrations and riots few years ago. ..."
"... Initially, some thugs were mobilized to support "humanitarian relief", but it was a smallish crowd and their most spectacular achievement was torching a "relief truck". ..."
"... Then there were "electricity protests", I have no data about their scope. I would theorize that electricity issue decreased the support for Guaido ..."
"... Seems that Russia acted in a characteristically minimalist fashion. Security of power system was improved, gasoline supplies* were improved, and a subtle security operation was launched. Bear in mind that when dealing with domestic opposition Putin is highly flexible, no "one hammer fits all", similarly with "near abroad". Letting Guaido walk around and repetitively make idiot of himself has a resemblance of handling Navalny and similar folks in Russia. ..."
@ 36 William Gruff "What I am saying is that I am confident that the people of Venezuela know a thing or two
about what happened in Chile."
They also know what happened when the "militares" took over in Argentina (Videla),
Paraguay (Stroessner), Brazil (1964-1985), Nicaragua (Somoza), Dominican Republic (Trujillo),
Guatemala (1954), Honduras (2009) Panama 1983 (Noriega – see Confessions of an Economic
Hit Man on plane crash of Omar Torrijos), and on and on.
If there is a US military attack on Venezuela one thing's for sure; many, many young
men and women will be making their way from all over Latin America to take on the
Gringos.
I really do not know Maduro. I do not know how ideologically grounded he is. But I heard
stories about corruption and connections with drug syndicates. I hope that is not true.
Otherwise, his apparent weakness will be exploited to the hilt by his ideological
enemies.
I'm sure the Venezuelan govt knows all about Operation Condor and how that lost the
entire South American continent a generation of its best people and degraded its progress and
development.
Bolton and Abraham are senile. They are totally out of touch with the new realities of the
new millenium. they stupidly think that their old tricks still work...
in my view both and also Pompeo are near the door out of the White House for good... they
won't survive the summer.
Yes, most certainly wasn't lost on Chavez. The changes he made after 2002 to the military
and other security-related areas of government are now serving Maduro well. If there was the
sort of 5th Column anti-government feelings required of a coup, they would have manifested
themselves when the armed demonstrations first began to beset Maduro in 2014, a year after
Chavez's passing, which in essence is when the slow moving coup began. Condor and other
operations were certainly used in educating higher level officers about the importance of
loyalty to Constitutional methods and that one owes their allegiance to the Constitution not
the individual just as it's supposed to be within the USA
Clearly, Venezuelans take their oaths of allegiance far more seriously. By comparison,
the Outlaw US Empire's entire Neocon and Neoliberal cabal are traitors to their nation and
their oaths of office. And it's that very major distinction that's known by the vast majority
of Venezuelans that's the real difference maker whereas the US public's mostly
illiterate.
One curious aspect of the recent events in Venezuela is the lack of signs of wider support
for Guaido compared with "energetic" demonstrations and riots few years ago.
Initially, some thugs were mobilized to support "humanitarian relief", but it was a
smallish crowd and their most spectacular achievement was torching a "relief truck".
Then there were "electricity protests", I have no data about their scope. I would
theorize that electricity issue decreased the support for Guaido . First, the tales that
the troubles were due to mismanagement and neglect look not so probable if you look at the
timing of incidents: a wave of incidents at the time "convenient" for the "cause of Guaido"
preceeded and followed by rather normal situation. Government surely spend effort to explain
the incidents with transmission lines and transformer stations as vile sabotage, ruthlessly
inflicting severe hardships on the entire population (including the middle class that should
be the social base of Guaido).
Seems that Russia acted in a characteristically minimalist fashion. Security of power
system was improved, gasoline supplies* were improved, and a subtle security operation was
launched. Bear in mind that when dealing with domestic opposition Putin is highly flexible,
no "one hammer fits all", similarly with "near abroad". Letting Guaido walk around and
repetitively make idiot of himself has a resemblance of handling Navalny and similar folks in
Russia.
Who supported 12 hours of revolution? Videos showed a motorcycle gang, few hundred of
energetic young men who blocked a highway bridge and a smallish crowd of housewives and other
non-violent type -- I must stress that I wholly approve non-violent types, but in part
because this is not a coup material. Why so little? (a) Guaido was never popular, he was in a
most histrionic of several opposition parties, popular mobilization without support of the
rest of the opposition was a flop. (b) The first two episodes of his "revolution" did not
approve his support, to the contrary. (c) On the gangland front that could provide armed
muscle and provoke bloody incidents Maidan style, the government probably did some
preparatory homework.
"... I know the Venezuelan military; I've trained some of them .... The majority of them, if the U.S. military arrives in Venezuela, will take to the hills – very formidable hills, with jungle-like backdrops – and they will harass, kill, take prisoner from time to time, and generally hold out forever or until the "gringos" leave. We might remember how the North Vietnamese and the Taliban accomplished this; well, so will the Venezuelans. ..."
Venezuela is not an easy target. Colonel (ret.) Larry Wilkerson, the former Chief of Staff
for Secretary of State Colin Powell, writes
:
I know the Venezuelan military; I've trained some of them ....
The majority of them, if the U.S. military arrives in Venezuela, will take to the hills
– very formidable hills, with jungle-like backdrops – and they will harass, kill,
take prisoner from time to time, and generally hold out forever or until the "gringos" leave.
We might remember how the North Vietnamese and the Taliban accomplished this; well, so will
the Venezuelans.
Many believe U.S. troops could ignite internal conflicts within the military, irregular
forces linked to Maduro and criminal cartels. Intervention would also undermine
Guaidó's claim to be a grass roots Venezuelan leader by seeming to confirm that he's
exactly what Maduro has claimed: A puppet of the United States.
A U.S. military intervention would "bring more problems than solutions, " said Carlos
Valero, a Guaidó supporter in the National Assembly.
...
Political analyst Felix Seijas, director of the Delphos polling agency in Caracas, says fewer
than a fifth of the Venezuelans he has surveyed this year support a military intervention.
The numbers have gone up only slightly since the beginning of the year.
There were more warnings from Russia during a Trump-Putin phone call today :
While exchanging views on the situation around Venezuela, the President of Russia underscored
that only the Venezuelans themselves have the right to determine the future of their country,
whereas outside interference in the country's internal affairs and attempts to change the
government in Caracas by force undermine prospects for a political settlement of the crisis.
The planning and decision making for the next phase of the U.S. attack on Venezuela will
take time.
Meanwhile we can continue to analyze why the U.S. coup plan failed so devastatingly.
"... Trump *escalated* US-Iran and US-Venezuela conflicts and intensified the sabre rattling towards both countries, according to all analysts. For the first time a POTUS openly said direct US invasion to Venezuela "is on the table" and his Adelson bought appointment for USNSA Bolton publicly showed in a notebook the writing "5000 troops to Colombia" openly suggesting a direct invasion was imminent. For the first time the White House asked the Pentagon to draw up options for military strikes against Iran. ..."
"... Trump's administration declared a whole branch of the Iran armed forces (IRGC) as a terrorist organisation. This is an escalation and according to most analysts, considered an act of war. ..."
"... Trump administration heavily increased sanctions to Iran, Russia and Venezuela and in the latter case even instigated a failed uprising and coup d'etat, going as far as to declare a virtual political Venezuelan nobody the "official" president of the country, which is in itself unbelievable and has no historic precedent. Another act of war actually. ..."
"... Trump administration also escalated the tensions with China, ordered the arrest and de facto kidnapping of Chinese corporate executives and openly used the US legal apparatus to attack and hinder a foreign corporation. ..."
"... Trump has been, objectively, the most neocon Israel-firster POTUS in US history. ..."
"... Friendly reminder that voting for Republicans and expecting US Jewish lobby/Corporate America promoted policies such as open borders and US imperialist interventions to stop is moronic beyond belief. Republicans are the most pro corporate pro US Jewish lobby of the two parties by far. At least there is talk and critique about how the Israel Lobby owns the USG in the Dem party. Nothing of the sort going on in the GOP. ..."
The U.S. missile strike on Shayrat Airbase on 7 April 2017 was the first time the U.S.
became a deliberate, direct combatant against the Syrian government and marked the start of
a series of deliberate direct military actions by U.S. forces against the Syrian government
and its allies in May -- June 2017 and February 2018.
Trump *escalated* the war from covert support to insurgents to direct intervention and
official *invasion* in Syria. This is the equivalent of going from financing and supporting a
faction in a so called proxy war in say Vietnam to leading the US to go full Iraq WMD and
become a warring and invading faction in the conflict. Again, this is an escalation.
The number of boots on the ground vs Obama's is data you just took out of your bottom.
Sources for your cheap PR shilling? You don't have any because this statement of yours is a
blatant lie.
Trump *escalated* US-Iran and US-Venezuela conflicts and intensified the sabre rattling
towards both countries, according to all analysts. For the first time a POTUS openly said
direct US invasion to Venezuela "is on the table" and his Adelson bought appointment for
USNSA Bolton publicly showed in a notebook the writing "5000 troops to Colombia" openly
suggesting a direct invasion was imminent. For the first time the White House asked the
Pentagon to draw up options for military strikes against Iran.
Trump's administration declared a whole branch of the Iran armed forces (IRGC) as a
terrorist organisation. This is an escalation and according to most analysts, considered an
act of war.
Trump's administration ended the Iran deal without any objective reasons, ie Obama's
effort to deescalate the Israel firsters driven Iran-US conflict
Trump administration heavily increased sanctions to Iran, Russia and Venezuela and in
the latter case even instigated a failed uprising and coup d'etat, going as far as to declare
a virtual political Venezuelan nobody the "official" president of the country, which is in
itself unbelievable and has no historic precedent. Another act of war actually.
Trump administration declared Golan Heights part of Israel brought US embassy to
Jerusalem, increasing the tensions and animosity towards the US in the ME.
Trump administration will declare Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organisation, increasing
the animosity from Arab countries in the ME to unbelievable levels. This includes non Arab
country Turkey also, a traditional ally until neocon Trump took power.
Trump administration also escalated the tensions with China, ordered the arrest and de
facto kidnapping of Chinese corporate executives and openly used the US legal apparatus to
attack and hinder a foreign corporation.
Trump has been, objectively, the most neocon Israel-firster POTUS in US history.
Friendly reminder that voting for Republicans and expecting US Jewish lobby/Corporate
America promoted policies such as open borders and US imperialist interventions to stop is
moronic beyond belief. Republicans are the most pro corporate pro US Jewish lobby of the two
parties by far. At least there is talk and critique about how the Israel Lobby owns the USG
in the Dem party. Nothing of the sort going on in the GOP.
Immigration restrictionism is a traditional pro working class, leftist policy.
Non intervention and "pacifist" policies the same. How many GOP supporters were against
the Vietnam and Iraq war? Not many yeah.
Trump has dropped more bombs and missiles on Middle Eastern countries in a comparable
period of time than any modern U.S. President. Presidents Bush, Obama and now [2017] Trump
have dropped nearly 200,000 bombs and missiles on Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Pakistan,
Yemen and Somalia. Trump's rate of bombing eclipses both Bush and Obama; and Trump is on a
pace to drop over 100,000 [180,000 to be precise] bombs and missiles on Middle Eastern
countries during his first term of office -- which would equal the number of bombs and
missiles dropped by Obama during his entire eight-year presidency.
Here's more perspective:
The United States Government, under the Trump administration, reportedly drops a bomb
every 12 minutes, which means that 121 bombs are dropped in a day, and 44,096 bombs per year.
The Pentagon's data show that during George W. Bush's eight years he averaged 24 bombs
dropped per day, that is, 8,750 per year. Over the course of Obama's time in office, his
military dropped 34 bombs per day, 12,500 per year. This shows that even though American
presidents are all war criminals, Trump is the most vicious of them all.
Yes, Trump is dropping almost FOUR TIMES MORE BOMBS than Barack Obama and over FIVE TIMES
MORE BOMBS than G.W. Bush -- which included military invasions of two countries.
We also know that Trump expanded America's wars in Afghanistan and Syria (and, no, he is
NOT bringing U.S. troops home from Syria) and is ramping up America's war machine against
Venezuela, Iran, China and Russia. And this does not even take into account the way Trump has
given Benjamin Netanyahu's raunchy racist regime the green light to expand its wars against
the Palestinians, Lebanon, Syria and Iran or the U.S./Israeli proxy war (with Saudi Arabia
taking the lead) in Yemen.
Then there is Somalia:
In the age of Donald Trump, wasn't that [the Battle of Mogadishu -- Black Hawk Down] a
million presidencies ago? Honestly, can you even tell me anymore what in the world it was all
about? I couldn't have, not without looking it up again. A warlord, starvation, U.S.
intervention, 18 dead American soldiers (and hundreds of dead Somalis, but that hardly
mattered) in a country that was shattering. President Clinton did, however, pull out those
troops and end the disastrous mission -- and that was that, right? I mean, lessons learned.
Somalia? Africa? What in the world did it all have to do with us? So Washington washed its
hands of the whole thing.
And now, on a planet of outrageous tweets and murderously angry white men, you probably
didn't even notice, but more than two years into the era of Donald Trump, a quarter-century
after that incident, American airstrikes in yep, Somalia, are precipitously on the rise.
Last year's 47 strikes, aimed at the leaders and fighters of al-Shabaab, an Islamist
terror outfit, more than tripled the ones carried out by the Obama administration in 2016
(themselves a modest increase from previous years). And in 2019, they're already on pace to
double again, while Somali civilians -- not that anyone (other than Somali civilians) notices
or cares -- are dying in significant and rising numbers.
And with 500 troops back on the ground there and Pentagon estimates that they will remain
for at least another seven years, the U.S. military is increasingly Somalia-bound, Congress
hasn't uttered a peep on the subject, and few in this country are paying the slightest
attention.
So consider this a simple fact of the never-ending Global War on Terror (as it was once
called): the U.S. military just can't get enough of Somalia. And if that isn't off the
charts, what is? Maybe it's even worth a future book (with a very small print run) called not
Black Hawk Down II but U.S. Down Forever and a Day.
And now that I've started on the subject (if you still happen to be reading), when it
comes to the U.S. military, it's not faintly just Somalia. It's all of Africa.
After all, this country's military uniquely has a continent-wide Africa Command (aka
AFRICOM), founded in 2007. As Nick Turse has often written for TomDispatch, that command now
has its troops, thousands of them, its planes, and other equipment spread across the
continent, north to south, east to west -- air bases, drone bases, garrisons, outposts,
staging areas, you name it. Meanwhile, AFRICOM's outgoing commanding general, Thomas
Waldhauser, only recently told Congress why it's bound to be a forever outfit -- because,
shades of the Cold War, the Ruskies are coming! ("Russia is also a growing challenge and has
taken a more militaristic approach in Africa.")
And honestly, 600-odd words in, this wasn't meant to be a piece about either Somalia or
Africa. It was meant to be about those U.S. wars being off the charts, about how the Pentagon
now feeds eternally at the terror trough, al-Shabaab being only a tiny part of the slop it
regularly digests.
And, while America's wars are way up, according to Gallup, church attendance in America is
way down:
As Christian and Jewish Americans prepare to celebrate Easter and Passover, respectively,
Gallup finds the percentage of Americans who report belonging to a church, synagogue or
mosque at an all-time low, averaging 50% in 2018.
U.S. church membership was 70% or higher from 1937 through 1976, falling modestly to an
average of 68% in the 1970s through the 1990s. The past 20 years have seen an acceleration in
the drop-off, with a 20-percentage-point decline since 1999 and more than half of that change
occurring since the start of the current decade.
Most interesting is this Gallup observation:
Although the United States is one of the more religious countries, particularly among
Western nations, it is far less religious than it used to be. Barely three-quarters of
Americans now identify with a religion and only about half claim membership in a church,
synagogue or mosque.
The rate of U.S. church membership has declined sharply in the past two decades after
being relatively stable in the six decades before that. A sharp increase in the proportion of
the population with no religious affiliation, a decline in church membership among those who
do have a religious preference, and low levels of church membership among millennials are all
contributing to the accelerating trend.
Obviously, America's Jewish and Muslim populations pale compared to its Christian
population. The vast decline of attendance to religious services, therefore, primarily means
church attendance. Notice, also, that this steep decline commenced at the beginning of this
century (2000) -- when G.W. Bush became President of the United States.
I tried to warn readers -- and listeners to my nationwide radio talk show -- that due to
his insatiable war fever, G.W. Bush was going to forever warp the perception in people's
minds of Christianity. And, sadly, I was absolutely right. After eight years of the
warmongering G.W. Bush in the White House, millions of Americans came to associate
Christianity with wars of aggression. As a result, the exodus out of America's churches began
in earnest.
Enter Donald Trump.
As noted above, Trump has expanded Bush's war fever exponentially. But Trump has done more
than that: He has aggressively put the United States smack dab in the middle of Israel's
wars. It could even be argued that Donald Trump has turned the U.S. military into a proxy
army for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
Don't get me wrong: I am very cognizant of the fact that G.W. Bush's "war on terror" was
nothing more than a proxy war for Israel. But the Israeli connection was covert and
completely covered up. Not anymore. Donald Trump is unabashedly and explicitly partnering the
mission of the U.S. military with that of the IDF. No wonder Benjamin Netanyahu promises to
name a community in the Israel-seized, Israel-occupied Golan Heights after Donald Trump.
(Trumplinka would fit Netanyahu's concentration-style occupation nicely.)
So, not only are millions of Americans now associating Christianity with G.W. Bush's wars
of aggression, they are associating Christianity with Donald Trump's wars of aggression for
the racist apartheid State of Israel. The result: the steepest decline in church attendance
and church affiliation in U.S. history.
The longer evangelical Christians continue to support Donald Trump's radical pro-Israel,
pro-war agenda, the deeper America will plunge into an anti-Christian country.
The good news is that all over America, people are waking up to the Israel deception.
Support for the erroneous doctrine of dispensational eschatology is in a giant free fall; the
myth of Zionist Israel being a resurrected Old Testament Israel is being repeatedly exposed;
the attempts by Israel's toadies to characterize people whose eyes are open to the truth of
Zionism as being "anti-Semitic" is losing more and more credibility by the day; and more and
more people are becoming aware of the utter wickedness of the Zionist government in Israel.
Plus, more and more people are beginning to understand the plight of the persecuted people
(including Christian people) in the Israeli-occupied territories of Palestine.
Ron, maybe your shipmates on the USS LIBERTY didn't die in vain after all.
From an historical perspective, overextended wars are the downfall of any empire; from a
financial perspective, warfarism is the precursor to an economically depressed middle class;
and from a Scriptural/spiritual perspective, God cannot and will not bless a warmongering
nation.
Let's be clear: God is not building a "Greater Israel." God is not building a third Jewish
temple. God is not speaking through phony prophets who are attributing some sort of divine
calling to Trump's pro-Israel warmongering. God is not blessing America because we are
blessing Zionist Israel. Just the opposite: The more America aligns itself with Israel's
belligerence, bullying and bombing of innocent people, the more God will deliver us over to
becoming an antichrist country. After all, one cannot idolize and partner with antichrists
without becoming one himself.
Burning down the house. Driving like a madman on the road to nowhere has put the nation on a
path to its own demise. Our foreign policy is a disaster that does nothing to promote
democracy anywhere in the world. Our military has provided nothing but instability in the
world since the end of world war 2. Ask yourself, why are we involved in so many useless wars
that don't make the world a better place?
Don't you feel like we are being used by war hawks who see every skirmish as a threat to our
national security? Why can't we cut out all the military BS and just trade with with nations
that want to trade, and ignore those who want to kill each other. Let them figure it out on
their own. Social Capitalism is the only policy we should be supporting.
"All statements of Trump do not count. All Trump statements are results from stress of
torture by Democrats, and deep state."
When this president stated during the campaign,
that christians don't have to forgive their enemies, I rolled my eyes stated he wrong, and
understood well he doesn't know what christianity means and supported him anyway
that he supported same sex marriage, I rolled my eyes, rebuffed the the silliness of his
comments and understood, he is not a conservative and beyond that he doesn't know what
christianity means
when it was uncovered that he had in fact had relations outside of marriage, I rolled my
eyes, and understood that alone could be a disqualifying factor in light of the competition
and supported him anyway
when some of the most respected departments of government leaders said he colluded with
Russians, based on the evidence, I said "poppycock" and supported him anyway
when media swirled with tales of Russian bath houses and carousings abounded, I thought
nonsense and supported hum anyway
when the rumors of underage girls and same sex parties and orgies seped into the main, I
rolled my eyes and supported him anyway . . .
when he spouted off about Charlottesville prematurely, I supported him anyway . . .
when became clear he actually advocated torture, I choked, spat and supported him anyway,
afterall he's not schooled in international relations and the consequences for our service
personnel, much less apparently the basics of tortures effectiveness, especially in large
scale strategies such as the US is engaged in
when it came to light he was completely ignorant of how our criminal justice system gets
it wrong as exampled by the Cen 5 case, I supported him anyway . . .
I supported him in spite of his comments about the poor and people like me who supported
him
There's a long list of tolerance is support of this president based on his advocacy
regarding turning the attention to the US welfare . . .
And when he actually agreed that the Russians had sabotaged the US elections and even
engaged in murder in the states of our European allies -- I knew, that in all liklihood the
turn inward was dead.
Here' a man who beat all the odds because of stalwart support of people like me, who
repeatedly bit the sides of our cheeks in the understanding that the returns would exceed the
price only to discover that the man who beat the odds doesn't seem to have a spine to stand
on ideologically which were the foundations of my advocacy: national security, less reckless
spending, holding business and financial organizations accountable for misbehavior, investing
in the US citizen, restructuring our trade deals to benefit the US, not merely shooting up
tarrifs that would in turn be priced to the citizens the supposed tarrifs were intended to
protect, tax cuts that actually gave middle americans less, no evidence of a draw down in our
careless ME behaviors, i even gave him some room to deal with israel as perhaps a new way
forward -- it's a new way alright – no pretense of acting as honest brokers –
that's new, Immigration is worse and by worse he might as well be serving tea and crumpets at
the border welcoming illegals . . .
If the man you elected to turn the corner actually becomes the vehicle for of what you
elected him to reject and change, eventually one has to acknowledge that fact. he beat the
deep state, he just either had not the courage, the integrity, or the ability, perhaps all
three to withstand the victory and do the work. Of course he had opposition and not much of
it very fair and nearly all of it damaging to the country. But he had support to stand
against it -- he chose an easier path.
And while I support him still, I have no intention of pretending that he is fulfilling the
mandate for which he was elected. I would be lying to myself and doing a disservice to
him.
I have not changed, I knew he was a situational leader, I knew what that meant, but I
voted for a particular agenda, he left the reservation on his own accord and the "deep
state", the establishment", the democrats, the liberals, the libertarians, can only be held
to blame for so much --
But several weeks ago, on top of a complete failure to ensure US order security, the armed
forces paid homage to Mexicans on US territory by relinquishing their weapons and
surrendering -- and given the tenure thus far -- - it devastatingly fitting that this
occurred under this admin.
And in the midst of all this, he is pandering to those engaged in same sex behavior --
– deep state my eye . . .
the path of least resistance. I cling to the belief that having voting for any of the
other candidates -- matters would have been far worse.
I make no apologies for being a conservative and Christian and holding a loyalty to the
US.
I reject your whine, it had legs and even some salience still, but at this stage, very
little.
Now he is bed with Sen. Rubio, Sen. Cruz and others on mucking around in SA -- I can only
consider your comments as an attempt at humor.
"... As much as Trump has proven to be a disaster with his appointments of Bolton/Pompeo/E Abrams, things could still be worse. We could have wound up with Little Marco, the John McCain of his generation. All praise to Tucker for having the guts to go against the grain. ..."
"... The answer here is simple. When the President of of the US stated that he believed Russia under the instructions of Pres. Putin attempted to sabotage the democratic process, and from the mouths many of our leadership -- was successful he made a major power on the world stage a targeted enemy of the US. When that same president accused Pres. Putin of plotting the same in Europe and ordered the murders inside those sovereign states -- ..."
"... He essentially stated that our global strategic interests include challenging the Russian influence anywhere and everywhere on the planet as they are active enemies of the US and our European allies. What ever democratic global strategic ambitions previous to the least election were stifled until that moment. ..."
"... Sanctions and blockades are acts of war. Try doing it to Washington or one of its vassals, and watch the guns come out. ..."
"... Historically, sanctions are not an alternative to war; they are a prelude to it. Sanctions are how Uncle Scam generally softens up foreign countries in preparation for an invasion or some sort of 'régime-change' operation. ..."
"... All of this is smoke in mirrors. The real story is that Washington is headed for default on it's 22 trillion dollar debt and the Beltway Elites are losing it. They are desperate to start a conflict anywhere, but especially with an oil rich nation like Venezuela or Iran install their own puppets and keep this petro-dollar scam running a little while longer. ..."
"... Syria, Iraq and Libya were not destroyed for oil. Oil provided cover for the real reason. In fact, oil companies opposed war for oil. It doesn't benefit the US or those companies. Those three countries were and are Israel's primary enemies and neighbors and that is why they were destroyed. Only if you stick your head in the sand and ignore the enormous power of Israel and their Jewish supporters which is constantly on full display constantly can someone not see that. ..."
"... Venezuela has one of the highest murder rates in the world. I'm pretty sure there are still lots of guns around. They're not using rocks to kill one another. The U.S. military richly deserves to get itself trapped in a Gaza type situation of house to house fighting in the favellas above Caracas. ..."
"... Trump is a Trojan horse under zionist control who had 5 draft deferments but now is the zionists war lord sending Americans to fight and die in the mideast for Israel just like obama and bush jr. , same bullshit different puppet! ..."
"... America is Oceania , war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength and I would add to what Orwell said, war in the zio/US is perpetual for our zionist overlords. ..."
"... Imperialists always see themselves as spreading good things to people who will benefit from them. And imperialists necessarily always dilute their own culture. ..."
"... If the imperialist culture is already rootless cosmopolitan, it will see no downside to the above. If the Elites of a culture have become cosmopolitans divorced from any meaningful contact with their own people (i.e. those of their own blood and history), then they will lead their people into ever more cultural pollution and perversion. ..."
"... Remember. The choice was between Trump and Clinton. Not Trump and Jesus. ..."
"... The funny thing is, the Alt-Right or the 2.0 movement is united to a man on opposing the Trump administration's military interventions in Syria, Iran and Venezuela, but has failed at articulating its own ardent opposition to imperialism and its commitment to humanity and international peace. No one in American politics is more opposed to destructive regime change wars. ..."
"... I'm not sure what "Alt-Right" or "2.0 movement" really means in the current shills-vs-people wars but all the best and the brightest in our ranks are clearly against the globalists. ..."
Venezuela illustrates why a 3.0 movement is necessary.
The funny thing is, the Alt-Right or the 2.0 movement is united to a man on opposing the
Trump administration's military interventions in Syria, Iran and Venezuela, but has failed at
articulating its own ardent opposition to imperialism and its commitment to humanity and
international peace. No one in American politics is more opposed to destructive regime change
wars.
The Trump administration's interventions in Syria and Venezuela are victimizing mainly poor
brown people in Third World countries. And yet, the Alt-Right or the 2.0 movement is extremely
animated and stirred up in a rage at the neocons who are currently running Blompf's foreign
policy. Similarly, it has cheered on the peace talks between North Korea and South Korea.
Isn't it the supreme irony that the "racists" in American politics are the real
humanitarians
while the so-called "humanitarians" like Sen. Marco Rubio and Bill Kristol are less adverse
to bloodshed and destructive wars in which hundreds of thousands of people die than the
"racists"?
It is ironic. There is also the issue of economic-based US interventionism, particularly in
the oil-gifted nations mentioned. It's their oil. Since the US economy is oil-dependent --
and since fracking is a short-lived "miracle" of unprofitable companies that have already
extracted the easy pickings -- it is the role of US leaders to make sure that we can buy oil
from nations like Venezuela, keeping relations as good as possible for those means. But US
leaders have no business telling them who should rule their country, much less stirring up
trouble that can end up in bloodshed.
There's a comment on here about US forces and the Kurds in Syria, helping themselves to
oil, while Syrians wait in long lines for gas in a country that is an oil fountain. I have no
idea whether or not it is true, and since the US press would rather gossip than report, we'll
probably never know. But since oil prices have gone up recently in the USA, it might be true,
especially since politicians always want to pacify the serfs facing other unaffordable
expenses, like rent. If true you can see how that would make the people in an oil-rich
country mad.
Isn't it the supreme irony that the "racists" in American politics are the real
humanitarians while the so-called "humanitarians" like Sen. Marco Rubio and Bill Kristol
are less adverse to bloodshed and destructive wars in which hundreds of thousands of people
die than the "racists"?
There is nothing ironic about your simple statement of fact. The humanitarians you mention
are about as much interested in human rights as John Wayne Gacy. There is gold in them there
hills, and their "friends" no longer control that gold. So we must go to war.
Rubio is running neck and neck in my mind as one of the most disgusting political whores
of all time.
As much as Trump has proven to be a disaster with his appointments of Bolton/Pompeo/E Abrams,
things could still be worse. We could have wound up with Little Marco, the John McCain of his
generation. All praise to Tucker for having the guts to go against the grain.
How is that working out now?
Those are rocks those guys are throwing..right?
Why not let THEM do the fighting and keep the guys from Ohio and Alabama here?
The funny thing is, the Alt-Right or the 2.0 movement is united to a man on opposing the
Trump administration's military interventions in Syria, Iran and Venezuela
What Trump administration military intervention? Number of Boots on the ground:
Syria -- Reduced vs. Obama, at most a few thousand
Iran -- ZERO
Venezuela -- Again ZERO
It is quite amazing that Trump Derangement Syndrome [TDS] can take ZERO troops and falsely
portray that as military intervention. In the real, non-deranged world -- Rational thought
shows ZERO troops as the absence of military intervention.
Trying to use non-military sanctions to convince nations to behave better is indeed the
exact opposite of military intervention. If the NeoConDem Hillary Clinton was President. Would the U.S. have boots on the ground in
Iran And Venezuela?
Why is the Trump Derangement Syndrome [TDS] crowd so willing to go to war for Hillary
while misrepresenting TRUMP's non-intervention?
Those who pathologicially hate Trump are simply not rational.
The answer here is simple.
When the President of of the US stated that he believed Russia under the instructions of
Pres. Putin attempted to sabotage the democratic process, and from the mouths many of our
leadership -- was successful he made a major power on the world stage a targeted enemy of the
US. When that same president accused Pres. Putin of plotting the same in Europe and ordered
the murders inside those sovereign states --
He essentially stated that our global strategic interests include challenging the Russian
influence anywhere and everywhere on the planet as they are active enemies of the US and our
European allies. What ever democratic global strategic ambitions previous to the least
election were stifled until that moment.
Until that moment foreign policy could have been shifted, but after that moment
Don't forget the genocide in Yemen. Wanting to exclude Yemenis from the USA means you're an
evil racist, but turning a blind eye to mass murder is A-OK.
Gold, Black Gold and Pirates : all about wealth and people getting in the way of the 21st
Century Privateers who will stop at nothing including overthrowing governments in Syria,
Libya, Iraq and elsewhere.
@A123Historically, sanctions are not an alternative to war; they are a prelude to it.
Sanctions are how Uncle Scam generally softens up foreign countries in preparation for an
invasion or some sort of 'régime-change' operation.
I appreciate the fact that Team Trump has not actually sent in the tanks yet, whereas
Hellary probably would have by now. Believe me, that is probably one of the very few good
arguments in favor of Trump at this point. But if we want to make sure that he never does
attack, then now is the time to make some noise– before the war starts.
All of this is smoke in mirrors. The real story is that Washington is headed for default on
it's 22 trillion dollar debt and the Beltway Elites are losing it. They are desperate to
start a conflict anywhere, but especially with an oil rich nation like Venezuela or Iran
install their own puppets and keep this petro-dollar scam running a little while longer.
If we weren't on the brink of economic collapse I could never see the Washington Elites
risking it all with a game of nuclear chicken with Russia and China over Ukraine and
Taiwan.
This commentator lost me when he decided Guaido was as socialist as Maduro. Nope. He would
not have US backing were that the case.
I checked out Telesur on Youtube on April 30 – its continued functioning was one sign
the coup attempt had failed. The comments section was full of Guaido supporters ranting about
how much they hated Chavistas and socialists and some were asking where Maduro was, probably
trying to sustain the myth that he had fled.
"When was the last time we successfully meddled in the political life of another country" The
answer to that, Tucker, depends on who you ask. While Syria, Iraq and Libya were "failures"
because we were told we would bring peace and prosperity to those countries, that was not the
goal of the architects of those wars, neither was it oil. The primary goal was to pacify
these countries and neuter them so they would not stand up to their neighbor and enemy
Israel. And if they had to be destroyed to accomplish that, that's fine. Minus Egypt, those
three countries were Israel's primary enemies in the three Arab-Israeli wars. Venezuela is
not "another" war for oil, but it might be the first.
Syria, Iraq and Libya were not destroyed for oil. Oil provided cover for the
real reason. In fact, oil companies opposed war for oil. It doesn't benefit the US or those
companies. Those three countries were and are Israel's primary enemies and neighbors and that
is why they were destroyed. Only if you stick your head in the sand and ignore the enormous
power of Israel and their Jewish supporters which is constantly on full display constantly
can someone not see that.
@EliteCommInc.
The russians are not the ennemies of the europeans , the russians are europeans , the yankees
are nor european .
If the yankees were the allies of the europeans , why they should need hundreds of
military occupation bases in Europe ? why they should impose on europeans self defeating
trade sanctions against Russia ? , strange " allies " .
@conatus
you are late conatus , the russians are building in Venezuela a factory of Kalasnikov rifles
, and Maduro is traing a militia of two million men , to help the army .
@conatusVenezuela has one of the highest murder rates in the world. I'm pretty sure there are still
lots of guns around. They're not using rocks to kill one another.
The U.S. military richly deserves to get itself trapped in a Gaza type situation of house
to house fighting in the favellas above Caracas.
@War
for Blair Mountain{If JFK were alive ..and POTUS in 2019 he would give the order to
overthrow the Maduro Goverment .}
JFK was alive way back then, when he gave the order to overthrow Castro and the result was
the Bay of Pigs disaster. And – for better or worse – Cubans are still running
their own country, not some foreign installed puppet.
'The order to overthrow Maduro' today would have the same disasterous end.
It should be obvious by now, that despite all the hardships, majority of Venezuelans don't
want a foreign installed puppet.
Carlson is right on Venezuela but was wrong on 911 truthers which he said back in September
2017, that 911 truthers were nuts! 911 which was done by Israel and the zionist controlled
deep state lead to the destruction of the mideast for Israel and the zionist NWO!
Trump is a Trojan horse under zionist control who had 5 draft deferments but now is the
zionists war lord sending Americans to fight and die in the mideast for Israel just like
obama and bush jr. , same bullshit different puppet!
America is Oceania , war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength and I would
add to what Orwell said, war in the zio/US is perpetual for our zionist overlords.
One more thing, if Venezuela did not have oil the zio/US would not give a damn about
it!
Imperialists always see themselves as spreading good things to people who will benefit from
them. And imperialists necessarily always dilute their own culture.
If the imperialist culture is already rootless cosmopolitan, it will see no downside to
the above. If the Elites of a culture have become cosmopolitans divorced from any meaningful
contact with their own people (i.e. those of their own blood and history), then they will
lead their people into ever more cultural pollution and perversion.
Jews are a people who fit the opening sentence of the preceding paragraph. The WASP Elites
fit the second sentence.
If "no one is more opposed to destructive regime-change wars than the Alt-Right", it means
that the Alt-Right are traditional conservatives, paleo-(as opposed to neo)conservatives.
Real conservatives have always opposed getting into foreign wars that posed no threat to the
U.S. They opposed Wilson lying us into WW1, Roosevelt lying us into WW2. When the
neo-conservatives (American Jews loyal to Israel) got Washington under their thumb, we
started our decades of disastrous regime-change wars based on lies, starting with the
invasion of Iraq. Those neocon mf ers are still in charge.
An Alt Right 2.0 concept that is compassionate with the damage done by US war and economic
exploitation against the poorest people of the world who are mostly brown people is an
interesting concept.
But I think it will ultimately fail, since so many of the white people who make up the Alt
Right are angry with minorities and see them as a lower race. And these white people are more
interested in playing the victim card anyways.
@A123
You speak truth and cite facts, these loons go bananas.
Thank God they have no real power.
Hopefully they don't even own a hamster . probably would make the little fella read Mien
Kempf.
Because a hamster reading is just as cogent and linear as their arguments.
They are frustrated they cannot find a way to blame the Jews! for Maduro being a greedy
murdering sweathog who lets zoo animals starve while he looks like animated male
cellulite.
Funny- in their prostrations to dictators ( these retards actually defend and admire
Jong-Un) they conveniently have omitted Putin is cutting Russia from the WWW- the
Internet.
They will have a Russia intranet.
Pointing out to the obtuse daily commenters that under the tyrants that practically
fellate- they would be arrested and tortured for their Unz hissy fits and word diarrhea
Nationwide radio talk show? Wow! What's the station name, number and air time?
If you listen to people with actual media shows, they don't call people TROLL just because
they have a different opinion. They don't engage in female hysterical ranting because someone
has a different idea about the mechanics of the world.
Who are your sponsors? I can't imagine you would not want the free publicity .
I agree, there is irony in labels, in trying to tell who is more disposed towards 'bloodshed
and destructive wars in which hundreds of thousands of people die'. Why do we fight? It is
for power. Power (manifested as interest) has been present in every conflict of the past
– no exception. It is the underlying motivation for war. Other cultural factors might
change, but not power. Interest cuts across all apparently unifying principles: family, kin,
nation, religion, ideology, politics – everything. We unite with the enemies of our
principles, because that is what serves our interest. It is power, not any of the above
concepts, that is the cause of war. And that is what is leading the world to nuclear
Armageddon. https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/
@TKK
My sponsors are truth and America first. All Zionist hucksters are on my hit list. Again, I
suggest you and yours consider "making aliyah". https://www.nbn.org.il/
Number of Boots on the ground:
-- Syria -- Reduced vs. Obama, at most a few thousand
-- Iran -- ZERO
-- Venezuela -- Again ZERO
We will see in the future. Trump has to stir the pot. The foaming at the mouth media and his political opposition, in
both parties, need something to blather on about. Jus like rasslin'. Remember. The choice was between Trump and Clinton. Not Trump and Jesus.
@TKK
Oh, I see a point there, and it's an interesting one – openly Christian presidents
discredit their Christianity by engaging in non-righteous wars. After contemplating the
point, I don't think the foreign policy of W or Trump is anywhere close to being the primary
factor in the decline in church attendance. After all, the Catholic Church and other
denominations are mired in myriad sex scandals, the internet pulls people from God with
private depravity, science offers compelling hows if not whys, entertainment options abound,
and so on. Nonetheless, an orthodox and faithful Christian president committed to peace and
not fighting for oil or foreign interests would be a thing to behold. With caveats relating
to perceived sanity, that person would get my vote.
"The russians are not the ennemies of the europeans , the russians are europeans , the
yankees are nor european . "
These comments don't make any sense to me based on what I wrote. My comments have no
bearing on whether the Russians are an actual threat or not. I see them as competitors with
whom there are some places to come to some agreements. They doesn't mean I truth them.
Furthermore, my comments have no bearing on the territorial nature of Russian ethos.
That's not the point. Europeans have been at each other since there were Europeans. From the
Vikings and before to Serbia and Georgian conflicts. But none of that has anything to do with
my comments.
You might want to read them for what they do say as opposed to what you would like them to
say.
Jul 26, 2017 CIA director hints US is working to topple Venezuela's elected government
CIA Director Mike Pompeo indirectly admitted that the US is pushing for a new government
in Venezuela, in collaboration with Colombia and Mexico.
Feb 22, 2019 An Ocean of Lies on Venezuela: Abby Martin & UN Rapporteur Expose
Coup
On the eve of another US war for oil, Abby Martin debunks the most repeated myths about
Venezuela and uncovers how US sanctions are crimes against humanity with UN investigator and
human rights Rapporteur Alfred De Zayas.
"After all, the Catholic Church and other denominations are mired in myriad sex scandals . .
."
Not even to the tune of 4%, and I am being generous. The liberals have managed to make the
Church look a den of NAMBLA worshipers -- hardly. In the west the Churches are under pressure
from the same sex practitioners to reject scriptural teachings on the behavior, but elsewhere
around the world, Catholic institutions, such as in Africa -- reject the notion.
@TKK
Thanks. Ignoring mindless trolls is a necessary skill for the site.
____
Given the end of the Mueller exoneration, both Trump and Putin are looking to strengthen
ties. Thus it is:
-- Unlikely that Putin is heavily committed to helping Maduro. The numbers are too small
for that. Also, what would Putin do with Maduro? The last thing Putin needs is a spoiler to
the developing detente.
-- Much more likely the troops have a straightforward purpose. Brazilian
military/aerospace technology would jump ahead 20 years if they could grab an intact S-300
system. Russia doesn't want a competitor in that market, so they have a deep interest in
reclaiming or destroying S-300 equipment as Maduro goes down.
@EliteCommInc.
You are certainly right. I have no doubt that the vast majority of priests are good men
innocent of these charges, and that there are more public school sex scandals (by both raw
numbers and percentage) then similar Church scandals. The scandals do have public currency
and legs, though, and are one reason often cited as to why the pews are empty. I am at fault
for helping to keep this ruinous perception alive with my online rhetoric, and thank you for
pointing it out.
' It's the oil ' canard has always been the excuse cultivated for suckers, and boy
do suckers fall for it.
US oil companies have not received the big oil deals in countries where the US, at the
behest of "that shitty little country", have interfered militarily. However, Russia, China,
& to a limited degree, a few European companies have.
@PeterMX
Bibi's biggest enemy, his main prize, has always been Iran. He is afraid that, if Trump
refuses to do his bidding now, it may well be too late in an election year. One way or
another Bolton and Pompeo are going to convince their token boss to green light a massive
bombing campaign, especially if Iran attempts to shut down the Straits of Hormuz. It will
happen this year if Trump fails to come to his senses.
@Scalper
In the first place, your bizarre partisan rant is a little out of place. There aren't too
many QAnons here at Unz, and there are probably a fair number of regulars here who wouldn't
even identify as Republicans or 'conservatives' (whatever that term means today).
Secondly, some of your talking points aren't even accurate:
Trump administration will declare Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organisation,
increasing the animosity from Arab countries in the ME to unbelievable levels. This
includes non Arab country Turkey also, a traditional ally until neocon Trump took
power.
If Trump were truly to declare the Brotherhood to be a terrorist organization, a lot of
Arab rulers would actually thank him. You see, the Brotherhood is actually illegal in
most Arab countries today, precisely because it has a history of collaborating with foreign
intelligence services such as MI6, the CIA and Mossad. More recently, it was strongly
associated with failed régime-change projects in countries like Egypt and Syria; so
with a few exceptions (like Qatar), the Brotherhood is not well liked by Arab rulers.
Immigration restrictionism is a traditional pro working class, leftist policy.
Traditionally leftist? Sure up until the Hart-Celler Act of 1965! The sad fact is,
we don't an anti-immigration party in the US at all today. Neither the Republicans nor the
Democrats have any interest whatsoever in halting–or even just slowing
down–immigration.
@PeterMX
It's obvious that FOX is giving Tucker a lot of latitude. They continued to support him when
advertisers left, and when accusations of racism emerged from a radio interview he'd done
years ago with a shock jock. They dare not fire him as he has the largest and most fervent
base of supporters on cable news. But Tucker knows that there is one big issue, the Elephant
in the room, of which he dare not speak. It's that shitty little country calling the shots,
whose name begins with an I.
@Anonymous
I think there may be more alt-righters opposed to foreign wars and exploitative 'free' trade
treaties than you assume. Most of the alt-righters I know oppose the current régime's
"invade the world, invite the world" policies (to borrow a phrase from our own Steve Sailer).
But unlike the anti-imperialist left (with whom they often do ally), they usually argue
against such policies based on popular self-interest rather than abstract universal morality.
They usually choose to argue that being a mighty world empire has worked to the
detriment of the majority of people in America; that the whole thing is just a scam to
enrich and empower a small, corrupt élite.
what goes unremarked here and elsewhere is the ethnic composition of Venezuela. From a few
searches, Whites are only about one-third of V.
The Tipping Point for chaos is clear. Brazil is half White, Argentina is near 100 % White,
ditto Chile.
(Argentina ca. 1900 exterminated a large number its "Indigenous." )
The most stable of Latin America is Costa Rica, which is apparently about three quarters
White.
Meanwhile the jewyorktimes reports the narco-traffickers in the Maduro administration.
Hopeless. Any Brown or Black Country is doomed. Brazil works cuz Whites know how to
control the 45% mulattos and 5 % Blacks. For now anyway. Mexico is a narco-state with the
only 9% Whites able to control the half breeds and Indigenous thru co-option. Wait for Mexico
to blow up.
The funny thing is, the Alt-Right or the 2.0 movement is united to a man on opposing the
Trump administration's military interventions in Syria, Iran and Venezuela, but has failed
at articulating its own ardent opposition to imperialism and its commitment to humanity and
international peace. No one in American politics is more opposed to destructive regime
change wars.
That's an amazing point. I'm not sure what "Alt-Right" or "2.0 movement" really means in the current
shills-vs-people wars but all the best and the brightest in our ranks are clearly against the
globalists.
@Avery
The Deep state/CIA did the Bay of Pigs. JFK was not informed about it before it happened. JFK
was fighting the CIA and deep state throughout his presidency. He wanted to shatter the CIA
into a million pieces. Read "JFK and the Unspeakable" by James W. Douglass. His peace speech
on June 10, 1963 was too much for our deep state. That speech was the biggest triggers that
set the motion for his assassination.
Whatever anyone thinks about the Alt-Right it did expose a lot of things about our current
era, our history, our politics, and power paradigms that once seen can not be unseen.
And what are you going to do about it? What can anyone really do, honestly?
Not too much at least in America. Eastern Europe still has a good chance.
In America, the trajectory and machinations of power have been set for a long time and
revolutionary romanticism tends to work better for the Left than the Right. A quick look at
the data easily reveals this.
So what do you do when you realize how so much of everything that's presented as real and
true isn't real or true? And there are so many truly bad human beings with major power over
our culture, politics, and society?
Well, when has that not been the case in human history? At some point, acknowledging all
the black pills is sort of like accepting your human limits, your finitude, your genetics,
the unanswered mysteries of existence, the nothingness of Earth in the grand scheme, and just
basic gravity.
You could become a courageous online revolutionary and eventually trigger some unstable
person to get things shut down and deplatformed.
Or you could organize with socially and psychologically healthy and mature adults who try
to prioritize attainable and realistic goals and gain some moralizing victories that can
buffer against the demoralizing defeats.
Luckily, out of the winter of our discontent have emerged many healthy tendrils of new
growth.
"... Will the overthrow of disputed President Nicolas Maduro make Venezuela a more stable and prosperous country? More to the point, would it be good for the United States? Lots of people claim to know the answer to that, but they don't. They have no idea. If recent history is any guide, nothing will turn out as expected. Few things ever do. ..."
"... Are we prepared for the refugees a Venezuelan war would inevitably produce? A study by the Brookings Institution found that the collapse of the Venezuelan government could force eight million people to leave the country. Many of them would come here. Lawmakers in this country propose giving them temporary protected status that would let even illegal arrivals live and work here, in effect, permanently, as many have before, with no fear of deportation. Are we prepared for that? ..."
TUCKER CARLSON: There is much we don't know about the situation in Venezuela. What we do
know is that Venezuela's current government has done a poor job of providing for its own
people. Venezuela has the world's largest oil reserves, yet it remains one of the most
impoverished and the most dangerous places on the planet. That is beyond dispute.
Everything else is up for debate. Will the overthrow of disputed President Nicolas Maduro
make Venezuela a more stable and prosperous country? More to the point, would it be good for
the United States? Lots of people claim to know the answer to that, but they don't. They have
no idea. If recent history is any guide, nothing will turn out as expected. Few things ever
do.
But that has not stopped the geniuses in Washington. It has not even slowed them down. On
Tuesday afternoon, on a bipartisan basis, they agreed that the United States ought to jump
immediately, face-first, into the Venezuelan mess. When asked whether U.S. presence in
Venezuela would make any difference, Sen. Rick Scott of Florida told Neil Cavuto the following:
"Absolutely. I was down at the Venezuelan border last Wednesday. This is just pure genocide.
Maduro is killing his own citizens."
When asked whether Venezuela was worth risking American troops' lives, Scott said, "Here is
what is going to happen. We are in the process, if we don't win today, we are going to have
Syria in this hemisphere. So, we can make sure something happens now, or we can deal with this
for decades to come. If we care about families, if we care about the human race, if we care
about fellow worldwide citizens, then we've got to step up and stop this genocide."
All right, I just want to make sure that it is clear. If you care about families and you
care about the human race -- if you want to stop genocide -- you will send your children to
Venezuela to fight right now, without even thinking about it, without even weighing the
consequences. You will just do it. Assuming you are a good person, of course.
If you don't care about families or the human race -- if for some reason you despise human
happiness and support genocide -- then you will want to join Satan's team and embrace
isolationism, the single most immoral of all worldviews. That is what they're telling you. That
is what they are demanding you believe.
Message received. We've heard it before. But before the bombers take off, let's just answer
a few quick questions, starting with the most obvious: When was the last time we successfully
meddled in the political life of another country? Has it ever worked? How are the democracies
we set up in Iraq, in Libya, in Syria, and Afghanistan right now? How would Venezuela be
different? Please explain -- and take your time.
Are we prepared for the refugees a Venezuelan war would inevitably produce? A study by the
Brookings Institution found that the collapse of the Venezuelan government could force eight
million people to leave the country. Many of them would come here. Lawmakers in this country
propose giving them temporary protected status that would let even illegal arrivals live and
work here, in effect, permanently, as many have before, with no fear of deportation. Are we
prepared for that?
Are we prepared to absorb millions of new Venezuelan migrants? All of them great people, no
question, But many would have little education or skills or would not speak English.
Finally, how, exactly, is any of this good for the United States? Our sanctions on Venezuela
have already spiked our gas prices. That hurts our struggling middle class more than virtually
anything we could do. So what's is the point of doing that? So our lawmakers can feel like good
people?
And if they are, indeed, good people, why do they care more about Venezuela than they care
about this country, the one that they run? They are happy to send our military to South America
at the first sign of chaos. But send U.S. troops to our own border to stem the tide of a
hundred thousand uninvited arrivals a month? "No way," they tell us. "That is crazy talk!"
"... The Empire is not weak, this is poor analysis. India and Europe stopped buying Iranian oil. 1 billion $ of Iranian oil stays blocked in China, no one wants to touch it. Even Khamenei admitted that Europe left the JCPOA in practice. ..."
"... Iran is in deep recession. Venezuela is in deep recession and is surrounded. ..."
"... Iraq? US troops are staying there. Syria? US troops are staying there long term. 1 third of the country containing the biggest oil fields is under US control. There is fuel shortage crisis due to sanctions. Europe is not stopping its sanctions either. ..."
"The Empire only appears to be strong. In reality it is weak, confused, clueless"
The Empire is not weak, this is poor analysis. India and Europe stopped buying Iranian oil. 1 billion $ of Iranian oil stays blocked in
China, no one wants to touch it. Even Khamenei admitted that Europe left the JCPOA in
practice.
Iran is in deep recession. Venezuela is in deep recession and is surrounded. Almost
all of Latin America now has pro-US governments. CIA linked Bolsonaro took over in Brazil.
Turkey is in deep recession and Erdogan lost the big cities.
India is moving closer to the US. Europe remains a vassal. Russian economic growth is
weak. The US won the trade war against China as Andrei Martyanov himself admitted.
Iraq? US troops are staying there. Syria? US troops are staying there long term. 1 third
of the country containing the biggest oil fields is under US control. There is fuel shortage
crisis due to sanctions. Europe is not stopping its sanctions either.
There is no doubt that they will be weaker in the future, but they will fight hard to stop
this and gain time.
"... The opposition's hoped-for split in the military didn't emerge, a plane that the United States claimed was standing by to ferry Maduro into exile never took off and by nightfall one of the government's bravest opponents, who defied house arrest to join the insurrection, had quietly sought refuge with his family in a foreign embassy. ..."
"... Those that didn't take explicit positions nonetheless wrote articles blaming all or most of Venezuela's woes on Maduro and Chávez. Economics wiz Paul Krugman (New York Times, 1/29/19) gave his spiel: ..."
"... Hugo Chávez got into power because of rage against the nation's elite, but used the power badly. He seized the oil sector, which you only do if you can run it honestly and efficiently; instead, he turned it over to corrupt cronies, who degraded its performance. Then, when oil prices fell, his successor tried to cover the income gap by printing money. Hence the crisis. ..."
"... Note that Krugman failed to mention the 57 percent reduction in extreme poverty that followed Chávez's replacement of management of the state-owned oil industry ..."
"... The total failure of the coup is obvious when one looks at what happened to Leopoldo López, the mentor of Juan Guaidó. He was under house arrest for leading the violent demonstrations and deadly riots in 2014 ..."
"... The generals in the Pentagon will not like the rhetorical build-up at all. They will look at their maps and find that Venezuela is twice the size of Iraq and 30% larger than Afghanistan. ..."
"... It is unlikely that Trump wants to launch a war on Venezuela. He likely knows that it would not be a cake walk, and that it would be a severe risk for his reelection. But who knows what Bolton or Pompeo might tell him to get their way. They just got snookered by the Maduro government. Why would they not snooker Trump? ..."
gjohnsit on Wed, 05/01/2019 - 12:50pm Juan Guaido's U.S.-backed coup
failed pitifully yesterday.
He called it the moment for Venezuelans to reclaim their democracy once and for all. But as
the hours dragged on, opposition leader Juan Guaidó stood alone on a highway overpass
with the same small cadre of soldiers with whom he launched a bold effort to spark a military
uprising and settle Venezuela's agonizing power struggle...
The opposition's hoped-for split in the military didn't emerge, a plane that the United
States claimed was standing by to ferry Maduro into exile never took off and by nightfall one
of the government's bravest opponents, who defied house arrest to join the insurrection, had
quietly sought refuge with his family in a foreign embassy.
Guaido's mentor Leopoldo Lopez sought refuge in Chile's embassy in Caracas, while at least
25 pro-Juan Guaido troops asked Brazil for refuge.
President Nicolas Maduro is actually in a stronger position now than a week ago.
So does the U.S. give up this imperialist project?
Nope.
We simply take it to the next level. Juan Guaido must die .
He has been a kind of a hapless figure so far. He calls for mass protests and no one shows
up. I don't think he realizes right now that he is actually now worth more dead than alive
not only to the CIA, but also to his own opposition people. A shot in the crowd or something
like that to take Guaido out. It might shock you, Dr. Paul, but the CIA is pretty good at
this kind of things.
Juan Guaido probably only has days or weeks to live.
I wonder if he realizes the danger he is in?
It's unlikely
that the Trump Administration will wait long before putting a bullet in their CIA
puppet.
"The President has been crystal clear and incredibly consistent. Military action is possible.
If that's what's required, that's what the United States will do," Pompeo said on Fox
Business Network. "We're trying to do everything we can to avoid violence. We've asked all
the parties involved not to engage in the kind of activity. We'd prefer a peaceful transition
of government there, where Maduro leaves and a new election is held.
But the President has
made clear, in the event that there comes a moment -- and we'll all have to make decisions
about when that moment is -- and the President will have to ultimately make that decision. He
is prepared to do that if that's what's required."
@dfarrah
Thinks arresting Guaido triggers a US military invasion. Eric Prince is trying to put
together a mercenary force if the US troops don't go in.
calling for the same results that Pompous, Bolton, tRump etc. advocate, the 'liberals'
just use nicer language. (highlights are mine)
"...Francisco Rodríguez and Jeffrey D. Sachs (New York Times, 2/2/19) envision
similar efforts for a "peaceful and negotiated transition of power," and (Ro) Khanna made
sure to characterize Maduro as "an authoritarian leader who has presided over
unfair elections, failed economic policies, extrajudicial killings by police, food shortages
and cronyism with military leaders."
In other words, Maduro the Dictator must be overthrown -- but don't worry, the US would be
diplomatic about it.
Those that didn't take explicit positions nonetheless wrote articles blaming all or most
of Venezuela's woes on Maduro and Chávez. Economics wiz Paul Krugman (New York Times,
1/29/19) gave his spiel:
Hugo Chávez got into power because of rage against the nation's elite, but used the
power badly. He seized the oil sector, which you only do if you can run it honestly and
efficiently; instead, he turned it over to corrupt cronies, who degraded its performance.
Then, when oil prices fell, his successor tried to cover the income gap by printing money.
Hence the crisis.
Note that Krugman failed to mention the 57 percent reduction in extreme poverty that
followed Chávez's replacement of management of the state-owned oil industry (.
I picked the examples above from the article above but it would be a mistake to not point
out that this is about all of the media but the NY Tool really stands out, of course Wapoop
is never far behind.
However to not make this post too long I'll put up just two of the opening paragraphs and it
gets a lot better...
"A FAIR survey of US opinion journalism on Venezuela found no voices in elite corporate media
that opposed regime change in that country. Over a three-month period
(1/15/19–4/15/19), zero opinion pieces in the New York Times and Washington Post took
an anti–regime change or pro-Maduro/Chavista position. Not a single commentator on the
big three Sunday morning talkshows or PBS NewsHour came out against President Nicolás
Maduro stepping down from the Venezuelan government.
Of the 76 total articles, opinion videos or TV commentator segments that centered on or
gave more than passing attention to Venezuela, 54 (72 percent) expressed explicit support for
the Maduro administration's ouster. Eleven (14 percent) were ambiguous, but were only
classified as such for lack of explicit language. Reading between the lines, most of these
were clearly also pro–regime change. Another 11 (14 percent) took no position, but many
similarly offered ideological ammo for those in support.
@aliasalias a choice between corrupt socialists and corrupt capitalists. Yay.
So now I'm watching tv, and oh noes, some guy says that Caracas is a war zone! But all I
see is a bunch of people and some sort of smoke bombs going off. But no one yet is shooting.
People are throwing rocks at some military vehicles.
@aliasalias I'm also willing to bet he was perfectly fine with the US ordering its
client states in the Middle East to ramp up oil production to manipulate prices.
What I find particularly laughable is the fact that so many idiots on and offline think
Venezuela is socialist despite the fact that their economy is 70 percent private, or mixed,
like ours used to be before the capitalist pigs sold off the commons to the highest bidders
piece by god damn piece.
Liberals and conservatives are just 2 sides of the same fascist coin at this point.
Even after an effective multi-year economic embargo that's caused hyperinflation in
Venezuela, and despite a plague of Stuxnet-like viruses that took down most of the country's
electrical and communications grid, all the CIA has managed to do is make itself look
ineffectual at what really matters. Same in Iran.
All we really still do well is wreck stuff, cause starvation, and cut down the supply of
oil going to the world market.
The Agency doesn't really confuse and intimidate anyone, anymore, except The New York
Times.
Or is the American public missing the obvious? All I see from the folks advocating for a
coup in Venezuela is that
1) people are starving,
2) Maduro is a "dictator" (supported by
what evidence I don't know) and
3) something must be done. They have no evidence for the
counter argument that
4) they are comprador elites who want nothing more than
5) to get their
hands on PdVSA's oil after 6) their American sponsors take the lion's share and that
7) it's
perfectly obvious that, apart from the end of the US-led embargo, nothing is going to get any
better for the vast majority of Venezuelans if the comprador elites are allowed to take over
the country. This is because their methods are
9) at least as dictatorial as those they
accuse Maduro of employing. And then we have the undemocratic idea that
10) the United States
government should somehow have a "say" in who rules Venezuela, a proposition that appears to
have the open assent of most of the world's governments.
Generals promised him that they were with him, but they were not.
US failed again. And the world knows it.
The total failure of the coup is obvious when one looks at what happened to Leopoldo
López, the mentor of Juan Guaidó. He was under house arrest for leading the
violent demonstrations and deadly riots in 2014. Yesterday morning the guards let him go.
While the circumstances are not clear, the police chief responsible for the guards has been
fired. López promised his followers that he would go to the Miraflores Presidential
Palace. But he wasn't even able to leave eastern Caracas.
Yesterday evening López,
with his wife and daughter, fled into the Chilean embassy. They seem to have disliked the
accommodations. Two hours later they moved into the Spanish embassy.
While the embassy food
may be good, it will be a quite different life than in their own comfortable mansion. A few
of the soldiers who supported Guaidó took refuge in the Brazilian embassy.
Guaidó is still free.
The generals in the Pentagon will not like the rhetorical build-up at all. They will
look at their maps and find that Venezuela is twice the size of Iraq and 30% larger than
Afghanistan. It has impenetrable jungles, mountains and slums that even Venezuelan troops
do not dare to enter. It has a functioning army and halfway decent air defenses which were
recently upgraded by Russian specialists.
It is unlikely that Trump wants to launch a war on Venezuela. He likely knows that it
would not be a cake walk, and that it would be a severe risk for his reelection. But who
knows what Bolton or Pompeo might tell him to get their way. They just got snookered by the
Maduro government. Why would they not snooker Trump?
There are absolutely no vital U.S. interests at stake in Venezuela, and the Venezuelan government poses no threat to the United
States. There is no way under these circumstances that military action could be "required," so when Pompeo suggests that it could
happen we are clearly talking about a war of choice divorced from any U.S. security interests. It would be a war fought solely for
the purpose of achieving regime change, and the only reason why the U.S. would do that is to vindicate the Trump administration's
reckless blunder of taking sides in an internal political dispute. No Americans should die for the sake of Trump's ego or for the
ambitions of hawkish senators.
Attacking the Venezuelan government would be a terrible error and a violation of international law. It would be a calamity for
the people of Venezuela, who would bear many of the costs of turning their internal crisis into an international war, and it would
likely cause more displacement and increase the number of people fleeing the country in the short term. I suspect it would also be
a more difficult and costly war than most of us expect, and it would be a massive waste of U.S. resources and American lives in an
unjustified and unnecessary war. If all that isn't enough, an unauthorized Venezuelan war would also be completely illegal under
U.S. law. The American people have no appetite for a new war for regime change anywhere in the world, and there is not much support
for it even in Congress. If Trump tries to take the U.S. to war in Venezuela, he will be in clear violation of the Constitution and
should be impeached for it.
The thing I really don't understand about Venezuela here is why is this not China's problem while the US and Russia doing old
cold war dance here? They are in debt to their eyeballs here with them.
At this point, Bolton and Pompeo are doing everything to suck President Trump into the battle for Venezuela and we must be
not support military action. (I fear the talking heads at Fox News here.) Because it appears the people, or majority, of Venezuela
are generally tiring of Maduro government but they do not want US military assistance. (Note any truth the CIA dropped weapons
to the Guiadro forces? They do have US guns but this stuff get trade fairly easily without US government doing.)
If America goes to war in Venezuela, Trump loses my vote in 2020. If we don't get out of at least one more unnecessary war like
Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan, etc, he's on thin ice. Getting OUT of foreign wars was one of his major campaign promises.
It seems that wars of opportunity are the only kind we engage in over the past few decades. If we don't have a war with either
Venezuela or Iran, I will be shocked and very relieved.
However, I am not optimistic. Our foreign policy seems to be completely controlled by NeoCons, arms merchants, and Saudi / Israeli
interests, with no honest benefits to our own nation's security or strategic interests.
Apologies to b, but today's Xymphora post really tickled my fancy.>
Bay of piglets, Tuesday, April 30, 2019
"Venezuelan coup attempt 'directly planned in Washington' – FM". Guido's cute little
coup-let. If you stage a coup and nobody notices as it is so half-assed, is it really a coup?
"Venezuela: Military Uprising in Caracas (in Development)".
"Venezuela - Bay of Pigs Redux?" (Lang).
Obviously, the government can no longer tolerate Guido's shenanigans, which have become a
public safety matter.
I look forward to the embassy video showing them skateboarding in their quarters. I don't,
however, believe any self-respecting cat will befriend either one of these tools.
Correction to 114 above. The Venezuela Analysis tweet linking to the Chile Today story
claiming that both Guaidó and López had taken refuge in the Chilean embassy has
been removed, and the story only claims that López is there. Miscommunication in a
rapidly developing situation? In any case, surely Guaidó is seeking refuge SOMEplace.
multiple sources are reporting similar information to telesur's update:
UPDATE: 3:11
pm Chile's Foreign Affairs Minister Roberto Ampuero confirmed that Venezuelan opposition
politician Leopoldo Lopez and his family requested asylum at the Chilean embassy in
Caracas.
"Lilian Tintori and her daughter entered as guests of our diplomatic mission in
Caracas. A few minutes ago her spouse, Leopoldo Lopez, joined his family in that place. Chile
reaffirms commitment with Venezuelan democrats," Minister Ampuero tweeted.
that seems that this iteration of the coup has fizzled. stay tuned for what comes
next.
The difference with EuroMaydan is that there is no distinct region of the country which supports the opposition.
Notable quotes:
"... US media will milk this to increase sanctions and economic blockade on the country. ..."
"... The show will go on produced and directed by US intelligence. They are using psychological warfare not only on Venezuelans but on American and European citizens. ..."
So called "coup" attempt was just a show for American and European audience consumption.
You can easily tell by watching the Western coverage the last couple of days(CNN, fox,
European news) and compare it to actual reality on the ground seen through interviews with
Venezuelans and social media videos.
US media will milk this to increase sanctions and economic blockade on the country.
It seems Guaido and even López were used as pawns in this scheme by US intelligence
and/,or Venezuelan and Russian intelligence. You can tell by looking at their faces on photos
taken that early morning and by the fact that López immediately ran to the Chilean
embassy. They knew they'd been duped and used as pawns.
The show will go on produced and directed by US intelligence. They are using psychological
warfare not only on Venezuelans but on American and European citizens.
Be aware US
intelligence is running the show they don't spend 100 billion in Intelligence to let an idiot
like Guaido run the show. Guaido is their dancing monkey. Watch the monkey dance. Dance
monkey! Dance!
Is Maduro put in Yanukovich situation by Washington. If so he is doomed...
Notable quotes:
"... Cue the snipers on rooftops. Not wishing for this, but that's what history suggests. Naturally, Maduro would then be blamed. ..."
"... The carnage was blamed on Yanukovich and the Berkut, but the actual killers were from the rebels. ..."
"... All that's needed are a few snipers killing some actually innocent protestors, and blame for the carnage would be pinned on Maduro. Like others in this blog, I think that Maduro should immediately arrest Guaido et al., and not allow the situation to progress further. He should be wary of repeating Yanukovich' mistake. ..."
"... That said, I agree with previous commenters that Guaidó and his clique have gone beyond seditious "baiting" and advocating violent rebellion to engaging in armed insurrection-- however staged and phony. ..."
"... My guess - the CIA want Guaido out of the way to start a serious run at Madura. Sacrifice Guaido and blame Madura (he'll be dead in a week I guess) ..."
Beware of snipers on the roof alla the Takism massacre in Turkey 1977 May Day with the Ecevit (leftist) gov't in power.
Of course Bengazi and Kiev come to mind as well.
Jackrabbit | Apr 30, 2019 12:00:05 PM | 37
Cue the snipers on rooftops. Not wishing for this, but that's what history suggests.
Naturally, Maduro would then be blamed.
Absolutely correct, Prince's mercs could not actually win territory and hold it. Their
attack would just be a "bloody their nose" sort of thing that American psychos are so fond
of. Basically Prince's attack dogs create chaos as long as they can get away with and when
the Venezuelan military begins a methodical counterattack they retreat to Colombia. Beyond
destabilizing the government somewhat I don't see what it could accomplish, though.
I think the concern raised by others is much more likely; that is snipers killing dozens
or hundreds of people celebrating May Day in such a way that the mass media can spin it as
the government's doing. Most Americans do not know what May Day is and will assume that any
Venezuelan crowds their TVs show them will be Random Guaido's faithful flock protesting
against Maduro. Guaranteed that's how the New York Langley Times will spin
it tomorrow. If mystery snipers (CIA death squads) shoot up the festival-goers it will not be
difficult to fool Americans into thinking that the mystery snipers are pro-Maduro forces
trying to kill a few Guaidog supporters for some reason.
What further suggests this possibility is that the US State Department's astroturf Twitter
army has been trying to force the meme that Random Guaido is actually a socialist and is more
left than Maduro. This is to seed the idea among people who actually do know what May Day is
about that Maduro would oppose May Day celebrations and thus reinforce the forced meme that
Maduro loyalists are responsible for tomorrow's sniper attacks.
Still, selling it to the gullible American public is one thing. It is another entirely to
fool the Venezuelans since many of them will be seeing this happen firsthand. If the
Venezuelan people don't buy that the government is behind the sniper attacks then they will
close up ranks around Maduro rather than throw their lot in with Guaidog's coup attempt.
@jayc (68) Are the coup planners and advisors smart or dumb? In one sense, they are smart,
because they can reason from some basic assumption and reach a conclusion that seemingly
flows from the rules of logic. OTOH, they are dumb, because the basic assumption from which
their reasoning begins is a steaming pile of crap. So, I vote for DUMB.
This is a very dangerous situation. Recall the leaked conversation between Cathering Ashton
and Umas Paet, indicating that Maidan sniping was coming from the hotel occupied by the
protestors.
The carnage was blamed on Yanukovich and the Berkut, but the actual killers were from the
rebels.
All that's needed are a few snipers killing some actually innocent protestors, and blame
for the carnage would be pinned on Maduro. Like others in this blog, I think that Maduro
should immediately arrest Guaido et al., and not allow the situation to progress further. He
should be wary of repeating Yanukovich' mistake.
This is just to further confirm that this stunt is being hyped by US mass-media as if it is
"the big one", i.e. that Guaidó and his "revolutionary" forces are practically
storming the presidential palace.
I listen to the local all-news radio station at the top of the hour. It's a reliable
indicator of the tune du jour being played on the mass-media Mighty Wurlitzer.
This morning, as noted, it was the "top story"-- and presented as if the long-anticipated
nation-wide coup was raging. Despite the usual overwrought sensationalism, I suspected that
there was less than met the ear: this local station didn't throw over to their parent network
for a Special Report, as it typically would if the conflict had actually escalated into open
rebellion.
"Special Report" mode is announced with dramatic theme music, and Team Coverage featuring
the Usual Suspect celebrity network correspondents and a gaggle of house "experts".
So I correctly concluded that despite the breathless tone, this was much ado about
little. ____________________________________________________
That said, I agree with previous commenters that Guaidó and his clique have gone
beyond seditious "baiting" and advocating violent rebellion to engaging in armed
insurrection-- however staged and phony.
It seems to have intentionally crossed a line to
further test the Maduro government's patience and resolve.
I'm not one of those who finds fault with embattled statesmen for refusing to act
precipitously in response to obvious provocations. Maduro and loyal Venezuelans know
perfectly well that even a reasonable response to blatant illegal and illicit provocations
may be used by the golpistas (which includes the US/Western sponsors and enablers) as
a pretext for foreign intervention.
But the prudent policy of tolerance and forbearance cannot continue indefinitely in the
face of outright treasonous provocations, since this will eventually be perceived as the
government turning a blind eye, or winking at, the rule of law upon which it relies for
legitimacy.
It's a difficult dilemma.
William Gruff | Apr 30, 2019 3:25:23 PM | 93
psychohistorian @87 said
"...with very few shots being fired."
This is an important point. The Russians and Chinese seem to have the psycho empire psychoanalyzed and are offering good
guidance to Venezuela, assuming Venezuelans themselves are not also clued into how the psycho empire works.
In essence, America needs a pretext to attack. Americans need to maintain the delusion that they are the victims, and that
it was their victims who forced America to attack against America's bogus peace-loving will.
The pretext doesn't need to be very convincing, but it needs to exist. For this reason it could be wiser to just leave
Random Guaido alone, but arrest and court martial the military personnel who took part in this little stunt. Lopez should also
be re-arrested and tried for violating the terms of his detention.
This arresting should be done by regular police for Lopez and military police for the military personnel who violated the
chain of command. No shooting or even guns drawn. Just calmly take them into custody and let the legal process work on them.
NOBTS | Apr 30, 2019 3:34:39 PM | 96
Now that CIA poster boy Leopoldo is available to take charge Juan Doe is prime sniper fodder!
The Unconventional Warfare Manual sets out the techniques of subversion the US uses in targeting nation states
that don't toe the line.
Although the document is of recent date, the policy has clearly existed for a long time.
Based on Church Committee hearings, it has been estimated that the US has carried out tens of thousands of covert
operations since WW2.
Guaido is just an opportunity for Bolton to stir up trouble.
He has never been part of a CIA long term regime change plan. If he was then his wikipedia page would not have been
created just 2 weeks before Trump recognised him as President (or at least it would have been manipulated to appear a lot
older).
And he would have been mentioned in WaPo a hundred times in the last 2 years instead of only a week before Trump
recognition.
My guess - the CIA want Guaido out of the way to start a serious run at Madura. Sacrifice Guaido and blame Madura
(he'll be dead in a week I guess).
"... it was Russia that attacked Iraq on the basis of lies? ..."
"... It must have been Russia that turned Libya into a failed state, complete with slave markets? ..."
"... Instead of spinning fantasies about Maduro going into exile or being overthrown by some kind of joint (and illegal) Latin American task force, how's about we consider the very reasonable idea of Guaidó being arrested and tried for treason? ..."
Please refrain in using the term "democracy" so easily. US is a republic with the surface of
elected representative system, and we know exactly how that works. See the election of Truman
as VP instead of Wallace in 1944 or so or very recently the election of Hillary Clinton as
democratic representative.
A true democracy is done via a sortition system that selects randomly from the roster of
eligible citizens to represent the will of the people.
Imagine that in the Second Amendment instead of "A well regulated Militia, being necessary
to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be
infringed" we would have: "A well educated Citizenry, being necessary to the security and
well-being of a free, moral, and ethically sound State, the right of the people to get a
sound Education in Philosophy, Ethics, Civics, Logic, Finance, and Health, shall not be
infringed".
it was Russia that attacked Iraq on the basis of lies?
It is China that is gleefully assisting the Saudi tyrants to commit genocide?
It must have been Russia that turned Libya into a failed state, complete with slave
markets?
Is China now that is frantically threatening war on Iran?
Russia must have been responsible for supporting jihadists to turn Syria into another failed
state, right?
For that matter, is it Russia and China that are threatening war on the elected and UN
recognized government of Venezuela?
Seriously, after America's long and bloody track record of failed and bloody
interventions, it baffles me that anyone could say something so ridiculous.
" fearmongering about the "Yankee" empire to the north."
What, this isn't justified?
Instead of spinning fantasies about Maduro going into exile or being overthrown by some
kind of joint (and illegal) Latin American task force, how's about we consider the very
reasonable idea of Guaidó being arrested and tried for treason?
Guaidó seems to have neither a base nor large scale military support nor access
to significant military equipment. If that does not change this coup attempt is likely to
fail within a few hours.
We may have jumped the shark in to the realm of the monthly
coup attempt. Mostly a media event to see if they can get a buy-in. Didn't work? Not to
worry we will try again next month!
Can you imagine a force of 5000 or so mercs staging a combat assault on a large and
reasonably well armed country?
If it didn't involve so much killing and dying it would be amusing to watch the "private
army" get pinned down and butchered.
Seriously without air cover it would turn into bloody squalor. Meanwhile Russia and
perhaps China are likely providing signal intel fo the Venezuelan military and keeping a
close eye on what the gringoes are up to. Much like the RAND document on destabilizing
other nations it will probably be a slow bleed by sabotage and scarcity.
I can't see either Guaido, the US, or any other of the coup fomentors ceasing their
attempts until they've achieved some kind of result. Guaido running around, and I can see
the rationale behind allowing him to do so, is an ongoing problem. Too much is at stake for
the powerful interests to let go of any of their global plans. People everywhere do not
really matter all that much.
Looks like the Neo-Cons just replied with their unavoidable escalation, this smacks of
desperation. I wouldn't be surprised if Abrams told Random Guy to announce a coup and even
if it fails the US will protect him or use it as an excuse to invade. Once this coup fails
Maduro should stick both of these traitors in a "real" prison and see if that loosens their
tongues a bit, neither of these fools have experienced real hardship so just taking away
their sliver spoons and private aircraft would convince them to rat out their fellow
traitors
While everyone is aware of the existence of fake news, we are less aware of how
editorial conflicts of interest can be used to sway public opinion, particularly in the
case of a highly influential and widely read newspaper like the New York Times.
Harvard Law School
Barack Obama, an alumni of Harvard Law School, was the United States President who ordered
the destruction of Africa's richest, most literate and developed country, Libya, and
reduced that country to rubble and a state of lawlessness. Thousands died.
The sovereign wealth fund of the oil rich country has disappeared without trace. Libya's
premier medical facilities that were the envy of it's continent and it's neighbours in the
Middle East have been destroyed, precisely at the time that it's citizens required them.
Many of the doctors, nurses and ancillary staff, as highly trained as their counterparts in
Europe, have also disappeared without trace, many presumed drowned in the waters of the
Mediterranean trying to flee to save their lives. Libya is now the poorest state in Africa.
The leader who had united it and raised the infrastructural standards to be on a par with
the first world, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, never had his day in a court of any description,
he was beaten, tortured and sodomised with a knife, before being murdered on the blood
soaked streets by a mob.
We have to wonder what it is that they are teaching at the Harvard Law School? In the
1980's the tiny countries of Central America, Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua suffered
from their own brutal civil wars. Extreme, right wing governments and militias were either
trying to hold onto power or to seize it for themselves from the impoverished indigenous
citizenries who sought democracy and guarantees of their fundamental civil and human
rights. The United States sent in Elliot Abrams, now to be found lurking in the jungles of
Venezuela, to support the fascistic regimes in the brutal battle against their own
civilians. Mr Abrams was another product of the esteemed Harvard Law School. By the end of
his time there, hundreds of thousands of some of the world's poorest people and been
murdered, their bodies tossed into mass graves if they were lucky. There was no rule of
law, in spite of the fact that there were constitutions and courts, judges and the concept
of jurisprudence.
The current Secretary of State of the United States, Mr Mike Pompeo, recently addressed
an audience of American students and told them that his former department, the Central
Intelligence Agency, of which he was the Director from 2017 until 2018, routinely "lied,
cheated and stole" as and when it suited or the occasion demanded. Mike Pompeo is another
American official who studied at and graduated from the Harvard Law School.
This Massachusetts institution has had scores of it's students graduate and pass
through, onwards and upwards into positions of authority in the halls of power. It is
difficult to see what ethical foundations were laid down in those formative years of
studying the law in the seminars of that Cambridge campus. Three alumni of Harvard Law
School who have recently served and continue to serve in some of the highest offices of the
United States, have done irreparable damage to a number of countries and have done so by
breaking every international law that existed to protect them. They did this
unapologetically, in order, as Secretary of State Pompeo admitted in a rare moment of
candour, to "cheat and steal" from defenceless nation states and their helpless
populations.
Perhaps Harvard Law School is not the best place to send one's kids to learn about
ethics, democracy and the rule of law.
Couldn't help noticing that Guyaido looks like a frightened little bunny which just soiled
its underwear or is about to. Lopez seems to be in a similar state of near-panic. I don't
know why the govt doesn't just disappear them. They could be stuffed and embalmed and put
on display in the National Museum as a reminder that abject stupidity isn't a virtue in
Venezuela.
OK, both Random Guy and Lopez are openly committing armed insurrection and high treason.
Now is the time to arrest both, try in the courts (public and televised) for high treason.
Unlimited military force (as required) is fully justified in making the arrests. Not to do
so is appeasing the criminal actions of a foreign force attempting to use violence to usurp
the legitimate and democratically elected government of a sovereign state.
Until now there have been legitimate strategic grounds for holding off from arresting
Random Guy. No longer. They must be crushed with the full force of the law backed by
military power if necessary, and immediately prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
Limit the prosecution in the first instance to Random Guy and Lopez, and to High Treason
and military insurrection. All other charges and defendents can be tried later in a
separate trial, but these two need a straightforward and legally watertight conviction as
quickly as possible, so that there is then no rotting carcase of ambiguity left.
Trump won't be gaining any "wave" from attacking Venezuela. In fact, it stands to alienate
a large part of his base and energize the meekly antiwar Democrats.
It might be moot since it looks like this putsch has failed to get more support, and if
so Guadó will spend the next months in a cage.
Maduro didn't arrest random guy to deny the US an excuse to invade. The US was bluffing I
think but simply ignoring random dudecwas wise at that point.
But things have changed now. Lopez and Guaidó must be arrested and tried now.
Failure to do so would encourage additional coups.
This does indeed smack of desperation as a previous poster observed.
Remember the (if I remember correctly) supposed 1800+ Venezuelan soldiers being kept in
hotels in Cucuta, Colombia across the border? This and the white house rejection of the
Prince scheme show that some combination of the US, the Colombians, and Guaidó's
people have had little faith in the route of using that as the core of a contra force. Now
they might have to.
As for our boy Juan, presidente encargado, unless something drastic happens very soon,
he'll be wishing for some black helicopters to show up and pluck him off that bridge.
Unless, of course, being arrested is the plan. This may be a case of believing your own
propaganda - the opposition claims it's 90% of Venezuela. Maybe Guaidó truly
believed all he needed to do was orchestrate something like Prince's "dynamic" event and
the army would rally to Altamira with the masses in tow.
About a month ago, when his motorcade went outside of his east Caracas haunts and got
pelted by rocks, you had all the internet trolls denouncing it as staged.
You see, there are mafialike Chavista bosses, Cubans all, forcing the barrios to act
like they hate their beloved interim president. Maybe instead of taking the hint and
changing strategy, Juan believed his own spin.
Or maybe he did take the hint, and figures the struggle against Cuban oppression is
better waged from the dock than the streets, where he can force action from his allies and
supporters by claiming abuse. Time will tell.
The US media is really talking up this latest coup attempt by random guy, but I still don't
see the meat on it. successful coups are fast moving and depend on quickly seizing key
targets like media centers, power generators and most importantly of all seizing high value
government officials. Currently, it looks like Random Guy just found some more random guys
to stand around him and pose while he declares a coup. so this looks doomed to failure
within a few more hours (6-8), what really matters is what does the US do once it fails,
realistically, there aren't anymore sanctions they can put on Venezuela and Colombia has
made it clear they won't send their own army in to fight the US's war.
That basically leaves just Erik Prince's planned mercenary army or a direct US invasion,
previously Prince's plan had faced a lot of opposition so it is interesting that this
failure of a coup is launched right now. If Trump was ever serious about not starting
anymore stupid wars (and thus won't invade Venezuela before the 2020 elections) I imagine
he'll now be more supportive of the idea of loaning money to Random Guy's backers so that
they can buy Erik Prince's mercenaries and use them. Even if they use Prince's troops I
doubt that they will succeed, Prince's mercenaries might be good at massacring civilians,
but Venezuela has a massive civilian militia made up of the poorest citizens they will know
right away what Random Guy's mercenaries will do to them and their families if their coup
succeeds. So they will fight very, very hard. This could setup another Bay of Pigs type
situation for the US and their mercenaries.
Trump will be lied to by CIA and NSC and State, so if he okays this or really wants
this, it does not matter. He was couped and the Deep State uses him. He's happy being
POTUS. That is all that matters to Trump.
The uprising will depend on hundreds of thousands in the streets, not several
thousand.
The goal is hundreds of dead protesters.
Maduro has to snatch Guaido and put him on trial.
Looks like they are massing the people successfully.
The question for the moment is will the US agents and officers on the ground turn this
into a Venezuelan Tiananmen 2. They certainly know how.
Imagine trying to overthrow your elected government at the behest of John Bolton?
If anyone in the United States pulled a stunt like this - and, remember, the US is
packed with armed extremist loons like militias and survivalists and Aryan churches - they
would be stormed with federal agents and soldiers and either dragged away to prison in
chains or shot.
I am not exaggerating in the least. He would be charged with treason, and I think we all
know, from our memories of how the United States has treated prisoners at Guantanamo what
kind of treatment he would receive in prison for treason.
But the same United States not only thinks this is just fine to do in another country,
they encourage it.
Simply the most lawless of all advanced nations, that's America. Utter contempt for rule
of law and blind belief that American laws should overrule everything else everywhere.
So, what is Canada's Foreign Minister, Ms Chrystia Freeland - someone who has shamed
Canada with her fervent support for Washington's illegal activities in Venezuela - doing
today to assist Bolton and his unelected, self-appointed "president?"
If I were a Russian or Chinese strategist, I would be salivating at the thought of the US
willfully creating another Vietnam right on its own doorstep and throwing the only
Continent connected to it by a landbridge into complete upheaval and stark class warfare.
Class-based Civil War could easily spread to Brazil, Colombia, and beyond, throwing the
lives of hundreds of millions of people into upheaval, all on Uncle Sam's dollar.
After the failures of Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya and the Ukraine, the several
million Latino refugees and the expenditure of another 6 trillion or so over the next
decade should be enough to throw the US itself into Civil War and Coup territory and finish
off its hegemony over EurAsia for good.
Don't give Maduro too much aid just yet. Sucker the US to commit its hand and go in,
then, as elsewhere, give just enough aid to keep the US in perpetual zugzwang as it slowly
bleeds itself to death.
Austerity and War for the Americas, OBOR and peaceful development for EurAsia.
"Maduro has to snatch Guaido and put him on trial."
This might be exactly what the U.S. wants Maduro to do. The arrest and/or imprisonment
of Guaido by the "repressive regime" could be the pretext for a sudden "popular uprising"
to which the "Venezuelan State" (ie. CIA operatives and hired assassins) responds
"violently." A small gathering in any city square suddenly disrupted by the gunfire death
of a dozen or so innocents--all miraculously captured "live" on cell-phone video and
streamed direct to social media--is all that it would take to give the US sufficient
domestic support for any further action. I suspect this action would not take the form of
direct US military action but rather the freeing of Erik Prince and his mercenaries upon
the dirty brown socialist peasants.
Maduro surely has anticipated that his arrest of Guaido is likely to play into US hands.
Guaido may be too stupid to know he is being used as live bait, or he may be simply being
coerced by his handlers to undertake increasingly reckless actions until Maduro bites.
I think the best thing Maduro might do would be to arrange for a public meetin and
reconciliation between him and Guaido away from his U.S. handlers. The US is not expecting
that and would then have to explain why they are opposed to the peaceable reconciliation of
the conflict. If Guaido feels he has become disposable to the US, he may not be
disagreeable to some kind of pardon and face-saving but largely superficial compromise.
The Rovian dictat We make our own reality (mutter it in growling mafia accent) is
shredded to confetti, or almost.
Look at Ukraine, a comedian who acts the part of a nobody guy propelled to a
presidential position in a TV show, is elected as president in RL!
Coluche was a French comedian who stood for president, 1980. Polls showed 16 to 25% of
the vote. (He was supported by Charlie Hebdo.. them again..)
His manager was murdered and Coluche withdrew.
He was then himself killed (1985) in mysterious, highly suspicious, circumstances. Won
awards for Best Actor and died because.. a truck..
Beppe Grillo is another comedian who created a Pol Party, the 5 Star, Cinque Stelle,
party in Italy (with another guy.) Grillo could not be elected, by law, because he has a
conviction on his blotter, for manslaughter.
Random Guy-do is within this landscape a feeble contender - a clown who pretends to be
serious! He has no acting credentials, nada. No self proclamation presence. A confused,
hapless, manipulated placeholder.
No way that is going to end well. For him. Maybe night - school acting classes? Ouch..
Idk. Operation Freedom, anyone who takes that on is pushed offstage..
Better to be a real clown! One can live on (Grillo) or die an honorable death
(Coluche)!
Venezuela's FM is wisely playing down the guilt of the thirty or so military personnel
involved in the coup. Such personnel were first described as likely deceived or misled by
Guaido and now the FM is explicitly claiming plan and execution of coup came from
Washington. The military personnel were not involved in its planning and so can be treated
mercifully. (Who knows if some of them weren't blackmailed to join in? We are dealing with
the CIA after all.)
MediaLens has this story today:
"A new report on April 25 by a respected think tank has estimated that US sanctions imposed
on Venezuela in August 2017 have caused around 40,000 deaths."
The question for Canadians is whether Freeland and Trudeau are ready to take ownership for,
say, 5,000 of those deaths..and counting. Toss them in with the thousands killed thanks to
Canadian assistance in Ukraine and a share of the daily carnage in Yemen and the bloody
nature of the Ottawa cabal begins to become clear.
According to reports, a group from Venezuela's Sebin intelligence service freed Leopoldo
Lopez from house arrest early Tuesday morning.
Lopez and Guaido could have been set up in a stunning black op. Get Lopez and Guaido to
come out openly and claim they're running a coup which is treason. If they stayed out of
jail previously will they stay out of jail now? Probably not.
BTW, it's interesting that today's events are being called a coup. The coupist, Guaid
and Lopez, have maintained the fiction that Guaido is president of Venezuela so in their
narrative, how can this be a coup implying they're the usurpers. Surely it should be a
counter-coup, which it obviously isn't so someone has fucked up big time. Perhaps John
Bolton and/or Elliott Abrams as they're both stupid and arrogant enough to do so.
Now, finally, after letting the clown run around creating a lot of noise, now that they
tried a hapless attempt at a military uprising will the government of Venezuela arrest,
imprison, and put on trial for treason the moron Guaido and the idiot Lopez?
Christian J Chuba , Apr 30, 2019 1:38:40 PM |
link
Where is the money we stole from Venezuela?
We keep hearing the Neocons saying that Maduro and his 'thugs' are thieves and robbing
the 'Venezuelan people'. The Administration has stolen many of their assets like Citgo and
given them to Guaido.
So where is that money, his bank account? I'd love to hear someone in the MSM ask Pompeo
that question.
Despite the sanctions, the Lima Group, the OAS, and the relentless public relations stunts,
all the self-declared "government" has to show for itself is thirty recruits standing on a
bridge. That's a poor result. Maybe all the smart think-tank people who dreamed up the
Guaido charade aren't actually so smart, or place too much faith in PR optics as opposed to
actual politics. The lack of smarts certainly characterizes the Venezuelan opposition - who
would want these people to be in charge of anything?
Credit to Mexico for retaining clearly articulated principles, as displayed at OAS
recently.
to steve keith # 7 and anitspin # 12 - School of International Atrocities is just right.
Remember Haaahvaaad gave us napalm which was field tested in North Korea, along with other
such treats as Larry "Garbagemen" Summers, and MacGeorge "Green Ford Foundation" Bundy. "
Fight fiercely Harvard, do...." ah yes, and Geo "Is Our Children Learning" Bushboy.
Wonderful.
Photograph Source: US State Department – Public Domain
If you're in the market for a troika of tyranny, Donald Trump, John Bolton, and Mike Pompeo
certainly fit the bill. Or, if you'd rather focus on countries not individuals, you might
single out Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt as the three most likely
candidates. Perhaps, if you're in a confessional mood, how about Christian fundamentalism,
Jewish extremism, and Salafist Wahhabism?
A troika, for those who haven't read any 19th-century Russian novels recently, is a carriage
drawn by three horses. So, the ultimate troika of tyranny, from the point of view of the planet
as a whole, would feature the three horsemen of the ongoing apocalypse: climate change, nuclear
proliferation, and global pandemic.
But no, that's not what National Security Advisor John Bolton had in mind when he talked
last week of a "troika of tyranny." In a rehash of a speech he gave
in November in Miami , Bolton declared
last week that the "troika of tyranny -- Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua -- is beginning to
crumble." Further laying on the insults, Bolton called Cuba's Miguel Díaz-Canel,
Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro, and Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega "the three stooges of
socialism."
Ever since George W. Bush included Iraq, Iran, and North Korea in an "axis of evil,"
speechmakers have been in search of the holy grail of geopolitical matchmaking (for instance,
Condoleezza Rice's "outposts of tyranny").
Bush's phrase, which proved so enduring, was an extraordinarily flawed piece of work. The
three countries he grouped together had little to no relationship at the time. Iraq and Iran
had fought a nearly decade-long war that left them bitter regional rivals. North Korea, which
has no ideological affinity to either country, was probably included in the list so that it
didn't appear anti-Islamic. This particular axis didn't have a leg to stand on.
Bolton's more alliterative phrase suffers from the same conceptual problems. Worse, it
revives an anti-Communist crusade that could easily expand to include North Korea, China, and
any left-leaning country (New Zealand?) that makes the mistake of looking at Bolton funny.
A New Monroe Doctrine?
Trump understands the world in terms of three types of leaders. There are the autocrats he
like. There are the autocrats he doesn't like. And then there are all the rest: the democrats
he doesn't respect.
Cuban leader Miguel Díaz-Canel is one of those autocrats that Trump doesn't like.
It's not Díaz-Canel's ideology that rubs the American president the wrong way. After
all, Trump has no problem praising China's Xi Jinping or falling in love with North Korea's Kim
Jong Un. Rather, Cuba made the unpardonable error of negotiating a détente with Trump's
predecessor, Barack Obama. So, by the logic of the Trump administration, Cuba is guilty by
association.
Over the last two-plus years, Trump has rolled back the elements of the agreements that the
Obama administration negotiated with Cuba that culminated in diplomatic recognition in July
2015. The Trump administration has restricted travel to the country, the amount of money that
Cubans in America can remit to their families back home, and the deals that U.S. businesses can
negotiate with Cuban counterparts. Also, the administration will now allow U.S. entities to
file lawsuits against foreign companies operating on property appropriated by the state after
the 1959 revolution.
The Obama policy was all about nudging Cuba in a particular direction. More people-to-people
contact would increase the free flow of information. More business deals would encourage the
growth of market activities. Meanwhile, unrestricted remittances would help Cubans deal with
the myriad difficulties of everyday life.
The Trump administration isn't interested in nudging Cuba in a particular direction. Its
punitive measures are designed to encourage regime change, pure and simple. The decision to
allow lawsuits to go forward is aimed at scaring off European investors in particular who've
been operating in Cuba despite decades of U.S. sanctions and embargo. In response, Spain
wants the
EU to challenge the new U.S. policy at the World Trade Organization.
Bolton never liked Cuba. When he was undersecretary of state for arms control in the George
W. Bush administration, Bolton
accused the country of making biological weapons. This accusation came only two months
after Bush had inaugurated the "axis of evil," and Bolton was eager to shoehorn Cuba into the
new group. But his efforts to designate the Caribbean island a "terrorist threat" -- and
prepare the ground for yet another U.S. invasion -- foundered when a congressional
investigation
turned up no evidence of a biological weapons program in the country.
Now Bolton is excited to have a second chance to group Cuba with two other countries that
have fallen afoul of the United States: Venezuela and Nicaragua.
Like the original members of the "axis of evil," they don't have much in common with one
another. Cuba is avowedly Marxist in orientation, with a Third World agrarian spin. Venezuela,
on the other hand, is a corrupt petro-state led by a leader who calls himself socialist but is
really just a klutzy kleptocrat. Then there's Daniel Ortega, who was once a socialist
revolutionary but has transformed himself into a Catholic dictator along the lines of Francisco
Franco.
None of these countries poses even the remotest threat to the United States. They have
dismal human rights records, but that hasn't been a concern for the Trump administration
anywhere else in the world.
So, why is Bolton bothering to waste his rhetorical flourishes on the trio? The national
security advisor claims that Cuba is propping up Maduro. He hints that Ortega's days are
numbered. Is Bolton campaigning to revive what had once been the traditional U.S. approach to
Latin America: invasion, occupation, regime change?
After all, his most recent "troika of tyranny" speech was timed to coincide with the
anniversary of the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba on April 17, 1961. And the audience for
his speech was similarly chosen with care: the Bay of Pigs Veterans Association.
When it comes to Bolton, war is always a possibility pretty much anywhere in the world. But
with the Trump administration focusing most of its wrath against Iran , the
"troika of tyranny" speech is probably not the opening salvo of a new, hyper-militarist Monroe
Doctrine.
Bolton likely has a longer game plan in mind.
Expanding the Troika
You can almost see the lips beneath the walrus moustache purse in displeasure when Donald
Trump shakes hands with Xi Jinping, murmurs sweet nothings to Kim Jong Un, and has quiet
confabs with Vladimir Putin.
John Bolton has never concealed his
profound antipathy to the current government in North Korea. He wants to
rewrite the one-China policy and is willing to use military force against Beijing as part
of that effort. As for Russia, Bolton
believes that Putin is a liar and Moscow represents a serious long-term strategic threat to
the United States.
This, then, is the shadow "troika of tyranny" that John Bolton would roll out in a speech if
only Donald Trump's personal predilections didn't get in the way.
But that isn't stopping the national security advisor from carefully preparing the ground to
do just that as soon as Trump gets frustrated with Kim, Xi, and/or Putin.
Toward that end, Bolton carefully chose "troika" for his phrase: a Russian word that can
later be repurposed to suggest that Moscow is in fact at the root of these problems. And Bolton
is hammering away at the "socialist-communist" nature of the three Latin American countries,
which will prove enormously useful later on when expanding the troika to include North Korea
and China.
In the end, Bolton is after nothing short of a new Cold War.
Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua are small countries with no desire or means to attack the
United States. North Korea with its nuclear weapons, China with the world's second largest
military, and Russia with its geopolitical ambitions, on the other hand, are much worthier
adversaries.
Prolonged conflict with these three will keep militarists like Bolton in business for
decades. As importantly, Bolton can use these larger confrontations to unravel all
international institutions, all forms of international cooperation, in fact anything that
smacks of an international community.
With all eyes focused these days on Trump and his myriad crimes, John Bolton's speeches are
a reminder that even worse options are waiting in the wings. Join the debate on
Facebook More articles by: John Feffer
John Feffer is the director of Foreign Policy
In Focus , where this article originally appeared.
"... It's the US ruling elite that are the true deplorables. ..."
"... The war on civilization is never a failure for as long as the invader wins. Winning in this case means toppling a government, destabilizing an economy and dividing a population then leaving a country in chaos. It's not a foreign policy failure for the U.S. That is the policy working exactly as intended. All the talk later, where they claim that they had "bad intel" or they "made mistakes" or "miscalculated" is complete bullshit. They know what they're doing. If they didn't, they wouldn't keep doing it over and over in the exact same way. ..."
"... {A titular ruler, or titular head, is a person in an official position of leadership who possesses few, if any, actual powers. Sometimes a person may inhabit a position of titular leadership and yet exercise more power than would normally be expected, as a result of their personality or experience} ? ..."
"... They'd follow the money if they really wanted to end the terrorism. In that regard, bombing Raqqa to hell was sure convenient as USA destroyed all the evidence - or at least they can make that claim. ..."
"... So he gets trotted out just in time to revive the "ISIS threat", and take the blame for various recent funny-smelling terrist attacks, people going to odd places like New Zealand and Sri Lanka to vent their spleens at Muslims and Christians, respectively. I have half-a-suspicion somebody is trying to get a religious war of some sort going. ..."
"... we're talking 1 and a half million dead so far in Iraq and Afghanistan...and that's being conservative. ..."
"... Where? Where was it published? On what platform? Is it really that hard to trace the IPs? Turkey is really determined to get those S-400s. The Empire first threatened to withhold F-35s, then to impose sanctions, then to expel Turkey from NATO, then to move its bases to Greece. Still, Turkey wouldn't budge. Time to deploy some good old terrorism, so that the Empire will be obliged to come in and "help". ..."
"... I have long believed that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi actually is associated either with Moss ad or the CIA. That's why he's had so many miracle escapes. That's why they never catch him and often don't even know where he is. And we know that his ISIS never, never attacks Israeli targets or fat Saudi Prince targets. ..."
"... Those would in fact be the targets of choice for any genuine jihad movement. Not Syria or Iraq, which are two states Israel has wanted to harm or eliminate for years. ISIS has always been a fraud, a very complex and deadly one, but a fraud. ..."
"... Many years ago, even before this character posed as a "Syrian rebel" who was photographed meeting with John McCain, he was outed as a Mossad agent by the name of Simon Elliot. ..."
"... Al Jazeera "can't confirm the authenticity of the video." ..."
"... A history of Wahhabism which is a problem for the globe; https://ahtribune.com/religion/155-a-history-of-wahhabism.html The KSA, whose ass the empire kisses daily, is the main funder for these clowns. ..."
What's the Wonder my dear?
Duh!
He is in CIA safe house in Al-Anbar.
ISI is looking for this CIA's "Patsy" hide out. Watch this space, he has blood of 14
Pakistani soldiers on his hands via Iran hit. We will end this MOSSAD Agent.
The one hundred thousand people that died in Iraq and Afghanistan due to terrorist
activities would certainly agree that the trillions of dollars that have been spent on the
War on Terror has done very little to remove the spectre of terrorist activities from their
homes, cities and nations.
Sally Snyder: The war on terror is a war of terror and in that sense, though morally
reprehensible and costly, has been success. Regime change and the destabilization of the
Middle East has been the goal.
It's the US ruling elite that are the true deplorables.
War on terror was the war on an entire civilization. Association/Replacement of the word
terror was just for the public consumption. It's a simple strategy that makes the
aggressors appear like the good guys who are there to defend themselves or the values they
hold.
The war on civilization is never a failure for as long as the invader wins. Winning in
this case means toppling a government, destabilizing an economy and dividing a population
then leaving a country in chaos. It's not a foreign policy failure for the U.S. That is the
policy working exactly as intended. All the talk later, where they claim that they had "bad
intel" or they "made mistakes" or "miscalculated" is complete bullshit. They know what
they're doing. If they didn't, they wouldn't keep doing it over and over in the exact same
way.
War on the civilizations yields massive benefits. It's the shortcoming of the model of
the western civilization that it continuously requires massive input that can't be achieved
by the legal means of business and trade.
Auntie Gina the tit ular head of Al-CIA-duh/ Al Qaeda/ ISIS?
{A titular ruler, or titular head, is a person in an official position of leadership
who possesses few, if any, actual powers. Sometimes a person may inhabit a position of
titular leadership and yet exercise more power than would normally be expected, as a result
of their personality or experience} ?
They'd follow the money if they really wanted to end the terrorism.
In that regard, bombing Raqqa to hell was sure convenient as USA destroyed all the
evidence - or at least they can make that claim.
So he gets trotted out just in time to revive the "ISIS threat", and take the blame for
various recent funny-smelling terrist attacks, people going to odd places like New Zealand
and Sri Lanka to vent their spleens at Muslims and Christians, respectively. I have
half-a-suspicion somebody is trying to get a religious war of some sort going.
They don't seem to be having that much success with getting that war going, so I expect
the attacks will go on.
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, self declared caliph of ISIS, appeared in new video
published today.
Where? Where was it published? On what platform? Is it really that hard to trace the
IPs? Turkey is really determined to get those S-400s. The Empire first threatened to withhold
F-35s, then to impose sanctions, then to expel Turkey from NATO, then to move its bases to
Greece. Still, Turkey wouldn't budge. Time to deploy some good old terrorism, so that the
Empire will be obliged to come in and "help".
I have long believed that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi actually is associated either with Moss ad
or the CIA. That's why he's had so many miracle escapes. That's why they never catch him and often don't even know where he is. And we know that his ISIS never, never attacks Israeli targets or fat Saudi Prince
targets.
Those would in fact be the targets of choice for any genuine jihad movement. Not Syria
or Iraq, which are two states Israel has wanted to harm or eliminate for years. ISIS has always been a fraud, a very complex and deadly one, but a fraud.
Many years ago, even before this character posed as a "Syrian rebel" who was photographed
meeting with John McCain, he was outed as a Mossad agent by the name of Simon Elliot.
The guy in recent picture looks like one of Rita Katz's actors.
It is a show to threaten Turkey with the same as Sri Lanka (where they refine lots of
Iranian crude...and more...look it up). Many ties to Iran/Sri Lanka....and to Turkey.
Typical nazi thugs....bribes, arson, dynamite...and patsies...in this case maybe mossad
actor? Why not> Cui Bono?
As to the locus of the actor? Paramount? Warner Bros? Probably not. Does it matter?
They're parading a ringer...don't fall for the gag. Erdo won't fall for it either.
Baghdadi has nice toys by his side and not just the AK-47 with the camo bit over the
barrel. It looks like a camo case on night vision gear (or vidcam?) just below that, too.
To quote the Joker: "Where does he get those wonderful toys?"
Ahh a new game of "where in the world is ..." except instead of bin Laden (or his
stand-in) the guest in Pakistan living near a military base we have Baghdadi. Maybe
Baghdadi lives in that area, too. (awaiting his execution for the media and masses). I
doubt it though. I'm thinking Turkey or even Saudi Arabia.
... This move by Baghdadi could backfire in a big way. Got my popcorn ready. Posted by: Jackrabbit | Apr 29, 2019 5:06:26 PM | 19
It does seem unnecessarily cheeky/ fishy.
If 'they' had fiendishly brilliant plan, why wouldn't they'd just do it and leave it to the
intel wonks to figure out what went wrong?
It's big news in the J-C International media.
Al Jazeera "can't confirm the authenticity of the video."
Considering that this 'study' is an overblown version of the Real Men Go to Tehran
delusion (which is STILL in the pondering phase) it's hard to ignore the trepidation revealed
in an assessment divided into pseudo business-like categories of...
1. Likelihood of Success
2. Benefits
3. Costs & Risks
...when there are sufficient unresolved uncertainties to be fine-tuned to keep this plan
bogged down in the pondering phase for even longer than the unconsummated Real Men Go To Iran
nothing-burger.
As the US continues to attack the Maduro government, keep these special interests in mind.
Think about who gets rich off of the regime-change agenda. It's the same people that said we
had to invade Iraq in order to prevent nuclear apocalypse. It's the same people who said the
world would stop turning on its axis if we didn't carpet bomb Libya and Syria.
Now they're trying to get us to support war in Venezuela. You won't be any freer or more
prosperous after the Maduro government is toppled. It's just war propaganda.
Saddle the Venezuelan people with enormous debt to the IMF
The trojan horse for the return of neoliberalism in Venezuela, Juan Guaido, stated that he's
going to borrow money from the IMF to fund his government, which would make all Venezuelans
indebted to this predatory institution. Guaido spends the money and the poor and working people
work to pay taxes that pay off the principal and the interest.
The IMF was created in New Hampshire in 1945 to internationalize and standardize capitalism and
its rules in an increasingly globalized and US-dominated world.
Its primary function is acting as an international lender-of-last-resort to indebted countries.
IMF member states decide which countries will receive loans, but the member states with the
largest say are the ones with the largest share of the IMF's funds, which have always been the
United States and its allies.
This is why the IMF's standard "structural adjustment program" is based on the so-called
Washington Consensus. A set of 10 economic policies entirely concocted by US think tanks, the
IMF, the World Bank and the Treasury Department.
The Washington Consensus is as follows:
In exchange for a loan, often with a high-interest rate that many would call predatory, the IMF
overhauls the protective and redistributive policies of a country for neoliberal policies,
making the target country ripe for finance capital investment and profit-making.
Control the oil reserves
There's little doubt that the oil industry is pushing the US to overthrow the Maduro
government, especially when John Bolton openly states this on national television.
Bolton was himself once part of the oil industry, serving as the director of Diamond Offshore
Drilling, Inc. in 2007. So, he is no stranger to advocating for the interests of the
fossil-fuel industry.
Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world by far and Washington won't let that wealth
go unexploited, or worse, be shared among its enemies like the Maduro government, Russia,
China, or Iran.
And with so many politicians, Republican and Democratic, bought off by industry players --
companies like ExxonMobil, Koch Industries, and Chevron -- it's impossible to imagine anyone in
Washington advocating for Venezuela maintaining ownership over its own sovereign natural
resources.
Establish military dominance and arm your puppet
One of the most bizarre things about America is that it created one of the world's largest
private industries around arms dealing. And like any industry, whether it be JDAM bombs or
beef, private businesses often resort to lobbying Congress to squeeze political favors out of
the government in the form of subsidies. Or, in the case of the military industrial complex, a
foreign policy of endless war, one based on elusive ideas like combating terrorism or defending
democracy.
You can see that wherever the US goes, expensive construction projects follow. Behind every
multi-billion dollar base construction, some private contractor is there reaping the
profits.
Once the US military presence is firmly established, the weapons sales begin. And we all know
no US ally, or puppet state, is complete without a full fleet of Lockheed Martin F-16s. Then
they'll be able to fend off all of those pesky leftist rebels with freedom missiles.
With Venezuela's neighbors, Colombia and Brazil, growing closer to NATO and accepting US
military presence in their countries, we can only assume Venezuela is Washington's next
target.
As the strategic approach of regime change evolves, new industries arise to meet these
needs.
After the massive anti-war protests following the invasion of Iraq, outright invasion and
occupation were no longer viable strategies due to negative public opinion. Washington sought
to disguise war propaganda using humanitarian rhetoric.
Create the humanitarian alibi
Privately owned NGOs dedicated to human rights and promoting "American style" democracy have
played a much larger role in regime-change operations in recent years. They serve as soft-power
institutions, which attempt to subtly sway a population against its own government through
propaganda laced with words like 'freedom', 'democracy', and 'human rights'.
These NGOs are given the full blessing of the US government and the two often work in
tandem.
The US Agency for International Development's regime-change arm, the National Endowment for
Democracy (NED), funded opposition groups in Nicaragua, Venezuela (during the 2002 coup),
Haiti, Ukraine, and most recently China and North Korea. And whenever US foreign policy sets
its sights on a certain target, private industries usually develop to help meet that goal as
well as make a quick buck along the way.
For example, Thor Halvorssen -- the first cousin of Leopoldo Lopez, the founder of Juan
Guaido's party, Popular Will -- calls himself a human-rights activist. He founded the notorious
Human Rights Foundation (HRF) and makes a living giving speeches and TV appearances, talking
about why the governments of Venezuela or North Korea are not legitimate and need to be
overthrown.
Unsurprisingly, the HRF is funded by the conservative Sarah Scaife Foundation, which is itself
funded by think tanks like the top neoconservative think tank, the American Enterprise
Institute, as well as the Heritage Foundation. HRF is also funded by the Donors Capital Fund
and the Diana Davis Spencer Foundation, which are also funded by the American Enterprise
Institute. It's one big web of moving money that all leads back to the same cast of
characters.
The crisis in Venezuela has been a huge gift for people like Halvorssen, who use the US's war
on Venezuela to promote themselves and their organizations.
Buy the facts from the think tanks funded by the Military Industrial Complex
Like NGOs, think tanks also play an important role in giving regime change a sense of
legitimacy -- in their case, intellectual legitimacy. Think tanks rely on donations to operate
and many find willing donors among the capitalist class. These fat cats pay for fancy looking
reports meant to justify their desired goal: the delegitimization of socialist governments and
the legitimization of coup governments that uphold the Washington Consensus.
The Cato Institute has been deeply involved in the attempted overthrow of the Venezuelan
government. In 2008, Cato awarded Venezuelan opposition leader, Yon Goicoechea, the Milton
Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty and $500,000 for his role in disrupting a constitutional
referendum in Venezuela. That money was used to finance the political rise of Juan Guaido, and
his clique known as Generation 2007.
These seemingly independent research groups have intimate networks that they leverage to
amplify the message their donors have given them.
Whether it was the bank bailouts following the 2008 crisis, or the lack of action on climate
disaster, in America it seems the government always puts the interests of the rich ahead of the
poor and working class, and the situation in Venezuela is no different.
"... Plenty of people still fool themselves into believing Trump has been captured by the deep state and is only going along with them to stay alive. Bunk. Ever since Trump sat in the power chair he willingly joined the deep state. He's even going one further and his goal is a one world government led by the US. He knows the American populace won't condone a new war so his weapons are sanctions, the dollar, and trade wars. All viable tools as long as the US continues to control the financial system. ..."
It's complete fiction that the US is going after Venezuelan oil so as to confront Iran. If
Maduro goes so does Venezuela as civil war erupts and spreads to other countries. No oil
company is going to put itself and it's employees in such a danger zone.
It is also complete fiction that Trump was against going after Venezuela as he has been on
them almost from day one and every time Trump announces more sanctions or makes threats he's
as giddy as a kid in a candy store and relishes handing out the pain. In one of his latest
speeches to a gathering of the faithful he not only gleefully stomped on Venezuela but also
announced the US is going to overthrow the governments of Cuba and Nicaragua.
Trump was barely in office when the US undid the efforts by Obama to normalize relations
with Cuba and as of the first of the year put sanctions on Nicaragua.
This after NED and USAID last summer brought radicals from Nicaragua to DC for training in
riots and rabble rousing. Which they did after returning home. In his speech Trump claimed
that by overthrowing those governments this hemisphere will be the "only totally free
hemisphere in the world". If the plan was to get Venezuelan oil so as to shut off Iran the US
would have supported Maduro, Venezuela is no danger to US security, and offered to send in
the best engineers to get the oil industry rolling. The US is now sanctioning the tankers so
as to cut off even more revenue to Venezuela and deprive Cuba of oil.
Plenty of people still fool themselves into believing Trump has been captured by the deep
state and is only going along with them to stay alive. Bunk. Ever since Trump sat in the
power chair he willingly joined the deep state. He's even going one further and his goal is a
one world government led by the US. He knows the American populace won't condone a new war so
his weapons are sanctions, the dollar, and trade wars. All viable tools as long as the US
continues to control the financial system.
If the US does attack Iran it will be a Libya affair using only air power to cripple them
and cause internal chaos.
" Venezuela tops the list with 300.9 billion barrels of oil in reserve – but even
this vast wealth in natural resources has not been enough to save the country from its
recent economic and humanitarian crisis."
LOL, good one. It's BECAUSE of their vast wealth that they cannot operate a country free
of external interference, internal sabotage and the world's biggest bully attacking its
electrical generation and grid. We can't have a successful socialist economy with THAT much
oil, now, can we? And while Maduro did make some mistakes with the economy, it wasn't enough
to bring about this "economic and humanitarian crisis." No, that level of shitstorm requires
the intervention of the Yoo Nited States of America and "experts" on the region like Elliot
Abrams (why isn't he in jail again? Oh yeah never mind, two systems of law in this country)
and Mike Pom-Pom-Peon.
If the U.S. hadn't attempted coup after coup after coup, and actually let Venezuela's
little experiment in Chavismo socialism play out on its own, we'd probably be seeing a South
American version of Libya - at one time the richest country in Africa with healthcare for
everyone - before France and the Yooo Nited States decided to destroy it. Of course it's too
much to ask for a blog called "Visual Capitalist" to acknowledge this, and it's also pretty
much par for the course with the sour right who comes to ZH for their daily fix of liberal
bashing and rah, rah America is great! And so are (((they))). Of course.
You're way out of your depth on this topic. You wouldn't be able to point to a single
thing that Maduro did which would have had long-lasting consequences such as what we are
seeing now. Total moron - the Venezuelan masses wealth was stolen by the landed former
Spanish colonialists and their offspring, who then were given all the good oil leases, and
bailed on the country (sabotaged it on their way out - along with the food supply) as Chavez
started giving wealth BACK to the masses. You know NOTHING about Venezuela and like many
other things you parade around pretending to be some kind of expert while you're just a
typical zionist moron.
The US and our buddies have been cutting VZ off from any external capital, but more
importantly FREEZING their assets and preventing them from accessing THEIR OWN gold. If that
was happening to one of our so-called allies, we'd be calling it THEFT. You idiot.
But let's play - find me a source that backs your assertions. Point to paragraph and
sentence where your claims are laid out clearly for all to see. How did Maduro COMPLETELY
**** up Venezuela? Your turn...
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.
How would they reinstate that "talent" if it was being blocked and bribed not to go to
Venezuela by....you know who?
Chavez purged the firm because it was the same rich elites running it and threatening to
use it as a form of blackmail.
Failure to regrow human capital base? Is that a repeat of what you just said about PDVSA?
What does that even mean?
What about the US sanctions, freezing of their access to their own money, coup attempts,
sabotage, the rich cutting off the food supply chain, etc? Which of these things contributed
more to the current state of VZ?
President Chávez had to withstand three successive attempts to remove him -- the
2002 coup, 2002-03 bosses' lockout and the 2004 recall referendum. Five times he was
elected president, never with less than 55 percent of the vote, and overall he won 16 of 17
elections and referendums in which his movement participated. The election system put in
place by the Chávez government was declared by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter's
Carter Center to be "
the best in the world ." None of this prevented the late president from being furiously
denounced as a "dictator."
The latest, issued on January 28, freezes all property and interests of PDVSA subject to
U.S. jurisdiction -- in other words, blocking Venezuela from any access to the profits
generated by PDVSA's U.S. subsidiary, Citgo, or any PDVSA activities in the United States.
The Trump administration expects Venezuela
to lose US$11 billion this year, The New York Times reports.
and Maduro being a "dictator"
President Maduro is repeatedly called a "dictator," an epithet endless repeated across
the corporate media. But when a portion of the opposition boycotts, can it be a surprise
that the incumbent wins? The opposition actually asked the United Nations
to not send observers , a sure sign that they expected to lose a fair election despite
their claims that the election would be rigged. Nonetheless, a coalition of Canadian
unions, church leaders and other officials declared the election to be "a transparent,
secure, democratic and orderly electoral and voting process."
So yeah, you're on the same side of this issue as Barack Obama, George Soros and Hillary
Kkklinton. Hope you're happy with that company.
Have you ever noticed how whenever someone inconveniences the dominant western power
structure, the entire political/media class rapidly becomes very, very interested in letting us
know how evil and disgusting that person is? It's true of the leader of every nation which
refuses to allow itself to be absorbed into the blob of the US-centralized power alliance, it's
true of anti-establishment political candidates, and it's true of WikiLeaks founder Julian
Assange.
Corrupt and unaccountable power uses its
political and
media influence to smear Assange because, as far as the interests of corrupt and
unaccountable power are concerned, killing his reputation is as good as killing him. If
everyone can be paced into viewing him with hatred and revulsion, they'll be far less likely to
take WikiLeaks publications seriously, and they'll be far more likely to consent to Assange's
imprisonment, thereby
establishing a precedent for the future prosecution of leak-publishing journalists around
the world. Someone can be speaking 100 percent truth to you, but if you're suspicious of him
you won't believe anything he's saying. If they can manufacture that suspicion with total or
near-total credence, then as far as our rulers are concerned it's as good as putting a bullet
in his head.
Those of us who value truth and light need to fight this smear campaign in order to keep our
fellow man from signing off on a major leap in the direction of Orwellian dystopia, and a big
part of that means being able to argue against those smears and disinformation wherever they
appear. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find any kind of centralized source of information
which comprehensively debunks all the smears in a thorough and engaging way, so with the help
of hundreds of
tips from my
readers and social media followers
I'm going to attempt to make one here. What follows is my attempt at creating a tool kit people
can use to fight against Assange smears wherever they encounter them, by refuting the
disinformation with truth and solid argumentation.
This article is an ongoing project which will be updated regularly where it appears on
Medium and caitlinjohnstone.com as new information comes in and new smears spring up in need of
refutation.
Assuming that it is correct, who might be the most likely culprit?
Making that assumption, I want to focus on this part:
The U.S. embassy in Kuwait contacted a contracted private company to send the
package to the U.S. on board of an American airline.
Government is evil. Therefore hiring enough vetted US citizens to run an embassy is to be
avoided if a Private Company can be paid to do the same job. It's been done in the Military.
NASA. National Intelligence has been "privatized". (think Edward Snowden)
What shocked me most from the recent story here about Torturer Gina Haspel lying to Trump
wasn't that she did it. The woman has no scruples at all, and her misbehavior is hardly a
surprise. The NYT piece was just another story about an ignorant old man who can be easily
managed. No, here is the part which jumped out at me.
"Houseflies buzzing around the Oval Office were drawing his attention, and ire.
After reading that I'd be surprised if there is a competent core of White House GOVERNMENT
workers remaining there. Nobody to manage the flying vermin. It took the director of the CIA
to send over some flypaper!
I doubt if the Trumpies could organize a 1-float parade, so the lax security could be
almost anywhere in the chain of events. But my present vote is on a Private Company. It might
be the transport company. If they don't have junior staffers in the Embassy to run simple
missions like delivering a package, they probably don't have an in-house cleaning staff,
either. So they may hire some locals to come in and mop and sweep the joint. Inexpensive
Outsiders.
Assuming that it is correct, who might be the most likely culprit?
Making that assumption, I want to focus on this part:
The U.S. embassy in Kuwait contacted a contracted private company to send the
package to the U.S. on board of an American airline.
Government is evil. Therefore hiring enough vetted US citizens to run an embassy is to be
avoided if a Private Company can be paid to do the same job. It's been done in the Military.
NASA. National Intelligence has been "privatized". (think Edward Snowden)
What shocked me most from the recent story here about Torturer Gina Haspel lying to Trump
wasn't that she did it. The woman has no scruples at all, and her misbehavior is hardly a
surprise. The NYT piece was just another story about an ignorant old man who can be easily
managed. No, here is the part which jumped out at me.
"Houseflies buzzing around the Oval Office were drawing his attention, and ire.
After reading that I'd be surprised if there is a competent core of White House GOVERNMENT
workers remaining there. Nobody to manage the flying vermin. It took the director of the CIA
to send over some flypaper!
I doubt if the Trumpies could organize a 1-float parade, so the lax security could be
almost anywhere in the chain of events. But my present vote is on a Private Company. It might
be the transport company. If they don't have junior staffers in the Embassy to run simple
missions like delivering a package, they probably don't have an in-house cleaning staff,
either. So they may hire some locals to come in and mop and sweep the joint. Inexpensive
Outsiders.
"... That fact is a very sad and disturbing commentary on what America is or has become. Tolerating torture and excusing such an activity in the name of national security is the same justification that Stalin and Castro employed to punish dissidents. ..."
"... Let me be clear about my position. If Gina was in fact the Chief of Base and oversaw the application of the waterboarding and other inhuman treatment then she lacks the moral authority to head the CIA. Unfortunately, the United States has a long history of overlooking human rights violations and war crimes. ..."
"... Students of WW II will recall that US military intelligence recruited and protect Klaus Barbie, the Butcher of Lyon, as an asset after the war. He murdered Jews and sent others to Auschwitz. He should have been hung. Instead, we turned a blind eye and gave him a paycheck. ..."
"... I've read that she enjoyed torture and mocked a prisoner who was drooling by accused him of faking it. I never knew anything about her sexual orientation but now I have to consider if she's so cruel because she hates men. ..."
"... Yes, waterboarding is torture. We considered it so egregious that we prosecuted Japanese military officers after WWII for using it on POWs. ..."
"... just reinforces the feeling that those at the upper echelons are completely out of touch or alternatively are just lying/posturing to present themselves in a better light. ..."
"... A torturer is a torturer, no matter how one try to glaze it, or sugar coat it. If one is against torture, or the fancy name for it EIT, one should come out and say it like it is. This lady is accused of torturing captives ( enemy combatant) that can't and will not go away unless she come clean. ..."
Before Gina became the Chief of Staff for Rodriguez, what role did she play in the waterboarding of two AQ operatives in Thailand?
It appears that she was at least witting of what was going on. Did she have the authority to decide what measures to apply to the
two? Did she make such decisions?
Those are facts still to be determined. I am inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt. But there are others who I respect
that are adamant in opposing her nomination. The only thing I know for sure is that her nomination will be a bloody and divisive
political battle. If it comes down to embracing waterboarding as an appropriate method to use on suspected terrorists, then a majority
of Americans are supportive of that practice and will cheer the appointment of Haspel.
That fact is a very sad and disturbing commentary
on what America is or has become. Tolerating torture and excusing such an activity in the name of national security is the same justification
that Stalin and Castro employed to punish dissidents. It is true that one man's terrorist is another woman's freedom fighter.
Let me be clear about my position. If Gina was in fact the Chief of Base and oversaw the application of the waterboarding
and other inhuman treatment then she lacks the moral authority to head the CIA. Unfortunately, the United States has a long history
of overlooking human rights violations and war crimes.
Students of WW II will recall that US military intelligence recruited and protect Klaus Barbie, the Butcher of Lyon,
as an asset after the war. He murdered Jews and sent others to Auschwitz. He should have been hung. Instead, we turned a blind eye
and gave him a paycheck.
I've read that she enjoyed torture and mocked a prisoner who was drooling by accused him of faking it. I never knew anything about her sexual orientation but now I have to consider if she's so cruel because she hates men.
IIRC, Haspel was the chief of staff to whom Rodriguez refers. That does not sound like a bit player. Would you say that Kelly
is a bit player in the Trump admin? As you say, we should know the facts, but so far it looks like she both participated in torture
and in its cover-up.
With all the crap going on at the FBI, the last thing we need now is a divisive candidate for any top level government position
(torture advocacy is divisive for many of us).
A woman, a lesbian, who cares as long as they are a capable and decent law-abiding
individual.
Yes, waterboarding is torture. We considered it so egregious that we prosecuted Japanese military officers after WWII for using
it on POWs.
And where do you get "admitted" terrorists from? In America, even with suspected terrorists, there is the principle
of innocent until proven guilty. At least we once believed in that standard.
And I very much respect you for your position on this (it is this American's view as well).
What amazes me (and yet doesn't) is the example of Rodriguez's supposed introspection "How bad could this be?" Really?!? That
just strikes me as not having any feel for the media, US citizenry, or even common sense, and just reinforces the feeling that
those at the upper echelons are completely out of touch or alternatively are just lying/posturing to present themselves in a better
light.
PT -- Thank you. Much to consider in these times. I come down on the "no torture and waterboarding is torture" side of the debate
but am also just eager for some competence and professional experience in key positions.
That these positions may be mutually
exclusive says a great deal about our current situation. Again, thank you, for your opinions and information.
A torturer is a torturer, no matter how one try to glaze it, or sugar coat it. If one is against torture, or the fancy name for
it EIT, one should come out and say it like it is. This lady is accused of torturing captives ( enemy combatant) that can't and
will not go away unless she come clean.
At the end of the day that don't matter, since as a policy, and base on your own statement,
this country's government will prosecut and punish for liking of torture but not torture and tortures. And, furthermore, is not
even willing to do away with it, per it's elected president. Trying to show a clean, moral, democracy on the hilltop image, is
a BS and a joke.
Yeah, my eyes almost popped out of my head as I read it in the news. Direct brazen
manipulation of your boss, who happens to be a commander in chief of a nuclear power. And
no, I don't hear any howls about treason and conspiracy from across the pond.
"Haspel showed pictures the British government had supplied".
This would indicate, if true, that the Brits desired to manipulate and used the CIA here
mainly as conduit to influence Trump. It would make more sense, historically as well,
interpreting causality and motive this way.
"... The idea that Trump was kidded along in this way with photos of suffering children is similar to that which allegedly persuaded him to bomb Syria (along with the UK and France) after the more recent also alleged Douma chemical weapons attacks. So who actually was telling him porkies and why or is this just another myth to prove Trump's crassness – in which case there is no need to make anything up. ..."
"... Trump doesn't give a toss about suffering children or suffering anyone else, so it's not likely that he was persuaded by the kind of argument that runs from injured children to the need for US diplomatic action. ..."
"... Trump forgets he lies in minutes. He'd not heard about Julian Assange? If I was reporter I would have played him his words from my laptop and ask: Mr President is this you or a fake President? ..."
"... Actually he is a fake President as most US Presidents are. The man's a dunce. I thought after George W Bush US Presidents couldn't get any worse but know history hits us up the backside with a banjo yet again. ..."
I took note when I read that on the Guardian website late last night. What struck me was
the treatment of the statement as if it could be true, but in more than one way.
The idea that Trump was kidded along in this way with photos of suffering children is
similar to that which allegedly persuaded him to bomb Syria (along with the UK and France)
after the more recent also alleged Douma chemical weapons attacks. So who actually was
telling him porkies and why or is this just another myth to prove Trump's crassness –
in which case there is no need to make anything up.
Even if the story is true, the article accepts it as fact and in no way qualifies it,
which is just plain misrepresentation as Craig points out.
The reference to the two Russian operatives at that time is certainly a give away one way
and another – but nothing in the article to highlight that inconsistency.
Strange timing too for the appearance of the article too. No doubt there will be a
response from the Russian Embassy.
Trump brings together stupidity, narcissistic mental illness and obnoxiousness such that
when an official has to deal with him their attitude must surely be to tell the moron
whatever gets him to do what they want as soon as possible, so they don't have to spend any
more time than necessary in a room with him.
He lies all the time – the guy can't stop
lying – nobody wants to spend time with a person like that – even his wife can't
stand the sight of him – and it doesn't matter what it is that you tell him or show
him.
Trump doesn't give a toss about suffering children or suffering anyone else, so it's not
likely that he was persuaded by the kind of argument that runs from injured children to the
need for US diplomatic action.
The question is who was behind the anti-Russian side of the
Skripal story and why. Not much progress will be made without looking at the British
defence review and the huge increase in military spending that warfare interests have
moved Gavin Williamson's lips to call for.
"(E)xtremely clear CCTV footage of the duck feeding"? So there are fixed cameras watching
where the ducks swim in Queen Elizabeth's Park in Salisbury, are there? Because I haven't
been able to find even some lamp posts they might be secured to. (
Some images .) Which is not to say the Skripals weren't photographed. And how's the
Nikolai Glushkov inquest going?
Trump forgets he lies in minutes. He'd not heard about Julian Assange? If I was reporter I would have played him his words from my laptop and ask: Mr President
is this you or a fake President?
Actually he is a fake President as most US Presidents are. The man's a dunce. I thought after George W Bush US Presidents couldn't get any worse but know history hits
us up the backside with a banjo yet again.
Simple really: Show the video of the Skripal actively feeding the ducks – blank the
kids faces and we'll be able to see them in all of their pre poisoned glory.
All this has been done before by the MS – The London Bridge attackers – 7/7
and so on.
So why not show the video? Because it shows something(s) which they want to hide. I have my views as to why, as do others but once you start lying you have to develop a
good memory and ' British Intelligence ' is a misnomer.
Let us not for one moment forget: Yulia musty be alive somewhere. I reckon they did in
Sergei – serve him right for being a double (or triple) agent – but Yulia must
still be around. She TOLD US in her video she was fine and getting better.
Thank god for Craig Murray and the Off-Guardian, they have preserved our sanity over this mad
story, this maddest of British Intel cockups.
@Nicholas – I'd advise delaying the conclusion that it was a cockup, except in the
sense that in most military and intelligence operations something cocks up –
until we hear what happens with British military spending plans.
Someone said to me on Twitter that confirmation of Novichock was from a Mass Spec of the
nerve agent bound to some enzyme (probably acetyl cholinesterase). Is this really the
official line? If so it's rubbish. Whoever made such a claim was clearly no chemist. Acetyl
Cholinesterase weighs about 66700 Daltons and the nerve agent weighed, say between 200 and
400 daltons. Firstly a mass spectrum of the protein would be that of the protein plus or
minus anything upto about 300 water molecules Which makes the mass (69400 +/- 2700) and a
multitude of other possible ions or other factors bound to it. The error in the mass of the
protein clearly exceeds the mass of the nerve agent. Given that, because of the blinding
uncertainties as to what species are actually hitting the detector in the mass spectrometer,
no-one anywhere attempts to study ligands bound to proteins by mass spec and certainly not
one of this size, why would they do it in this case?
The CIA Director tells outright lies to her boss, who as a result approves a stern
national rebuke.
In a cartoon version of life where Dick Dastardly gets to be an intelligence supremo, and
a total dummy gets to be President, this would be highly likely. Needless to say, to believe
such a scenario would exist in the real world requires a massive suspension of logic.
More likely there's something coming down the track that requires Haspel, and or the CIA,
to be discredited prior to its becoming visible to the public ?
What could possibly be coming down the track that isn't comparable to what we already know
about Haspel and the CIA though?
If you can straight faced maintain support for an admitted and documented human rights
abuser who heads a non accountable government spy agency that has been extra judicially
torturing, assassinating and over throwing any who stands in its way for 70 years; what on
earth could be about to come out that's suddenly going to convince our bought and paid for
media, and by extension the general public, that these monsters have been discredited?
UK spooks are switching to damage limitation mode, with the help of the Deborah Haynes of
Sky and II:
"Update: UK security sources say they're unaware of children hospitalised because of
#novichok or wildlife killed in #Skripal attack. May have been a photo of a dead swan though
not evidence swan was killed by #Novichok. If that's true, I wonder what these images used by
CIA were! "
"... I was not in the least surprised at reports that a known torturer was slated to head the CIA, and I expected quick confirmation. Such is my opinion of our ruling classes. ..."
"... Whatever Haspel may be, we can be sure the CIA will continue to torture, detain people without charge, assassinate and terrorize with its own drone force, and cause mayhem around the world and at home. No one can be trusted with the Ring of Power. ..."
"... American Exceptionalism is perhaps the most toxic ideology since Nazism and Stalinism. It says that the United States is always virtuous even when it tortures, when it bombs towns, villages, cities in the name of "freedom or installs dictators, military governments, trains torturers, and, yes, rapes and loots in the name of "democracy." ..."
"... Fast forward to January, 2017 and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer telling MSNBC's Rachael Maddow that President-elect Donald Trump is "being really dumb" by criticizing the intelligence community and its assessments on Russia's cyber activities: Shumer: "Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you, So even for a practical, supposedly hard-nosed businessman, he's being really dumb to do this." No, Shumer wasn't joking. He was serious. ..."
"... There won't be a 'Nuremberg' tribunal because Al Qaida didn't defeat the United States, and you'd have to convict not just Ms. Haspel, but a sizeable portion of the U.S. Government. ..."
"... If nothing else, the appointment of Bloody Gina as CIA head finally drives a wooden stake through the heart of the myth that "we're The Good Guys(tm)!" or its cousin "all we gotta do is elect Team D and we can be The Good Guys(R) again!" ..."
"... I do not know whether to admire Mr. van Buren's idealism or be astonished at his naivete. Has he never heard of the School of the Americas, of sinister reputation, or the Condor Plan, aided and abetted by U.S. intelligence? People in Latin America know better than to believe the U.S. protestations of virtue. They know about torturers, and the U.S. support for them. ..."
"... She was put in charge there not long after and oversaw the waterboarding of at least one prisoner, and later followed orders to destroy the tapes of waterboarding at that site. Your claim that " She had nothing to do with torture anywhere" is incorrect. ..."
"... furbo: your contention that " US extreme interrogation techniques are not equivalent to forcible sodomy, beating the genitals, pounding the kidneys, or breaking bones" is wrong. The UN Convention against Torture, to which the US is a signatory, states " For the purposes of this Convention, the term "torture" means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person " Ask anyone who has been waterboarded whether that fits the official definition? ..."
"... Ceterum censeo: given that the Iraq invasion and occupation was an act of aggressive war in violation of the UN Charter and thus illegal under US law, it is not just torturers but also war criminals in government and general staff that have to be considered in the contexts of these words. ..."
Nothing will say more about who we are, across three American administrations -- one that demanded torture, one that covered it
up, and one that seeks to promote its bloody participants -- than whether Gina Haspel becomes director of the CIA.
Haspel oversaw the
torture of human beings in Thailand as the chief of a CIA black site in 2002. Since then, she's worked her way up to deputy director
at the CIA. With current director Mike Pompeo slated to move to Foggy Bottom, President Donald Trump has proposed Haspel as the Agency's
new head.
Haspel's victims waiting for death in Guantanamo cannot speak to us, though they no doubt remember their own screams as they were
waterboarded. And we can still hear former CIA officer
John Kiriakousay : "We did
call her Bloody Gina. Gina was always very quick and very willing to use force. Gina and people like Gina did it, I think, because
they enjoyed doing it. They tortured just for the sake of torture, not for the sake of gathering information."
It was Kiriakou who exposed the obsessive debate over the effectiveness of torture as false. The real purpose of torture conducted
by those like Gina Haspel was to seek vengeance, humiliation, and power. We're just slapping you now, she would have said in that
Thai prison, but we control you, and who knows what will happen next, what we're capable of? The torture victim is left to imagine
what form the hurt will take and just how severe it will be, creating his own terror.
Haspel won't be asked at her confirmation hearing to explain how torture works, but those who were waterboarded under her stewardship
certainly could.
I met my first torture victim in Korea, where I was adjudicating visas for the State Department. Persons with serious criminal
records are ineligible to travel to the United States, with an exception for dissidents who have committed political crimes. The
man I spoke with said that under the U.S.-supported military dictatorship of Park Chung Hee he was tortured for writing anti-government
verse. He was taken to a small underground cell. Two men arrived and beat him repeatedly on his testicles and sodomized him with
one of the tools they had used for the beating. They asked no questions. They barely spoke to him at all.
Though the pain was beyond his ability to describe, he said the subsequent humiliation of being left so utterly helpless was what
really affected his life. It destroyed his marriage, sent him to the repeated empty comfort of alcohol, and kept him from ever putting
pen to paper again. The men who destroyed him, he told me, did their work, and then departed, as if they had others to visit and
needed to get on with things. He was released a few days later and driven back to his apartment by the police. A forward-looking
gesture.
The second torture victim I met was while I was stationed in Iraq. The prison that had held him was under the control of shadowy
U.S.-trained Iraqi security forces. Inside, masked men bound him at the wrists and ankles and hung him upside-down. He said they
neither asked him questions nor demanded information. They did whip his testicles with a leather strap, then beat the bottoms of
his feet and the area around his kidneys. They slapped him. They broke the bones in his right foot with a steel rod, a piece of rebar
ordinarily used to reinforce concrete.
It was painful, he told me, but he had felt pain before. What destroyed him was the feeling of utter helplessness, the inability
to control things around him as he once had. He showed me the caved-in portion of his foot, which still bore a rod-like indentation
with faint signs of metal grooves.
Gina Haspel is the same as those who were in the room with the Korean. She is no different than those who tormented the Iraqi.
As head of a black site, Haspel had sole authority to halt the questioning of suspects, but she allowed torture to continue.
New information
and a redaction of earlier reporting that said Haspel was present for the waterboarding and torture of Abu Zubaydah (she was
actually the station chief at the black site after those sessions) makes it less clear whether Haspel oversaw the torture
of all of the prisoners there, but pay it little mind. The confusion arises from the government's refusal to tell us what Haspel
actually did as a torturer. So many records have yet to be released and those that have been are heavily redacted. Then there are
the tapes of Zubaydah's waterboarding, which Haspel later pushed to have destroyed.
Arguing over just how much blood she has in her hands is a distraction from the fact that she indeed has blood on her hands.
Gina Haspel is now eligible for the CIA directorship because Barack Obama did not prosecute anyone for torture; he merely signed
an executive order banning it in the future. He did not hold any truth commissions, and ensured that almost all government documents
on the torture program remained classified. He did not prosecute the CIA officials who destroyed videotapes of the torture scenes.
Obama ignored the truth that sees former Nazis continue to be hunted some 70 years after the Holocaust: that those who do evil
on behalf of a government are individually responsible. "I was only following orders" is not a defense of inhuman acts. The purpose
of tracking down the guilty is to punish them, to discourage the next person from doing evil, and to morally immunize a nation-state.
To punish Gina Haspel "more than 15 years later for doing what her country asked her to do, and in response to what she was told
were lawful orders, would be a travesty and a disgrace,"
claims one of
her supporters. "Haspel did nothing more and nothing less than what the nation and the agency asked her to do, and she did it well,"
said Michael Hayden,
who headed the CIA during the height of the Iraq war from 2006-2009.
Influential people in Congress agree. Senator Richard Burr, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, which will soon review
Haspel's nomination,
said , "I know Gina personally and she has the right skill set, experience, and judgment to lead one of our nation's most critical
agencies."
"She'll have to answer for that period of time, but I think she's a highly qualified person,"
offered Senator
Lindsey Graham. Democratic Senator Bill Nelson
defended Haspel's
actions, saying they were "the accepted practice of the day" and shouldn't disqualify her.
His fellow Democrat Senator Dianne Feinstein, ranking member on the Intelligence Committee, signaled her likely acceptance,
saying , "Since my concerns were raised over the torture situation, I have met with her extensively, talked with her She has
been, I believe, a good deputy director." Senator Susan Collins
added that Haspel "certainly has the expertise and experience as a 30-year employee of the agency." John McCain, a victim of
torture during the Vietnam War,
mumbled only that Haspel would have to explain her role.
Nearly alone at present, Republican Senator Rand Paul says he will
oppose Haspel's nomination. Senators Ron Wyden and Martin Heinrich, both Democrats, have told Trump she is unsuitable and will
likely also vote no.
Following World War II, the United States could have easily executed those Nazis responsible for the Holocaust, or thrown them
into some forever jail on an island military base. It would have been hard to find anyone who wouldn't have supported brutally torturing
them at a black site. Instead, they were put on public trial at Nuremberg and made to defend their actions as the evidence against
them was laid bare. The point was to demonstrate that We were better than Them.
Today we refuse to understand what Haspel's victims, and the Korean writer, and the Iraqi insurgent, already know on our behalf:
unless Congress awakens to confront this nightmare and deny Gina Haspel's nomination as director of the CIA, torture will have transformed
us and so it will consume us. Gina Haspel is a torturer. We are torturers. It is as if Nuremberg never happened.
Peter Van Buren, a 24-year State Department veteran, is the author of
We Meant Well : How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People andHooper's War : A Novel of WWII Japan. He tweets@WeMeantWell.
Covering up torture is quite possibly the worst thing Obama did. (I'd put it neck-and-neck with targeted killing.) This nation
desperately needs a president who will expose all of these horrors, and appoint an attorney general who will prosecute these acts
as war crimes.
Trump likes waterboarding. He said so himself. One assumes he meant, being a whimpering coward himself, when someone else does
it to someone else. But who knows? Enjoy judge Gorsuch.
"doing what her country asked her to do, and in response to what she was told were lawful orders"
To complete the parallel, we would need to prosecute and punish those who asked her to do it, and those who told her those
orders were lawful. Instead, some are doing paintings of their toes, some are promoted to be Federal judges, and some are influential
professors at "liberal" law schools. Why punish *only* her?
I was not in the least surprised at reports that a known torturer was slated to head the CIA, and I expected quick confirmation.
Such is my opinion of our ruling classes. I am in full support of Mr. Van Buren's thesis. However, Pro Publica, which seems
to have been the source of much reporting of Haspel's torture record, has retracted the claim that Haspel had tortured in Thailand.
Mr. Van Buren quotes another source from his blog that supports the thesis that Haspel is a torturer. How does one know what to
believe? Whatever Haspel may be, we can be sure the CIA will continue to torture, detain people without charge, assassinate
and terrorize with its own drone force, and cause mayhem around the world and at home. No one can be trusted with the Ring of
Power.
Its because we lost our sense of what makes us who we are. We are an empire that dances for private interests. In Rome they were
called families and led by patricians, they had money private guards, gladiators, and even street people supporting them. In the
Modern USA they are called Interest Groups and/or Corporations. They are lead by CEOs and instead of gladiators they have Lawyers.
Our being better matters less then their own squabbles which is why a torturer could reach the highest seat in intel. The majority
of Americans have lost their sense of being Americans instead they are Republicans, Democrats, etc, etc. Things that once use
to be part of an American have come to define us.
American Exceptionalism is perhaps the most toxic ideology since Nazism and Stalinism. It says that the United States is always
virtuous even when it tortures, when it bombs towns, villages, cities in the name of "freedom or installs dictators, military
governments, trains torturers, and, yes, rapes and loots in the name of "democracy."
At least this appointment along with the election of Trump shows the true face of the United States in international affairs.
When we face the fact we are (a) an oligarchy and (b) a brutal Empire we might have a chance to return to something more human.
Few readers, even of TAC, will want to look at our recent history of stunning brutality and lack of interest in even being in
the neighborhood of following international law.
CIA has purposefully refused to disclose Haspel's role for a decade+ They have selectively released information last week to discredit
those criticizing her. I don't think we should play their game, letting them set the agenda. Instead, I declaim torture itself
and any role she played in it, whether she poured the water or kept the books.
Does Peter Van Buren's criticism of the CIA's Haspel put him at risk?
In the 2003 film "Love Actually" the British Prime Minister (played by Hugh Grant) jokes with a Downing Street employee Natalie
(Martine McCutcheon):
"PM: You live with your husband? Boyfriend, three illegitimate but charming children? –
"NATALIE: No, I've just split up with my boyfriend, so I'm back with my mum and dad for a while.
"PM: Oh. I'm sorry.
"NATALIE: No, it's fine. I'm well shot of him. He said I was getting fat.
"PM: I beg your pardon?
"NATALIE: He said no one's going to fancy a girl with thighs the size of big tree trunks. Not a nice guy, actually, in the end.
"PM: Right You know, being Prime Minister, I could just have him murdered.
"NATALIE: Thank you, sir. I'll think about it.
"PM: Do – the SAS are absolutely charming – ruthless, trained killers are just a phone call away."
It's just a film. It's just a joke. But the joke works because the public knows that – in reality – the security services have
the skills-sets and the abilities, to do damage anyone they want to do damage to -- and to probably get away with it.
Fast forward to January, 2017 and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer telling MSNBC's Rachael Maddow that President-elect
Donald Trump is "being really dumb" by criticizing the intelligence community and its assessments on Russia's cyber activities:
Shumer: "Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you, So even
for a practical, supposedly hard-nosed businessman, he's being really dumb to do this." No, Shumer wasn't joking. He was serious.
Fast forward again to yesterday, March 17, 2018: Former CIA Director John Brennan wasn't joking when he reacted to the firing
of FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe -- and President Donald Trump's tweeted celebration of it -- by tweeting this attack against
Trump:
"When the full extent of your venality, moral turpitude, and political corruption becomes known, you will take your rightful
place as a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history. You may scapegoat Andy McCabe, but you will not destroy America America
will triumph over you."
Obama UN Representative Samantha Power followed up on the Brennan tweet with this:
"Not a good idea to piss off John Brennan."
When public officials and former public officials -- like Shumer, Brennan and Power -- make such public statements it must
necessarily have a chilling effect on public criticism of the security services.
After all, none of the three are joking. They're serious. And the American people know that they're serious.
Does Peter Van Buren's criticism of CIA operative Haspel put him at risk?
New information makes it less clear whether Haspel oversaw the torture of all of the prisoners at her black site, but pay it little
mind. The confusion is because the government refuses to tell us what Haspel actually did as a torturer. Arguing over just how
much blood she has on her hands is a distraction when she indeed has blood on her hands.
The idea is her participation on any level at the black site is sufficient to disqualify her from heading the Agency. If the
Agency wishes to clarify her role, as was done via trial for the various Nazis at Nuremberg, we can deal with her actions more
granularly.
Since we have not had any more successful attacks on the scale of 9-11, it is very easy to be scrupulous regarding rough treatment
of terrorists.
But if we had suffered a dozen or more such attacks, of increasing magnitude and maybe involving nuclear weapons, how many
of you would still be condemning Mrs Haspel et al.? Or would you then be complaining they had not used water-boarding enough?
The 20th hijacker, Zacarias Moussaoui, was caught weeks before 9-11. Investigators figured out he was up to no good, tried
to get permission to search his computer, but were denied. The U.S. Government carefully protected his privacy rights. So are
you pleased with the outcome, Mr van Buren?
I'm sorry – this whole piece is a massive non sequitur. Ms. Haspel has no 'blood' on her hands as US extreme interrogation techniques
(sleep deprivation, uncomfortable positions, waterboarding) didn't draw any. They are not equivalent to forcible sodomy, beating
the genitals, pounding the kidneys, or breaking bones. US techniques might have been bad policy – won't argue – but lets not fall
for a false equivalency.
Ms. Haspel was an agent of her government, acting on it's orders under it's policies and guidelines. Which leads to
Nuremberg. The Nuremberg tribunals (they were military tribunals – not trials) were conducted by a victorious military force
against a defeated military force. They were widely criticized as vengeance even by such august people as Chief Justice of the
Supreme Court Stone and associate Justice Douglas. There won't be a 'Nuremberg' tribunal because Al Qaida didn't defeat the
United States, and you'd have to convict not just Ms. Haspel, but a sizeable portion of the U.S. Government.
And lastly there's this from a comment of the authors: "The idea is her participation on any level at the black site is sufficient
to disqualify her from heading the Agency." Utter nonsense. That was the mission of the Agency at that time. It's like saying
a 33yr old Drone Pilot who takes out an ISIS/Al Qaida operative as well as 15 civilians is disqualified to be the Sec Def 2 decades
later.
If nothing else, the appointment of Bloody Gina as CIA head finally drives a wooden stake through the heart of the myth
that "we're The Good Guys(tm)!" or its cousin "all we gotta do is elect Team D and we can be The Good Guys(R) again!"
We demonize Russia at every opportunity, but I don't see Russia rewarding torturers by appointing them to high office.
I didn't know too much about this woman's background until I read that Rand Paul opposes her nomination. I tend to take notice
whenever Rand Paul holds forth on any subject. All I can say is that if her actual record even approximates what has been alleged,
then this woman is unfit for the post–Nuremberg or no Nuremberg.
"As we've proved, we're not better than them. Any of them." Oh, -PLEASE-, spare us the hyperbole! WE burn alive captives held
in cages? WE saw off their heads?
Thousands of US Navy and Air Force pilots have been waterboarded as part of their Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape
(S.E.R.E.) training programs.
All of the torturers should be brought to justice. So should all of the officials who ordered or authorized torture.
There is no statute of limitations on capital Federal crimes. For a U.S. citizen to kill via torture is a capital Federal crime,
no matter where the torture took place. If statutes of limitations make it too late to prosecute some acts of torture, it is not
too late to bring about some measure of justice by making torturers pariahs. As many sexual harassers have recently learned, there
is no statute of limitations in the court of public opinion.
The story linking her to torture has been formally retracted. She had nothing to do with torture anywhere. How about a retraction
of this story and an apology.
I do not know whether to admire Mr. van Buren's idealism or be astonished at his naivete. Has he never heard of the School
of the Americas, of sinister reputation, or the Condor Plan, aided and abetted by U.S. intelligence? People in Latin America know
better than to believe the U.S. protestations of virtue. They know about torturers, and the U.S. support for them.
Personally,
I prefer that the cruelty should be, as Lincoln once put it, "unalloyed by the base metal of hypocrisy"
bob sykes: you should read Pro Publica's retraction (
https://www.propublica.org/article/cia-cables-detail-its-new-deputy-directors-role-in-torture
) of the claim that Haspel was in charge of the Thai black site when Abu Zubaydeh was tortured. She was put in charge there
not long after and oversaw the waterboarding of at least one prisoner, and later followed orders to destroy the tapes of waterboarding
at that site. Your claim that " She had nothing to do with torture anywhere" is incorrect.
Winston: why do you suppose "thousands of US Navy and Air Force pilots have been waterboarded as part of their Survival, Evasion,
Resistance and Escape (S.E.R.E.) training programs"? Is it not to prepare them for the possibility of what we call torture when
used by our adversaries?
furbo: your contention that " US extreme interrogation techniques are not equivalent to forcible sodomy, beating the genitals,
pounding the kidneys, or breaking bones" is wrong. The UN Convention against Torture, to which the US is a signatory, states "
For the purposes of this Convention, the term "torture" means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental,
is intentionally inflicted on a person " Ask anyone who has been waterboarded whether that fits the official definition?
Wilfred, the problem was not that the Feds protected Zacarias Moussaoui's right to privacy. The problem is that it let any of
the 20 Arab Muslims into the US in the first place. Closing our borders and mass deportations would have been the best thing to
do in the aftermath of 9/11, not torture and invasions.
Very well put. Lest we forget: Bush also delivered the stern warning that "war crimes will be prosecuted, war criminals will be
punished, and it will be no defense to say, 'I was just following orders'."
Ceterum censeo: given that the Iraq invasion and occupation was an act of aggressive war in violation of the UN Charter
and thus illegal under US law, it is not just torturers but also war criminals in government and general staff that have to be
considered in the contexts of these words.
Chris Mallory (Mar 19 @1:47 p.m.), I agree with you. We shouldn't be letting them in.
But if someone had sneaked-a-peek at Moussaoui's laptop during the 3 weeks they had him before 9-11, we might have been able
to thwart the attack altogether. (And the Press has been strangely incurious about investigating whoever it was who issued the
injunction protecting Moussie's precious computer). This type of hand-wringing cost us 3,000 lives. Even more, considering the
Afghan & 2nd Iraq wars would never have been launched, were it not for 9-11.
"... Haspel is not the "underling" . Trump is the underling. Sure, being that he is also an oligarch makes Trump's role in the show complicated, but Presidents are installed in order to serve the oligarchy, and the CIA are top level strategists/enforcers for the oligarchy. ..."
"... In the real organization chart for the empire the CIA is above the President. This has been the case in the US since Kennedy. ..."
"... Trump will not fire Haspel. He can't. He's just an actor playing a role in a show, and Haspel is one of the producers/writers of that show. If she doesn't put firing in the script then Trump cannot say those lines. I doubt he really wants to anyway. ..."
"If Trump were not in on the schemes he would just fire his underlings!"
This sentiment indicates a failure to understand the power dynamics at play here. Haspel
is not the "underling" . Trump is the underling. Sure, being that he is also an
oligarch makes Trump's role in the show complicated, but Presidents are installed in order to
serve the oligarchy, and the CIA are top level strategists/enforcers for the oligarchy.
In the real organization chart for the empire the CIA is above the President.
This has been the case in the US since Kennedy.
Trump cannot fire Haspel or Pompeo. They can fire him, though, and with a sniper's bullet
if they want.
Unfortunately for the oligarchy, that would cause additional complications at a time when
they have lots of tricky and inexplicably unstable (for them) operations ongoing, which is
why they are just steering Trump around instead of replacing him. And Trump is willfully
cooperating, even if they are not filling him in on the plans.
Trump will not fire Haspel. He can't. He's just an actor playing a role in a show, and
Haspel is one of the producers/writers of that show. If she doesn't put firing in the script
then Trump cannot say those lines. I doubt he really wants to anyway.
"The media's interest in the well-being of a foreign population is directly proportional
to the West's interest in toppling its government, while editorial standards are inversely
proportional to its enemy status."--John McEvoy
So, lets employ this maxim to Russiagate and the Skripal Saga and the respective national
media. In the first case, the Russian public's completely ignored unless it's a member of the
so-called opposition while Putin and Russia get slandered constantly. The same treatment goes
for the UK media and a case could be made that the two act in tandem, implying
innerconnectivity between their spy agencies as suspected.
"... What's the real agenda though behind that article? It's to put Gina Haspel in a favourable light at the same time as it's criticising Trump. Is the NYT promoting Gina Haspel as someone who deserves a more influential position than the nation's top torturer? She wouldn't be the first such criminal being subtly encouraged to try for DJT's job in the future. ..."
"... I see it as a complex exercise in CYA. They need to reinforce certain narratives. ..."
"... As of almost 8 PM, there are 35 comments. In a national newspaper on a story like this? There must be a committee cherry picking them for "suitability" - the collection is as fake as the article. Wonderful Haspel at the head of an amazing CIA tutoring a clueless moron of a POTUS. The third part they got right. ..."
"... Why are they fluffing the torturer and the out-of-control CIA? Is something planned where they want both to shine in their future stories on that "something"? ..."
The New York Times article seems whiffy to me. (Is anything from the NYT not whiffy?) The
article is the work of no fewer than five writers and the part about Donald Trump being
swayed by pictures of sick children in hospital and dead ducks seems a bit like a game of
Chinese whispers.
What's the real agenda though behind that article? It's to put Gina Haspel in a favourable
light at the same time as it's criticising Trump. Is the NYT promoting Gina Haspel as someone
who deserves a more influential position than the nation's top torturer? She wouldn't be the
first such criminal being subtly encouraged to try for DJT's job in the future.
Better not play too many of those
"Call of Duty" video games either. You might find that being a pretend mercenary shooting
up innocent people in foreign lands is not just for the purpose of wasting a half of day on
mindless entertainment.
I see it as a complex exercise in CYA. They need to reinforce certain narratives.
>> The media was right about Trump: he has a soft spot for Russia.
>> Trump cares about people (and even ducks) - remember how he bombed Syria because
of the babies? Now Trump is super concerned about the people of Venezuela. What a
humanitarian!
>> Russia has no reason to oppose USA (in Venezuela or elsewhere) - they could just
contact their friend Trump! To do otherwise demonstrates malicious intent.
As of almost 8 PM, there are 35 comments. In a national newspaper on a story like this?
There must be a committee cherry picking them for "suitability" - the collection is as fake
as the article. Wonderful Haspel at the head of an amazing CIA tutoring a clueless moron of a
POTUS. The third part they got right.
Why are they fluffing the torturer and the out-of-control CIA? Is something planned where
they want both to shine in their future stories on that "something"?
Defending The
Revolution a short film about the People's Militia in Venezuela. Not gonna be easy.
And one more time,
Whitney Webb is doing a bang up job with this series:
This article is Part II of a multi-part investigative series examining the efforts of the
global elite, as well as powerful elements of the global Zionist lobby and the government
of Israel, to create an independent state out of Argentina's southern Patagonia region in
order to plunder its natural resources and to fulfill long-standing Zionist interest in the
territory that dates back to the "founding father" of Zionism, Theodore Herzl. Part I,
which focuses on the de facto "parallel state" created by British billionaire Joe Lewis in
Argentina's Patagonia, can be read here. Part II focuses on Eduardo Elsztain -- one of
Argentina's wealthiest businessmen, who is deeply connected to the global elite and global
Zionist lobbies -- and his role in a scheme to undercut Argentina's democracy by hijacking
its voting system.
See my "lost" comment at the end of OT 2019-20, #167
"... Even if Maduro were forced out by his current supporters in the military, it does not follow that Guaido or any other opposition figure would take over later. At that point, does the policy of forcing regime change continue shuffling forward like a zombie, or will the U.S. then accept a military government in Venezuela that is run by someone not named Maduro? How long does the U.S. keep trying to install its preferred government in power before admitting that it won't work? ..."
"... Since these haven't occurred, they have no plan except to strangle Venezuela's economy further through sanctions. Perhaps the best part is that the administration claims that Guaido is president of Venezuela, but that his presidency hasn't actually started yet. The administration's special representative, Elliott Abrams, claimed this in a press briefing last month , saying that the 30-day "interim" period of Guaido's "presidency" won't begin until after Maduro leaves office. ..."
"... Abrams' comments remind us of the shaky legal basis for everything that Guaido has been doing this year. As Noah Feldman pointed out shortly after this started, the provision in the Venezuelan constitution that Guaido invoked to claim his position as "interim" president was intended to apply in cases of death or incapacity of the incumbent president. It wasn't a loophole for declaring the presidency vacant when it is still very much occupied. Now because it is occupied, the official line is that Guaido's "interim" presidency hasn't really begun. Judging from how the regime change effort has been going so far, it probably never will. ..."
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Credit: StringerAL/Shutterstock
The Trump administration's statements about Venezuela are beginning to
sound eerily like Western governments' pronouncements about Syria over the last seven years:
The United States has no timeline for a change in government in Venezuela, a U.S. top official said, but is certain embattled
President Nicolas Maduro will not remain in power.
Almost three months have passed since the U.S. threw its support behind Guaido as "interim" president. During that tine, the opposition
has made no discernible progress in taking over, and the military remains firmly on Maduro's side for now. The administration has
no "timeline" for when Maduro will leave power because they and the opposition have no idea how to achieve the regime change they
are seeking, but that isn't stopping them from pursuing it anyway. Like the confident Western assertions from 2012 that Assad "must
go," the administration is "certain" of an outcome that seems increasingly unlikely to happen.
It is possible that the top military brass will eventually decide that it is better for them to rid themselves of the unpopular
ruler and retain power for themselves, just as Algeria's military did with Bouteflika and Sudan's military did with Bashir recently,
but there is no guarantee that this would lead to a "restoration of democracy."
On the contrary, a transition that depends so heavily on the military is much more likely to produce another dictatorship.
Even if Maduro were forced out by his current supporters in the military, it does not follow that Guaido or any other opposition
figure would take over later. At that point, does the policy of forcing regime change continue shuffling forward like a zombie, or
will the U.S. then accept a military government in Venezuela that is run by someone not named Maduro? How long does the U.S. keep
trying to install its preferred government in power before admitting that it won't work?
The absurdity of the administration's current policy is quite remarkable. They insist that Maduro is no longer president, but
the president they recognize controls nothing. The success of their ill-conceived regime change "plan" depended almost entirely on
mass defections from the military, but they have
found no way to spur
these defections.
Since these haven't occurred, they have no plan except to strangle Venezuela's economy further through sanctions. Perhaps
the best part is that the administration claims that Guaido is president of Venezuela, but that his presidency hasn't actually started
yet. The administration's special representative, Elliott Abrams, claimed this in a
press briefing last month , saying that the 30-day
"interim" period of Guaido's "presidency" won't begin until after Maduro leaves office. According to them, Guaido is the "legitimate"
president but has not yet assumed office:
QUESTION: So Juan Guaido is the interim president of an interim that doesn't exist yet?
MR ABRAMS: The 30-day end to his interim presidency starts counting. Because he's not in power, that's the problem [bold
mine-DL]. Maduro is still there. So they have decided that they will count that from when he actually is in power and Maduro's
gone. I think it's logical.
QUESTION: So then he really isn't interim president, then?
MR ABRAMS: He is interim president, but he's not --
QUESTION: With no power.
MR ABRAMS: -- able to exercise the powers of the office because Maduro still is there.
Abrams' comments remind us of the shaky legal basis for everything that Guaido has been doing this year. As Noah Feldman
pointed out shortly after this started, the provision in the Venezuelan constitution that Guaido invoked to claim his position
as "interim" president was intended to apply in cases of death or incapacity of the incumbent president. It wasn't a loophole for
declaring the presidency vacant when it is still very much occupied. Now because it is occupied, the official line is that Guaido's
"interim" presidency hasn't really begun. Judging from how the regime change effort has been going so far, it probably never will.
Nearly three months later, Venezuela's top-heavy military remains largely intact under
President Nicolás Maduro. The once-brisk pace of defections to neighboring Colombia
has slowed to a trickle. Fewer than 1,500 Venezuelan soldiers, relieved by the Colombian
government of their weapons and uniforms and housed in sparsely furnished hotel rooms near
the border, now sit waiting for something to happen.
The idea that the Venezuelan army would defect was always crazy. Anyone with a bit of
knowledge of Venezuela could predict that it would never do so. Reports of lonely soldiers
isolated in fourth class hotels in Columbia will not incite any further defections. While the
random opposition guy promised amnesty for any soldier moving to his site, the U.S. seeks to
arrest one of the few who did:
Venezuela's longtime spy chief was arrested Friday in Madrid by Spanish police acting on a
U.S. drug warrant a few weeks after he threw his support behind opponents of President
Nicolas Maduro.
...
The opposition saw Carvajal's criticism of Venezuela's socialist government as a stimulus to
prod other military figures to defect, but the country's armed forces have remained largely
loyal to current Maduro.
With the situation stalled the U.S. is ramping up talk of a military attack on
Venezuela:
EXCLUSIVE: Away from the public eye, the Center for Strategic and International Studies
(CSIS) think tank hosted a top-level, off-the-record meeting to explore US military options
against Venezuela.
Such talks are poor attempts to create some psychological pressure. There are no sound
military options. The U.S. is not going to invade Venezuela. It will ramp up sanctions and
press its 'allies' to do the same. Venezuela and its people will suffer but they will not give
up on resisting U.S. pressure. The current situation will only resolve itself when the regime
in Washington or in one of Venezuela's neighboring countries changes.
"... While Russia is being set up as the scapegoat of the collapsing western liberal establishment, this most recent red alarm by Freeland and Canada's response to the "danger" is useful for two reasons: ..."
"... First and foremost, Freeland's shameless warnings over "foreign interference" have become so loud that an irony has become unavoidable. She has after all been caught red handed behind the destabilization of both Ukraine and Venezuela. Secondly, by reviewing the mechanisms being created by Canada to counter-act this "threat", a clear insight is provided into the inner workings of the actual foreign influences which infiltrated Canada many decades ago. ..."
"... On the first point, Freeland's role as a co-architect of the nazi-fueled overthrow of a pro-Russian government in February 2014 is now well known. Aside from her family's Nazi connections going back to her grandfather Michael Chomiak's leading role as a Nazi collaborator in WWII, and her own mother's role in helping to draft Ukraine's neo-liberal constitution, Freeland herself not only befriended leading neo-Nazi collaborators such as Canadian Ukrainian Congress' president Paul Grod and but has also promoted NATO's anti-Russian expansion across eastern Europe. ..."
"... Freeland set up a program for regime change which involved a two-part formula of 1) mobilizing mass direct support for the overthrow of a government, and 2) gaining international support for said overthrow. ..."
"... Canada itself was infiltrated by a foreign player many years ago and what we will briefly see is that Canada can only be called the "world's first post national-state nation" because it never really became a genuine nation in the first place, but was always manipulated by a foreign power... although not the one you think. ..."
"... It is from this cybernetics central node that the web of governance both in Canada and also across other British infiltrated territories in the Trans-Atlantic system is coordinated under the directives of London. ..."
In the midst of one of the
most de-stabilizing scandals to rock Canada in years, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland
announced on April
5 that the threat of "Foreign interference" going into the October 2019 elections was at an all-time high. Sitting beside her UK
counterpart at a G7 meeting in France, Freeland stated:
"Interference is very likely and we think there have already been efforts by malign foreign actors to disrupt our democracy"
. Her warning was echoed by an embattled puppet Prime Minister in Ottawa who
stated it is "very clearly that countries like Russia are behind a lot of the divisive campaigns that have turned our politics
even more divisive and more anger-filled than they have been in the past. "
The Measures to Defend the British Deep State
In order to counteract this "foreign threat", several Canadian mechanisms have been announced to "keep democracy safe" in alignment
with the G7, Five Eyes and NATO. These mechanisms are:
The creation of an " Incident
Public Protection Panel " run by five Privy Council bureaucrats under the Clerk of the Privy Council which will exist outside
of the authority of the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada, whose job is to maintain the integrity of elections. In defense of this
mysterious group, Canada's Democratic Institutions Minister Karina Gould stated that "it won't be one person who will decide what
Canadians will be allowed to know" (apparently having five people decide is more democratic). The new Clerk of the Privy Council
is Ian Stugart, who served as former deputy minister to Chrystia Freeland until just a few weeks ago.
A
Security and Intelligence Election Threats Task Force which will incorporate all of Canada's intelligence agencies such as the
Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the RCMP, the Communications Security Establishment (CSE) and Freeland's Global Affairs Canada.
All of these agencies are Privy Council organizations.
The Rapid
Response Mechanism of the G7 created in June 2018 and headquartered in Ottawa Canada in Freeland's Global Affairs Office and
Privy Council Office.
While Russia is being set up as the scapegoat of the collapsing western liberal establishment, this most recent red alarm
by Freeland and Canada's response to the "danger" is useful for two reasons:
First and foremost, Freeland's shameless warnings over "foreign interference" have become so loud that an irony has become
unavoidable. She has after all been
caught red handed
behind the destabilization of both Ukraine and Venezuela. Secondly, by reviewing the mechanisms being created by Canada to counter-act
this "threat", a clear insight is provided into the inner workings of the actual foreign influences which infiltrated Canada many
decades ago.
Chrystia Freeland: Regime Change Princess of Ukraine and Venezuela
On the first point, Freeland's role as a co-architect of the nazi-fueled overthrow of a pro-Russian government in February
2014 is now well known. Aside from her family's Nazi connections going back to her grandfather Michael Chomiak's leading role as
a
Nazi collaborator in WWII, and her own mother's role in helping to draft Ukraine's neo-liberal constitution, Freeland herself
not only befriended leading neo-Nazi collaborators such as Canadian Ukrainian Congress'
president Paul
Grod and but has also promoted NATO's anti-Russian expansion across eastern Europe.
Working alongside fellow Oxford operative Ben Rowswell (now head of the Canadian International Council/ Chatham House of Canada)
during his three year tenure as Ambassador to Venezuela (2014-2017), Freeland set up a program for regime change which involved
a two-part formula of 1) mobilizing mass direct support for the overthrow of a government, and 2) gaining international support for
said overthrow.
Rowswell's on-the-ground work was designed to achieve the former as he himself admitted in
a 2017 interview saying "We became one of the
most vocal embassies in speaking out on human rights issues and encouraging Venezuelans to speak out" . Before leaving his post to
become the head of the Chatham House of Canada,
he tweeted "I don't think they (anti-Maduro forces) have anything to worry about because Minister Freeland has Venezuela way
at the top of her priority list" .
Working on fulfilling the 2nd part of the formula, Freeland directed the creation of the "Lima Group". A
Global News article of
January 24 described the group in the following terms:
"Playing a key role behind the scenes was Lima Group member Canada, whose Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland spoke to Guaido
the night before Maduro's swearing-in ceremony to offer her government's support should he confront the socialist leader".
It shouldn't be too surprising in our day and age that a nation with such a high reputation as "polite Canada" is actuality, an
active agency for regime change and global governance. Canada's very Prime Minister
did assert in 2016 that
"Canada is the world's first post national-state nation" . What may surprise some readers is that Canada itself was infiltrated
by a foreign player many years ago and what we will briefly see is that Canada can only be called the "world's first post national-state
nation" because it never really became a genuine nation in the first place, but was always manipulated by a foreign power... although
not the one you think.
The "Foreign Influence" Controlling Canada
While a longer presentation is needed to do this story justice, it is enough to note for now that neither Freeland, nor Rowswell
are operating on behalf of Canada's interests, but are rather both operatives run by an entity that took over Canada many decades
ago and are currently directed by two interlocking organizations: The Privy Council Office and the Rhodes-Milner Round Table Group
.
The Privy Council Office
The Privy Council office was set up in 1867 in order to act as the British hand guiding its newly formed confederacy (Canada nearly
became a part of Lincoln's America in the wake of the Civil War. The only thing stopping that outcome was Britain's creation of a
confederation. The full story is told in the
Imperial Myth of Canada's National
Policy. ). While its power was always great, there was still room for independent policy making by nationalistic elected officials
when the international conditions were favorable.
This was nearly entirely destroyed during the reign of technocratic golden boy Pierre Elliott Trudeau during his
1968-1973 reform of the Federal Government
under the guidance of the OECD's
Sir Alexander King. It was during this time Sir King's Club of Rome (Ottawa branch) was set up in Ottawa under the guidance of
Trudeau and his clerk of the Privy Council Michael Pitfield, and other neo-Malthusian technocrats such as Privy Council President
Michel Lamontagne, Maurice Strong, and Governor General Roland Mitchener.
It was from this control point in Ottawa in 1971 that the work later to become known as Limits to Growth was funded by tax payers
and which became the bible for the new Malthusianism and blueprint for the "post-industrial society". It is from this cybernetics
central node that the web of governance both in Canada and also across other British infiltrated territories in the Trans-Atlantic
system is coordinated under the directives of London.
this whole world wide medeling thing after our govs have been unashamedly meddling everywhere for years , it just shows thier
fear, they are loosing thier populaces and looking for scapegoats, i love it, times are changing
...will Canada follow suit in order to become a true sovereign nation freed of all foreign imperial influence once and for
all?
Ha ha (Bart Simpson style). Canada has, and will always be, a British-USA vassal-state (with a veneer of democratic elections).
Washington tells the Ottawa government to jump! After asking permission from the UK, Canada negotiates with America as to how
high - since the country is technically insolvent there isn't that much jumping room.
Russia is charged with bringing things in the open, to the light, instead of letting creatures of the dark skulk in shadows,
plotting, backstabbing, poisoning and conducting their "business" as usual. Because apparently democracy flourishes in darkness
and ignorance...
" it seems the usa is no longer willing to go full on.."
What is being missed by most is that we entered a new era March 2018 when Putin unveiled
his new toys. The u.s. is no longer the presumed supreme military power on the planet. Of
course they will not not admit this, but I believe we are approaching the moment when the
U.S. will be told to stand down or suffer the consequences, whether it be in Syria, Venezuela
or Ukraine.
"I want to tell all those who have fueled the arms race over the last 15 years, sought
to win unilateral advantages over Russia, introduced unlawful sanctions aimed at containing
our country's development: Everything that you wanted to impede with your policies has
already happened," he said. "You have failed to contain Russia."
"No one listened to us then. So listen to us now," Putin said to thunderous applause in
the speech, which was held at a venue just outside the Kremlin and televised live
nationwide.
The pentagon has admitted it has no defense against those hypersonic missiles.
"If that happens, what kind of defense do we have against the hypersonic threat?"
Inhofe asked.
Hyten replied, "We have a very difficult -- well, our defense is our deterrent
capability. We don't have any defense that could deny theemployment of such a weapon against
us, so our response would be our deterrent force, which would be the triad and the nuclear
capabilities that we have to respond to such a threat."
Putin has quite clearly stated the what the Russian response will be should the U.S.
resort to the use of nuclear weapons.
"Only when we know for certain – and this takes a few seconds to understand
– that Russia is being attacked we will deliver a counter strike. This would be a
reciprocal counter strike. Why do I say 'counter'? Because we will counter missiles flying
towards us by sending a missile in the direction of an aggressor. Of course, this amounts to
a global catastrophe but I would like to repeat that we cannot be the initiators of such a
catastrophe because we have no provision for a pre-emptive strike. Yes, it looks like we are
sitting on our hands and waiting until someone uses nuclear weapons against us. Well, yes,
this is what it is. But then any aggressor should know that retaliation is inevitable and
they will be annihilated. And we as the victims of an aggression, we as martyrs would go to
paradise while they will simply perish because they won't even have time to repent their
sins. "
Russia is not going to allow the U.S. to destroy Venezuela, Iran, Syria or Ukraine. It makes
sense because Ru cannot allow the United States and vassals to continually put Ru in the
position of one step forward two steps backs via their destructive policies and I firmly
believe that Putin will not allow the u.s. time to develop counters to their new missiles.
That would be foolish as the u.s. has shown what they are capable of when there is no serious
threat to their military. It will be a world war and the unites states has been pushing hard
to keep its allies on a short tether.
U.S. has been stalemated in Syria, (soon to be ejected) Ukraine is about to fall back into
ru orbit after the elections next week. Venezuela has Russians on the ground. They dare not
go into Iran, because the iron dome is rusty and one direct hit by the foab about 13k
southeast of dimona is going to make a large part of that illegal settlement called israel
uninhabitable .
There is much room for miscalculation, and I believe war is an almost certainty. At the
same time, I think we need a few tens to hundreds of millions to meet their maker as the
human race is only growing more stupid by the minute and eliminating a large portion of the
race will likely extend its survival. Sad but true.
That happened often when a second rate provincial lawyer became the Secretary of State. At least Kerry knows French. Pompeo
knows absolution nothing and is capable only of repeating old cliché.
Today's special word is: Projection
Notable quotes:
"... Pompeo should go into advertising. Since the late '50's, we've torn Latin America to shreds, but we're the good guys, eh?!. ..."
"... Doesn't Pompeo also believe in the rapture. ..."
Pompeo should go into advertising. Since the late '50's, we've torn Latin America to
shreds, but we're the good guys, eh?!.
I luv my country, but I hate my government.
beemasters
This must have been the most transparently crooked administration ever in the US history! Ain't that the pot calling the
kettle black!
2willies
Doesn't Pompeo also believe in the rapture.
Idaho potato head
At some point even the most deluded sheep has got to realize he is being lied to. Or is it just as in the Matrix, there is
an age limit as to when a mind can be awoken.
After reading CYMS1 below I retract that question.
@ Grieved with the UN/Pence story....here is China's take on the situation
"
UNITED NATIONS, April 10 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese ambassador to the United Nations on
Wednesday rejected U.S. Vice President Mike Pence's accusation against China over Venezuela.
"China categorically rejects the accusation," Ma Zhaoxu, China's permanent representative
to the United Nations, told a Security Council meeting on the situation in Venezuela.
"Earlier in his intervention, the U.S. representative leveled an unfounded accusation on
China's position on Venezuela in the Security Council," he said, referring to Pence's remarks
that Russia and China obstructed Council action on Venezuela with their veto power.
China has all along maintained friendly and cooperative relations with other countries
around the world, including Venezuela, on the basis of the Five Principles of Peaceful
Coexistence, he said.
"We support peoples of all countries in independently choosing their development paths
that cater to their national conditions. We never interfere in other countries' internal
affairs, nor do we impose anything on other countries," Ma added.
Members of the Security Council should faithfully abide by the purposes and principles of
the UN Charter and the universally recognized norms of international relations, genuinely
respect the choices of peoples of other countries, and do more positive and practical things
for the people of Venezuela rather than the opposite, said the Chinese envoy."
Just to point out once again, it is a war crime and a violation of the International Rules of
Armed Conflict for the ENEMY to cut civilians off from the services they need to live. And he
wants to lead the country??!!
Certainly getting the poor and the middle class on his side. Here's an NPR interview with
Ari Shapiro, on the Colombian border with Venezuela. Along with bigging up the impression
that there is a shitload of military deserters just waiting to have a crack at Maduro,
including the 80% who want him gone but don't dare say so out of fear – by the simple
device of interviewing some young men we know nothing about, not even their names because
their identities must be kept secret – he says this:
"This is the Colombian ambassador to the U.S., Francisco Santos. Ambassador Santos
insists there is still time for what we'll call plan A – international pressure and
sanctions to force Maduro out. Venezuela would then hold elections, and Guaido would take
power."
Guaido would take power. Oh, wait, wait: we have to have an election first.
Obviously it is inconceivable that anyone else might win. The guy most of the country had
never heard of a year ago, now is a shoo-in for the presidency. Isn't democracy fun
???? You just never know what's going to happen!
The USA and its 'partners' are moving forward with a debt-restructuring plan for Venezuela
– which you just know is going to include massive loans by the IMF and arm-twisting of
allies to persuade them to forgive debt to help the US State Department's newest plaything
– just as if Guaido is inevitable.
Well, he's not. And few things would give me as much pleasure as seeing the smirk slapped
off their faces.
"And I repeat, the cessation of darkness will definitely come with the cessation of
usurpation," culminates the self-proclaimed Juan Guaidó"
It's odd that the sabotage includes that element of blackmail, i.e., "put me in office,
and I will turn the lights on again." How would he expect to do that, if the grid has been
damaged?
Such blackmail only makes sense if Guaidó had, like, the secret password that would
turn off the viruses(?)
Because, if the damage is physical, then it will take a while to fix, even if Guaidó
and the American engineers worked at it night and day.
Even if he has no control over it, he is talking it up like he has, more like "I know
people". Which tends to make it sound more as if it is his backers doing it.
I would say he is well on his way to making himself the most hated man in Venezuela, at
least barring those who hope to sweep him into power.
I know. How can you even imagine being that guy? Who deprives your neighbors of their
electricity and then asks them to vote for you, so you would turn it on again?
A person like that would be lynched!
As Grayzone Project's Max Blumenthal says, the irony is that Nicolas Maduro's government
is protecting Guaido and his freedom to travel around Caracas through the police. So much for
Maduro being a tyrannical dictator
Because there is a presidential
election coming up next year, the Donald
Trump Administration appears to be looking for a
country that it can attack and destroy in order to prove its toughness
and willingness to
go all the way in support of alleged American interests. It is a version of the old neocon doctrine
attributed to Michael Ledeen, the belief that every once in a while, it is necessary to pick out
some crappy little country and throw it against the wall just to demonstrate that the United States
means business.
"Meaning business" is a tactic whereby the adversary surrenders immediately in fear of
the possible consequences, but there are a couple of problems with that thinking.
The first is that an opponent who can resist will sometimes balk and create a
continuing problem for the United States, which has a demonstrated inability to start and end
wars in any coherent fashion.
This tendency to get caught in a quagmire in a situation that might have been resolved
through diplomacy has been exacerbated by the current White House's negotiating style, which is
to both demand and expect submission on all points even before discussions begin. That was
clearly the perception with North Korea, where National Security Advisor John Bolton insisted
that Pyongyang had agreed to American demands over its nuclear program even though it hadn't and
would have been foolish to do so for fear of being treated down the road like Libya, which
denuclearized but then was attacked and destroyed seven years later. The Bolton mis-perception,
which was apparently bought into by Trump, led to a complete unraveling of what might actually
have been accomplished if the negotiations had been serious and open to reasonable compromise
right from the beginning.
Trump's
written
demand
that Kim Jong Un immediately hand over his nuclear weapons and all bomb making
material was a non-starter based on White House misunderstandings rooted in its disdain for
compromise. The summit meeting with Trump, held in Hanoi at the end of February, was abruptly
canceled by Kim and Pyongyang subsequently accused Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo of
making "gangster-like" demands.
The second problem is that there are only a few actual casus belli situations under
international law that permit a country to attack another preemptively, and they are usually
limited to actual imminent threats.
The current situation with Venezuela is similar to
that with North Korea in that Washington is operating on the presumption that it has a right to
intervene and bring about regime change, using military force if necessary, because of its
presumed leadership role in global security, not because Caracas or even Pyongyang necessarily
is threatening anyone. That presumption that American "exceptionalism" provides authorization to
intervene in other countries using economic weapons backed up by a military option that is "on
the table" is a viewpoint that is not accepted by the rest of the world.
In the case of Venezuela, where Trump has dangerously demanded that Russia withdraw the hundred
or so advisors that it sent to help stabilize the country, the supposition that the United States
has exclusive extra-territorial rights is largely based on nineteenth and early twentieth century
unilaterally declared "doctrines."
The Monroe Doctrine of 1823 and the Roosevelt Corollary
of 1904 de facto established the United States as the hegemon-presumptive for the entire Western
Hemisphere, stretching from the Arctic Circle in the north to Patagonia in the south.
John Bolton has been the leader in
promoting
the Monroe Doctrine
as justification for Washington's interference in Venezuela's politics,
apparently only dimly aware that the Doctrine, which opposed any attempts by European powers to
establish new colonies in the Western Hemisphere, was only in effect for twenty-two years when the
United States itself annexed Texas and then went to war with Mexico in the following year
@JR ssaid:
If one recognizes that Brzezinski's "The Grand Chessboard, American Primacy & Its
Geostrategic Imperatives (1997)" in replacing "Lebensraum" with "control over Eurasia",
"Tausendjähriges Reich" with "American Primacy" and providing our 'elite' with an
"realist" and "amoral" excuse to act completely and consistently immoral one has to recognize
too that this "Grand Chessboard" is an amalgamation of 'Mein Kampf' and 'Il Principe".
Except that Germany did not send Germans into the conquered territories during WWII,
though they wanted to do so.
Wealthy politicians and businessmen suspected of corruption in their native lands are fleeing to a safe haven where their wealth
and influence shields them from arrest.
They have entered this country on a variety of visas, including one designed to encourage investment. Some have applied for asylum,
which is intended to protect people fleeing oppression and political persecution.
The increasingly popular destination for people avoiding criminal charges is no pariah nation.
It's the United States.
An investigation by ProPublica, in conjunction with the Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism at Columbia University, has
found that officials fleeing prosecution in Colombia, China, South Korea, Bolivia and Panama have found refuge for themselves and
their wealth in this country, taking advantage of lax enforcement of U.S. laws and gaps in immigration and financial regulations.
Many have concealed their assets and real-estate purchases by creating trusts and limited liability companies in the names of lawyers
and relatives.
American authorities are supposed to vet visa applicants to make sure they are not under active investigation on criminal charges.
But the ProPublica examination shows that this requirement has been routinely ignored.
One of the most prominent cases involves a former president of Panama, who was allowed to enter the United States just days after
his country's Supreme Court opened an investigation into charges that he had helped embezzle $45 million from a government school
lunch program.
Ricardo Martinelli, a billionaire supermarket magnate, had been on the State Department's radar since he was elected in 2009.
That year, the U.S. ambassador to Panama began
sending diplomatic cables warning
about the president's "dark side," including his links to corruption and his request for U.S. support for wiretapping his opponents.
Soon after Martinelli left office in 2014, Panamanian prosecutors conducted a widely publicized investigation of corruption in
the school lunch program, and in mid-January 2015, forwarded their findings to the country's Supreme Court.
On Jan. 28, 2015,
just hours before
the Supreme Court announced a formal probe into the charges, Martinelli boarded a private plane, flew to Guatemala City for a
meeting and then entered the United States on a visitor visa. Within weeks, he was living comfortably in the Atlantis, a luxury condominium
on Miami's swanky Brickell Avenue. He is still here.
The State Department declined to comment on Martinelli's case, saying visa records are confidential and it is the U.S. Customs
and Border Protection that decides who is allowed to enter the country. CBP said privacy regulations prevent the agency from commenting
on Martinelli.
Efforts to reach Martinelli, including a registered letter sent to his Miami address, were unsuccessful.
In September this year, Panama asked to extradite Martinelli, but the former president is fighting that request, arguing there
are no legal grounds to bring him back to his home country where the investigation has broadened to include insider trading, corruption
and abuse of authority. Last December, Panama's high court issued a warrant for his arrest on charges that he used public funds to
spy on over 150 political opponents. If found guilty, he could face up to 21 years in jail.
Rogelio Cruz, who is defending Martinelli in Panama's Supreme Court, said that the former president "will return to Panama once
adequate conditions exist with respect to due process, where there are independent judges -- which there aren't."
The United States has explicit policies that bar issuing visas to foreign officials facing criminal charges in their homelands.
In 2004, President George W. Bush issued a proclamation
designed to keep the United States from becoming a haven for corrupt officials. Proclamation 7750, which has the force and effect
of law, directed the State Department to ban officials who have accepted bribes or misappropriated public funds when their actions
have "serious adverse effects on the national interests of the United States."
Under the rules implementing Bush's order, consular officers do not need a conviction or even formal charges to justify denying
a visa. They can stamp "denied" based on information from unofficial, or informal sources, including newspaper articles, according
to diplomats and State Department officials interviewed for this report.
The State Department declined to provide the number of times Proclamation 7750 has been invoked, but insisted that it has been
used "robustly."
But numerous other foreign government officials, including former presidents and cabinet ministers, have slipped through the cracks,
according to court documents, diplomatic cables and interviews with prosecutors and defense attorneys in the United States and abroad.
The charges involved a wide range of misconduct, from stealing public funds to accepting bribes.
Six months before Martinelli entered the United States, a former Colombian agriculture minister and onetime presidential candidate,
Andres Felipe Arias, fled to Miami three weeks before he was convicted of funneling $12.5 million to wealthy political supporters
from a subsidy program that was intended to reduce inequality in rural areas and protect farmers from the effects of globalization.
The U.S. embassy in Bogota had been following Arias' trial closely and
reporting on the scandal in cables to Washington.
The trial
featured documents and witnesses saying that under Arias' watch, the agriculture ministry had doled out millions in subsidies
to affluent families, some of whom, according to media reports, had donated to Arias' political allies or his presidential campaign.
Subsidies went to relatives of congressmen, companies owned by the richest man in Colombia, and a former beauty queen. One powerful
family and its associates received over $2.5 million, according to records released by prosecutors. Another family, which included
relatives of a former senator, received $1.3 million. Both families had supported Arias' chief political ally, former Colombian President
Alvaro Uribe, with campaign contributions.
The law that
established the program did not ban wealthy landowners from getting grants, but some elite families had received multiple subsidies
for the same farm. They gamed the system by submitting multiple proposals in the names of different family members and by subdividing
their land so they could apply for grants for each parcel, court records indicate.
Yet, in November 2013, while the trial was going on, the U.S. embassy in Bogota renewed Arias' visitor visa. The State Department
refused to discuss the case, saying that visa records are confidential. But a
recent filing in federal court
showed that the U.S. embassy had flagged Arias' application, and asked him to provide documents to support his request to leave the
country while charges were pending. Arias submitted documents from the Colombian court, including a judicial order that allowed him
to travel. In the end, the embassy issued a visa because he had not yet been convicted.
Andres Felipe Arias, a former Colombian agriculture minister, who fled to the United States before he could be convicted
of funneling money from a subsidy program (GDA via AP Images)
On the night of June 13, 2014, three weeks before the judges convicted him of embezzlement by appropriation, a Colombian law that
penalizes the unauthorized use of public funds to benefit private entities, Arias packed his bags and boarded a plane. The following
month, the U.S. embassy in Bogota revoked the visa. But Arias hired an immigration attorney and applied for asylum.
"If you looked up 'politically motivated charges' in the dictionary, there would be a picture of Andres Arias next to it," said
David Oscar Markus, Arias' lead attorney. "The case [against him] is absurd and not even one that is recognized in the United States."
Over the next two years, Arias built a new life in South Florida with his wife and two children, opening a small consulting company
and renting a house in Weston.
On August 24, he was
arrested by U.S.
authorities in response to an extradition request from Colombia. He spent several months in a detention facility until his release
on bail in mid-November. Arias argues that the United States cannot extradite him because it has no active extradition treaty with
Colombia, but the U.S. Attorney's Office disagrees. A plea for asylum does not shield defendants from extradition if they are charged
in Colombia with a crime covered by the treaty between the two countries.
The agency that administers the program, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, has adopted regulations designed to prevent
fraud, including requiring foreign investors to submit evidence, such as tax returns and bank statements, to prove they obtained
their money legally.
But these safeguards did not stop the daughter-in-law and grandsons of former South Korean dictator Chun Doo-hwan from using Chun's
ill-gotten gains to get U.S. permanent residency.
In 1996, a Korean court convicted Chun of receiving more than $200 million in bribes while in office in the 1980s, from companies
such as Samsung and Hyundai. He was ordered to return the bribes, but refused.
Part of Chun's fortune was funneled into the United States through his son, who purchased a $2.2 million house in Newport Beach,
California, according to South Korean prosecutors and real-estate records.
Millions of dollars from Chun's bribery proceeds were hidden in bearer bonds, which are notoriously difficult to trace. Unlike
regular bonds, which belong to registered owners, there is no record kept about the ownership or transfer of bearer bonds. The bonds
can be cashed out by whoever has them.
Former South Korean President Chun Doo-hwan addresses the press at the White House in 1985. Chun's relatives later gained
permanent residency in the United States by using money Chun obtained through bribes. (Bettmann via Getty Images)
In 2008, Chun's daughter-in-law, a South Korean actress named Park Sang-ah, applied for an immigrant investor visa. Park listed
her husband's bearer bonds as the source of her funds without mentioning that the money had been initially provided to him by Chun.
Eight months later, Park and her children received their conditional U.S. permanent residency cards in the mail.
In 2013, at the request of South Korean prosecutors, the U.S. Justice Department launched an investigation into the Chun family's
wealth in the United States and subsequently
seized $1.2 million of the family's U.S. assets in the United States. The money was returned to South Korea. Despite that, Chun's
family members have retained their residency status.
Chun's relatives obtained their permanent residency by investing in an EB-5 project managed by the Philadelphia Industrial Development
Corporation, a nonprofit company. The PIDC pooled Chun's $500,000 with money from 200 other foreign investors to finance an expansion
of the Pennsylvania Convention Center in downtown Philadelphia.
The same project in Philadelphia also helped to secure permanent residency for Qiao Jianjun, a Chinese government official accused
of embezzling more than $40 million from a state-owned grain storehouse, according to reports in the People's Daily, the Chinese
Communist Party's newspaper. Qiao had divorced his wife, Shilan Zhao, in China in 2001, a fact he did not disclose to U.S. immigration
authorities. When Zhao applied for an EB-5 visa, Qiao qualified for U.S. permanent residency as an applicant's spouse.
The Justice Department launched an investigation only when it was tipped off by Chinese authorities. In January 2014,
a federal grand jury indicted Zhao and her ex-husband, Qiao, for immigration fraud, money laundering and internationally transporting
stolen funds. Zhao was arrested and released on bail. Federal authorities are pursuing Qiao, whose whereabouts remain unknown.
A trial has been set for February 2017. U.S. government attorneys have filed asset forfeiture cases to recover real estate linked
to Qiao and Zhao in Flushing, New York, and Monterey Park, California.
In April 2015, Qiao appeared on the Chinese
government's list of 100 "most wanted" officials who fled abroad after being accused of crimes such as bribery and corruption.
He and 39 other government officials and state-owned enterprise leaders on the list allegedly fled to the United States.
The list, called "Operation Skynet," is part of Chinese President Xi Jinping's anti-corruption campaign, which has vowed to take
down what Chinese officials describe as corrupt "tigers" and "flies" within the country's ruling Communist Party.
Fengxian Hu was another fugitive on China's list. A former army singer and radio broadcaster, Hu headed the state-owned broadcasting
company that had a joint venture with Pepsi to distribute soft drinks in Sichuan province. In 2002, The Washington Post and The Wall
Street Journal
reported that Pepsi had accused Hu of looting the joint venture and using company funds to buy fancy cars and go on European
tours.
The same year, in a widely publicized move, Pepsi filed a case with international arbitrators in Stockholm, asking that the joint
venture be dissolved. Despite this, Hu was given a visa that allowed him to fly regularly to Las Vegas, where he was a VIP client
at the MGM casino.
In January 2010, Chinese authorities investigated Hu for corruption. But the month before, Hu had entered the United States on
a B1 visitor visa, joining his wife, a U.S. citizen living in New York.
Hu tried to obtain a green card through his wife, but the petition was rejected by U.S. immigration authorities. He applied for
asylum instead.
Meanwhile, he had gotten into trouble in the United States for losing millions in a Las Vegas casino and failing to pay a $12
million gambling debt. In 2012, he was indicted in a Nevada court on two counts of theft and one count of intentionally passing a
check without sufficient funds.
Hu pled not guilty to the charges; his lawyers claimed that his checks bounced because his bank account had been closed by Chinese
authorities. The charges against him in the U.S. were considered an aggravated felony, which is a common basis for deportation. Hu,
however, had a pending asylum case and so could not be deported.
In August 2015, a New York immigration judge denied the asylum claim. But Hu's lawyers argued that he would be tortured if he
returned to China and invoked the United Nations Convention
Against Torture , which says that an alien may not be sent to a country where he is likely to be tortured. In the end, the immigration
court suspended Hu's removal order, allowing him to remain in the United States and work here indefinitely. He will not, however,
be given permanent residency or be allowed to travel outside the country.
The absence of an extradition treaty -- coupled with a high standard of living -- makes the United States a favored destination
for Chinese officials and businessmen fleeing corruption charges.
In April 2015, Jeh Johnson, the Secretary for the Department of Homeland Security , made a 48-hour trip to Beijing. The visit
was intended to pave the way for Chinese President Xi Jinping's U.S. visit in September 2015, according to a memorandum Johnson wrote,
which was obtained through a request under the Freedom of Information Act.
In the memo, Johnson said the Chinese government is seeking 132 people it said have fled to the United States to avoid prosecution.
This represents a greater number of fugitives than Chinese authorities have publicly acknowledged.
"I'm told that in prior discussions, the Chinese have been frustrated by the lack of any information from us about the 132 fugitives,"
Johnson wrote.
The Chinese request for assistance posed a dilemma for the United States. American officials are concerned about a lack of fairness
in China's criminal justice system. Human rights groups say that China continues to use torture to extract false confessions from
suspected criminals. Torture has also been documented to be part of shuanggui -- a secretive discipline process reserved for
members of the Chinese Communist Party.
Some analysts see the crackdown on corrupt officials as part of a purge aimed at the current regime's political rivals and ideological
enemies. U.S. officials say this makes returning corrupt officials to China a delicate issue for the United States.
In 2003, headlines around the world reported
widespread
street protests in Bolivia that led to security forces killing 58 people, most of them members of indigenous groups. Not long
afterward, as protesters massed up on the streets of La Paz demanding his resignation, Bolivian President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada
resigned and fled his country along with his defense minister, Jose Carlos Sanchez Berzain.
The two men flew to the United States, where they continue to reside. In 2006, Berzain applied for political asylum, which he
was granted in 2007. On
his application, when the form asked, "Have you or your family members ever been accused, charged, arrested, detained, interrogated,
convicted and sentenced, or imprisoned in any country other than the United States?" Berzain checked the box "no," even though by
then he and de Lozada had been formally accused of
genocide by Bolivia's attorney
general. The indictment was approved
by Bolivia's Supreme Court in 2007. Berzain also stated on his application that the State Department had arranged for his travel
to the United States.
The de Lozada administration was vocally pro-American. Before it was ousted, officials had announced they would facilitate gas
exports to the United States.
After their departure, Bolivia's attorney general
publicly stated
that the administration had embezzled millions from government coffers, but did not formally file charges. He said de Lozada
had taken some $22 million from the country's reserve funds before fleeing.
De Lozada and members of his administration have dismissed the allegations as part of a politically motivated smear campaign,
but there is evidence to suggest irregularities may have occurred in the handling of the reserve funds. The former president signed
a decree shortly before leaving office authorizing the interior and finance ministers to withdraw money from Bolivia's reserve funds
without going through the normal approval process. De Lozada's former interior minister
pleaded guilty in 2004 to embezzlement after $270,000 in cash was found in an associate's home.
De Lozada, a mining mogul before he became president, moved to Chevy Chase, Maryland, an upscale suburb of Washington, D.C. He
now lives in a two-story brick house bought for $1.4 million by Macalester Limited, a limited liability company that was formed in
the British Virgin Islands and lists a post office box in the Bahamas as its principal address.
De Lozada's immigration status is unclear. He said in a sworn deposition in 2015 that he was not a U.S. citizen. His son-in-law,
who spoke to ProPublica on his behalf, would not say whether de Lozada had applied for asylum.
Berzain, meanwhile, settled in South Florida. Records show that he and his brother-in-law personally own or are listed as officers
or members of business entities that together control around $9 million worth of Miami real estate.
Some of the purchases were made in the names of entities that appear to list different variations of Berzain's name in business
records.
In addition, in the purchase of two properties, Berzain's name was added to business records only after the deal had gone through.
Berzain's brother-in-law incorporated a company called Warren USA Corp in October 2010, for example, and the company purchased a
$1.4 million residential property the following month. Three weeks after Warren USA Corp became the owner of an elegant Spanish-style
villa in Key Biscayne, Berzain was added as the company's secretary.
The following year, in May 2011, Berzain's brother-in-law created Galen KB Corp and registered as the company's president. A month
later, Galen KB Corp purchased a $250,000 condo. In August, Berzain replaced his brother-in-law as the company's president, according
to business records. Berzain is no longer listed as a company officer in either company.
During an interview in January, Berzain told ProPublica "I don't have any companies." When asked about several of the companies
associated with his name or address in public records, the former defense minister said he had a consulting firm that helped clients
set up companies and that he was sometimes added to the board of directors. Efforts to reach Berzain's brother-in-law, a wealthy
businessman and the owner of a bus company in Bolivia, were unsuccessful. Berzain's brother-in-law has not been accused of any wrongdoing.
The practice of purchasing real estate in the name of a business entity like a limited liability company, or LLC, is a common
and legal practice in high-end real-estate markets, and one that enables celebrities and other wealthy individuals to protect their
privacy.
But the practice also allows foreign officials to hide ill-gotten gains. U.S. regulations allow individuals to form business entities
like LLCs without disclosing the beneficial owner. The LLCs can be registered in the names of lawyers, accountants or other associates
-- or even anonymously in some states -- and used to purchase real estate, making it nearly impossible to determine the actual owner
of a property.
Government investigators and lawmakers have pointed out persistent gaps in U.S. policy that have enabled corrupt officials to
evade justice and hide their assets in this country. But little has changed.
Last year, a U.S. Government Accountability Office investigation
said it can be "difficult" for immigration officials to identify the true source of an immigrant investor's funds. Immigration
officials told the government auditors that EB-5 applicants with ties to corruption, the drug trade, human trafficking and other
criminal activities have a strong incentive to omit key details about their financial histories or lie on their applications.
"It's very easy to get lost in the noise if you're a bad person," said Seto Bagdoyan, the accountability office's director of
forensic audits, who co-authored the GAO report.
Immigration officials, he added, have an "almost nonexistent" ability to thoroughly evaluate investors' backgrounds and trace
their assets.
Despite such weaknesses, Congress has continually
extended the EB-5
program with minor changes. The program is backed by
real-estate lobbyists who argue that it is a crucial source of financing for luxury condos and hotels. The program is
expected to thrive in a
Trump presidency because the president-elect is a developer and his son-in-law Jared Kushner received $50 million in EB-5 funds to
build a Trump-branded tower in New Jersey.
In 2010, a Senate report described how powerful foreign officials and their relatives moved millions of dollars in suspect funds
into the United States. The report said investors bypassed anti-money laundering regulations with help from U.S. lawyers, real-estate
agents, and banking institutions. Last year, ABC News
reported that lobbyists for real estate and other business groups spent $30 million in 2015 in an effort to protect the EB-5
program.
Senate investigators proposed legislation that would require companies to disclose their beneficial owners and make it easier
for authorities to restrict entry, deny visas and deport corrupt foreign officials.
A few of the proposals have been adopted, but they have not made much difference. Banks have stepped up their efforts to identify
corrupt officials and monitor their accounts. Professional groups such as the American Bar Association have issued non-binding guidelines
for their members on compliance with anti-money-laundering controls. The U.S. government has also worked with the
Financial Action Task Force , an international body set up
to fight money laundering, to bring its anti-corruption controls in accordance with the body's guidelines.
In May, the Treasury Department enacted a new rule that will take full effect in 2018 and will require financial institutions
to identify the beneficial owners of shell companies. Some advocates see the rule as a step backward. The new rule allows shell companies
to designate the manager of the account as the beneficial owner, concealing the identity of the person ultimately exercising control.
The State Department declined to say what progress, if any, it has made on the Senate subcommittee's recommendation to more aggressively
deny visas through Proclamation 7750. "The Department takes seriously congressional recommendations and devotes resources to addressing
corruption worldwide," a State Department official wrote in response to questions.
In 2010, then-Attorney General Eric Holder launched the Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative. The small unit, which has grown
to include 16 attorneys, aims to recover assets in the United States that are tied to foreign corruption and return the money to
the looted countries.
Over the past six years, the unit has filed around two dozen civil asset forfeiture cases in an attempt to seize money, real estate
and other assets tied to government officials from 16 countries. Assets have ranged from a lone diamond-encrusted glove worn by Michael
Jackson that was purchased by Equatorial Guinea's Vice President, Teodoro Obiang, to a $1 billion fund tied to Malaysian Prime Minister
Najib Razak.
Yet most of the money the Department of Justice has pursued remains in limbo. The case involving Chun, the former president of
South Korea, is one of only two instances in which corrupt gains have been returned to the home country through the Justice Department's
efforts. The other arose when Justice Department officials
returned $1.5 million to Taiwan from property bought with bribes paid to the family of Chun Shui Bian, the former president of
Taiwan.
The agency faces myriad challenges when attempting to seize and return assets acquired by corrupt foreign officials, including
a lack of witnesses, said Kendall Day, head of the Department of Justice's Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering Section. These officials
often shield their transactions through shell companies, offshore companies or a network of associates.
"The mission of the Kleptocracy Initiative is really to target what we call grand foreign corruption that impacts the U.S. financial
system," Day said, citing the Chun case as an example.
The 2012 Magnitsky Act gives the government power to deny visas and freeze the assets of Russian nationals accused of corruption
or human rights violations. The Global Magnitsky Act would extend the same sanctions to the rest of the world, but it has yet to
be passed by Congress. Unlike Proclamation 7750, the Magnitsky laws require the government to publish a list of foreign government
officials who are barred from the United States.
In addition, the Treasury Department imposed regulations this year that aim to crack down on the use of shell companies to purchase
real estate in places like Miami and Manhattan. Title insurance companies are now required to identify the real owners of companies
purchasing high-end real estate without a mortgage. These regulations, however, are temporary.
"... Putin understands that both the loser and the winner lose in the confrontation. Therefore, he always offers a compromise for a long time, almost to the last opportunity, even to those who clearly do not deserve it, moving to other solutions only after the opponent has clearly crossed all possible red lines and can pose a threat to the vital interests of Russia. An agreement based on consideration of each other's interests is always stronger than any short-term 'victories', which tomorrow will result in the need to reaffirm their status of the winner again and again. It seems to me that Putin understands this well. Hence the effectiveness of his actions. ..."
That's a great piece by Escobar, and it contains snippets from his talk with Ishchenko,
which I recall he said was coming but which I don't think I ever saw anywhere until now.
I have to quote this perfect illustration of Putin from Ishchenko:
Putin understands that both the loser and the winner lose in the confrontation. Therefore,
he always offers a compromise for a long time, almost to the last opportunity, even to
those who clearly do not deserve it, moving to other solutions only after the opponent has
clearly crossed all possible red lines and can pose a threat to the vital interests of
Russia. An agreement based on consideration of each other's interests is always stronger
than any short-term 'victories', which tomorrow will result in the need to reaffirm their
status of the winner again and again. It seems to me that Putin understands this well.
Hence the effectiveness of his actions.
As to Pepe's main theme, that the Pentagon is hardening its stances, it's well reported,
and fits nicely with the latest piece from Whitney Webb, which Escobar linked form his
Facebook page, by the way (I get a lot of good "heads-up" links from there). I'll post it in
the next comment.
Webb's story is about the newly developed RED team, the "sole contractor" to USAID with
regard to Venezuela. The piece illustrates both the exact playbook to be used in Venezuela
and a hardening of stance in the covert activity sphere equal with the military sphere's
hardening that karlof1 cites @73:
For instance, one respondent asserted that the RED Team system would "restore the long-lost
doing capacity of USAID." Another USAID official with 15 years of experience, including in
"extremely denied environments," stated that:
"We have to be involved in national security or USAID will not be relevant. Anybody
who doesn't think we need to be working in combat elements or working with SF [special
forces] groups is just naïve. We are either going to be up front or irrelevant USAID
is going through a lot right now, but this is an area where we can be of utility. It must
happen."
This seems to speak a lot of the Trump administration's true ambitions in the Rambo
theater of fantasy and cruelty. This RED team is armed with cash and weaponry for offensive
violence, along with an entire vocabulary of institutional words that almost seem harmless
until you explore the implications, as Webb does.
I have to say in passing that I just don't know if we've ever been able to see so clearly
before - i.e. at the level of one magazine article citing the published declarations of the
actors - the exact and precise methods by which regime change will attempt to be imposed on a
target country.
Presumably Gerasimov and the rest of the Russia team are hip to every one of these moves,
and will counter effectively and creatively.
"The Supreme Court of Justice of #Venezuela ratifies precautionary measures to Juan
#Guaidó: prohibition to exit the country, prohibition to transfer his property,
blockade and immobilization of bank accounts or any other financial instrument in
Venezuela."
"The Supreme Court of Justice imposes a fine on Juan #Guaidó and asks the National
Constituent Assembly to lift the parliamentary immunity after Guaidó broke the
prohibition of leaving the country."
What will be the next "Or Else" utterance by the Naked Emperor's Agents be? Will they
threaten to throw the table holding all those possibilities? Perhaps also add the chairs?
Meanwhile, China delivers another freighter full of medical supplies.
This article by late Robert Parry is from 2016 but is still relevant in context of the
current Ukrainian elections and the color revolution is Venezuela. The power of neoliberal
propaganda is simply tremendous. For foreign events it is able to distort the story to such an
extent that the most famous quote of CIA director William Casey "We'll know our disinformation
program is complete when everything the American public believes is false" looks like
constatation of already accomplished goal.
Exclusive: Several weeks before Ukraine's 2014 coup, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State
Nuland had already picked Arseniy Yatsenyuk to be the future leader, but now "Yats" is no
longer the guy, writes Robert Parry.
In reporting on the resignation of Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, the major
U.S. newspapers either ignored or distorted Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland's
infamous intercepted
phone call before the 2014 coup in which she declared "Yats is the guy!"
Though Nuland's phone call introduced many Americans to the previously obscure Yatsenyuk,
its timing – a few weeks before the ouster of elected Ukrainian President Viktor
Yanukovych – was never helpful to Washington's desired narrative of the Ukrainian people
rising up on their own to oust a corrupt leader.
Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland, who pushed for the
Ukraine coup and helped pick the post-coup leaders.
Instead, the conversation between Nuland and U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt
sounded like two proconsuls picking which Ukrainian politicians would lead the new government.
Nuland also disparaged the less aggressive approach of the European Union with the pithy
put-down: "Fuck the E.U.!"
More importantly, the intercepted call, released onto YouTube in early February 2014,
represented powerful evidence that these senior U.S. officials were plotting – or at
least collaborating in – a coup d'etat against Ukraine's democratically elected
president. So, the U.S. government and the mainstream U.S. media have since consigned this
revealing discussion to the Great Memory Hole.
On Monday, in reporting on Yatsenyuk's Sunday speech in which he announced that he is
stepping down, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal didn't mention the Nuland-Pyatt
conversation at all. The New York Times did mention the call but misled its readers regarding
its timing, making it appear as if the call followed rather than preceded the coup. That way
the call sounded like two American officials routinely appraising Ukraine's future leaders, not
plotting to oust one government and install another.
The Times
article by Andrew E. Kramer said: "Before Mr. Yatsenyuk's appointment as prime minister in
2014, a leaked recording of a telephone conversation between Victoria J. Nuland, a United
States assistant secretary of state, and the American ambassador in Ukraine, Geoffrey R. Pyatt,
seemed to underscore the West's support for his candidacy. 'Yats is the guy,' Ms. Nuland had
said."
Notice, however, that if you didn't know that the conversation occurred in late January or
early February 2014, you wouldn't know that it preceded the Feb. 22, 2014 coup. You might have
thought that it was just a supportive chat before Yatsenyuk got his new job.
You also wouldn't know that much of the Nuland-Pyatt conversation focused on how they
were going to "glue this thing" or "midwife this thing," comments sounding like prima facie
evidence that the U.S. government was engaged in "regime change" in Ukraine, on Russia's
border.
The 'No Coup' Conclusion
But Kramer's lack of specificity about the timing and substance of the call fits with a long
pattern of New York Times' bias in its coverage of the Ukraine crisis. On Jan. 4, 2015, nearly
a year after the U.S.-backed coup, the Times published an "investigation" article declaring
that there never had been a coup. It was just a case of President Yanukovych deciding to leave
and not coming back.
That article reached its conclusion, in part, by ignoring the evidence of a coup, including
the Nuland-Pyatt phone call. The story was co-written by Kramer and so it is interesting to
know that he was at least aware of the "Yats is the guy" reference although it was ignored in
last year's long-form article.
Instead, Kramer and his co-author Andrew Higgins took pains to mock anyone who actually
looked at the evidence and dared reach the disfavored conclusion about a coup. If you did, you
were some rube deluded by Russian propaganda.
"Russia has attributed Mr. Yanukovych's ouster to what it portrays as a violent,
'neo-fascist' coup supported and even choreographed by the West and dressed up as a popular
uprising," Higgins and Kramer
wrote . "Few outside the Russian propaganda bubble ever seriously entertained the Kremlin's
line. But almost a year after the fall of Mr. Yanukovych's government, questions remain about
how and why it collapsed so quickly and completely."
The Times' article concluded that Yanukovych "was not so much overthrown as cast adrift by
his own allies, and that Western officials were just as surprised by the meltdown as anyone
else. The allies' desertion, fueled in large part by fear, was accelerated by the seizing by
protesters of a large stock of weapons in the west of the country. But just as important, the
review of the final hours shows, was the panic in government ranks created by Mr. Yanukovych's
own efforts to make peace."
Yet, one might wonder what the Times thinks a coup looks like. Indeed, the Ukrainian coup
had many of the same earmarks as such classics as the CIA-engineered regime changes in Iran in
1953 and in Guatemala in 1954.
The way those coups played out is now historically well known. Secret U.S. government
operatives planted nasty propaganda about the targeted leader, stirred up political and
economic chaos, conspired with rival political leaders, spread rumors of worse violence to come
and then – as political institutions collapsed – watched as the scared but duly
elected leader made a hasty departure.
In Iran, the coup reinstalled the autocratic Shah who then ruled with a heavy hand for the
next quarter century; in Guatemala, the coup led to more than three decades of brutal military
regimes and the killing of some 200,000 Guatemalans.
Coups don't have to involve army tanks occupying the public squares, although that is an
alternative model which follows many of the same initial steps except that the military is
brought in at the end. The military coup was a common approach especially in Latin America in
the 1960s and 1970s.
' Color Revolutions'
But the preferred method in more recent years has been the "color revolution," which
operates behind the façade of a "peaceful" popular uprising and international pressure
on the targeted leader to show restraint until it's too late to stop the coup. Despite the
restraint, the leader is still accused of gross human rights violations, all the better to
justify his removal.
Later, the ousted leader may get an image makeover; instead of a cruel bully, he is
ridiculed for not showing sufficient resolve and letting his base of support melt away, as
happened with Mohammad Mossadegh in Iran and Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala.
But the reality of what happened in Ukraine was never hard to figure out. Nor did you have
to be inside "the Russian propaganda bubble" to recognize it. George Friedman, the founder of
the global intelligence firm Stratfor, called Yanukovych's overthrow "the most blatant coup
in history."
Which is what it appears if you consider the evidence. The first step in the process was to
create tensions around the issue of pulling Ukraine out of Russia's economic orbit and
capturing it in the European Union's gravity, a plan defined by influential American neocons in
2013.
On Sept. 26, 2013, National Endowment for Democracy President Carl Gershman, who has been a
major neocon paymaster for decades, took to the op-ed page of the neocon Washington Post and
called Ukraine "the biggest prize" and an important interim step toward toppling Russian
President Vladimir Putin.
At the time, Gershman, whose NED is funded by the U.S. Congress to the tune of about $100
million a year, was financing scores of projects inside Ukraine training activists, paying for
journalists and organizing business groups.
As for the even bigger prize -- Putin -- Gershman wrote: "Ukraine's choice to join Europe
will accelerate the demise of the ideology of Russian imperialism that Putin represents.
Russians, too, face a choice, and Putin may find himself on the losing end not just in the near
abroad but within Russia itself."
At that time, in early fall 2013, Ukraine's President Yanukovych was exploring the idea of
reaching out to Europe with an association agreement. But he got cold feet in November 2013
when economic experts in Kiev advised him that the Ukrainian economy would suffer a $160
billion hit if it separated from Russia, its eastern neighbor and major trading partner. There
was also the West's demand that Ukraine accept a harsh austerity plan from the International
Monetary Fund.
Yanukovych wanted more time for the E.U. negotiations, but his decision angered many western
Ukrainians who saw their future more attached to Europe than Russia. Tens of thousands of
protesters began camping out at Maidan Square in Kiev, with Yanukovych ordering the police to
show restraint.
Meanwhile, with Yanukovych shifting back toward Russia, which was offering a more generous
$15 billion loan and discounted natural gas, he soon became the target of American neocons and
the U.S. media, which portrayed Ukraine's political unrest as a black-and-white case of a
brutal and corrupt Yanukovych opposed by a saintly "pro-democracy" movement.
Cheering an Uprising
The Maidan uprising was urged on by American neocons, including Assistant Secretary of State
for European Affairs Nuland, who passed out cookies at the Maidan and reminded Ukrainian
business leaders that the United States had invested $5 billion in their "European
aspirations."
A screen shot of U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland
speaking to U.S. and Ukrainian business leaders on Dec. 13, 2013, at an event sponsored by
Chevron, with its logo to Nuland's left.
Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, also showed up, standing on stage with right-wing extremists
from the Svoboda Party and telling the crowd that the United States was with them in their
challenge to the Ukrainian government.
As the winter progressed, the protests grew more violent. Neo-Nazi and other extremist
elements from Lviv and other western Ukrainian cities began arriving in well-organized brigades
or "sotins" of 100 trained street fighters. Police were attacked with firebombs and other
weapons as the violent protesters began seizing government buildings and unfurling Nazi banners
and even a Confederate flag.
Though Yanukovych continued to order his police to show restraint, he was still depicted
in the major U.S. news media as a brutal thug who was callously murdering his own people. The
chaos reached a climax on Feb. 20 when mysterious snipers opened fire, killing both police and
protesters. As the police retreated, the militants advanced brandishing firearms and other
weapons. The confrontation led to significant loss of life, pushing the death toll to around 80
including more than a dozen police.
U.S. diplomats and the mainstream U.S. press immediately blamed Yanukovych for the sniper
attack, though the circumstances remain murky to this day and some investigations have
suggested that the lethal sniper fire came from buildings controlled by Right Sektor
extremists.
To tamp down the worsening violence, a shaken Yanukovych signed a European-brokered deal on
Feb. 21, in which he accepted reduced powers and an early election so he could be voted out of
office. He also agreed to requests from Vice President Joe Biden to pull back the police.
The precipitous police withdrawal opened the path for the neo-Nazis and other street
fighters to seize presidential offices and force Yanukovych and his officials to flee for their
lives. The new coup regime was immediately declared "legitimate" by the U.S. State Department
with Yanukovych sought on murder charges. Nuland's favorite, Yatsenyuk, became the new prime
minister.
Throughout the crisis, the mainstream U.S. press hammered home the theme of white-hatted
protesters versus a black-hatted president. The police were portrayed as brutal killers who
fired on unarmed supporters of "democracy." The good-guy/bad-guy narrative was all the American
people heard from the major media.
The New York Times went so far as to delete the slain policemen from the narrative and
simply report that the police had killed all those who died in the Maidan. A typical Times
report on March 5, 2014, summed up the storyline: "More than 80 protesters were shot to death
by the police as an uprising spiraled out of control in mid-February."
The mainstream U.S. media also sought to discredit anyone who observed the obvious fact that
an unconstitutional coup had just occurred. A new theme emerged that portrayed Yanukovych as
simply deciding to abandon his government because of the moral pressure from the noble and
peaceful Maidan protests.
Any reference to a "coup" was dismissed as "Russian propaganda." There was a parallel
determination in the U.S. media to discredit or ignore evidence that neo-Nazi militias had
played an important role in ousting Yanukovych and in the subsequent suppression of anti-coup
resistance in eastern and southern Ukraine. That opposition among ethnic-Russian Ukrainians
simply became "Russian aggression."
Nazi symbols on helmets worn by members of Ukraine's Azov battalion. (As filmed by a
Norwegian film crew and shown on German TV)
This refusal to notice what was actually a remarkable story – the willful unleashing
of Nazi storm troopers on a European population for the first time since World War II –
reached absurd levels as The New York Times and The Washington Post buried references to the
neo-Nazis at the end of stories, almost as afterthoughts.
The Washington Post went to the extreme of rationalizing Swastikas and other Nazi symbols by
quoting one militia commander as calling them "romantic" gestures by impressionable young men.
[See Consortiumnews.com's " Ukraine's
'Romantic' Neo-Nazi Storm Troopers ."]
But today – more than two years after what U.S. and Ukrainian officials like to
call "the Revolution of Dignity" – the U.S.-backed Ukrainian government is sinking into
dysfunction, reliant on handouts from the IMF and Western governments.
And, in a move perhaps now more symbolic than substantive, Prime Minister Yatsenyuk is
stepping down. Yats is no longer the guy.
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The
Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America's Stolen
Narrative, either in print here or
as an e-book (from
Amazon and
barnesandnoble.com ).
Khalid Talaat , April 16, 2016 at 20:39
Is it too far fetched to think that all these color revolutions are a perfection of the
process to unleash another fake color revolution, only this time it is a Red, White and Blue
revolution here at home? Those that continue to booze and snooze while watching the tube will
not know the difference until it is too late.
The freedom and tranquility of our country depends on finding and implementing a
counterweight to the presstitutes and their propaganda. The alternative is too
destructive in its natural development.
Abe , April 15, 2016 at 18:49
Yats and Porko are the guys who broke Ukraine. By the end of December 2015, Ukraine's
gross domestic product had shrunk around 19 percent in comparison with 2013. Its decimated
industrial sector needs less fuel. Yatsie did a heck of a job.
The timing of "Yats" departure is ominous. Mid-April, six weeks from now would be the
first chance to renew the invasion of DPR Donesk/Lugansk."Yats" failed in 2014, and didn't
try in 2015. Who is "the new guy"? Will the new Prime Minister begin raving about renewing
the holy war to recover the lost oblasts? 2016 is really Ukraine's last chance. Ukraine
refuses to implement Minsk2, and they have been receiving lots of new weapons. I believe
President Putin put the Syrian operation on " standby" not only to avoid approaching the
border, provoking a Turkish intervention, but also so he can give undistracted attention to
DPR Donesk/Lugansk.
Bill Rood , April 12, 2016 at 11:50
I guess I must be inside the Russian propaganda bubble. It was obvious to me when I
looked at the YouTube videos of policemen burning after being hit with Molotov
cocktails.
We played the same game of encouraging government "restraint" in Syria, where we
demanded Assad free "political prisoners," but we now accuse him of deliberately encouraging
ISIS by freeing those people, so that he can point to ISIS and ask, "Do you want that?"
Targeted leaders are damned if they do and damned if they don't.
Andrei , April 12, 2016 at 10:26
"the Ukrainian coup had many of the same earmarks as such classics as the
CIA-engineered regime changes in Iran in 1953 and in Guatemala in 1954", Romania 1989 Shots
were fired by snipers in order to stirr the crowds (sounds familiar?) and also by the army
after Ceasescu ran away, which resulted in civilians getting murdered. Could it possibly be
that it was said : "Iliescu (next elected president) is the guy!" ?
Joe L. , April 12, 2016 at 11:00
Check out the attempted coup against Hugo Chavez in Venezuela 2002, that is very
similar with protesters, snipers on rooftops, IMF immediately offering loans to the new coup
government, new government positions for the coup plotters, complacency with the media
– propaganda, funding by USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy etc. John
Pilger documents how the coup occurred in his documentary "War on Democracy" –
https://vimeo.com/16724719 .
archaos , April 12, 2016 at 09:45
It was noted in the minutes of Verkhovna Rada almost 2 years before Maidan 2 , that
Geoffrey Pyatt was fomenting and funding destabilisation of Ukraine.
All of Svoboda Nazis in parliament (and other fascisti) then booed the MP who stated
this.
Mark Thomason , April 12, 2016 at 06:57
Also, the Dutch voted "no" on the economic agreement the coup was meant to force through
instead of the Russian agreement accepted by the President it overthrew. Now both "Yats" and
the economic agreement are gone. All that is left is the war. Neocons are still happen.
They wanted the war. They really want to overthrow Putin, and Ukraine was just a tool in
that.
Realist , April 12, 2016 at 05:51
You're right, it doesn't have to be the military that carries out a coup by deploying
tanks on the National Mall. In 2000, it was the United States Supreme Court that exceeded
its constitutional authority and installed George W. Bush as president, though in reality he
had lost that election. I wonder when that move will rightfully be characterized as a coup by
the historians.
"On Sept. 26, 2013, National Endowment for Democracy President Carl Gershman, who has
been a major neocon paymaster for decades, took to the op-ed page of the neocon Washington
Post and called Ukraine "the biggest prize" and an important interim step toward toppling
Russian President Vladimir Putin."
It should be remembered that Victoria Nuland took up the post of Assistant Secretary of
State for European and Eurasian Affairs in Washington on September 18, 2013.
Coincidentally, two other women closely connected to events in Ukraine were also in
Washington during September 2013.
Friend of Nuland and boss of the IMF, which has its own HQ in Washington, Christine
Lagarde was swift to respond to a Ukraine request for IMF loans on February 27th 2014, just
five days after the removal of Yanukovych on February 22nd. Lagarde is pictured with
Baronness Catherine Ashton in Washington in a Facebook entry dated September 30th 2013.
Ashton was High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy at the
time.
Though visiting Kiev at the same time as Nuland in February 2014 Catherine Ashton never
appeared in public with her, which seems a little odd considering the women were on the same
mission, and talking to the same people. Nevertheless, despite appearing shy of being
photographed with each other the two women weren't quite so shy of being pictured with
leaders of the coup, including the right wing extremist, Oleh Tyahnybok.
Ashton refused to be drawn into commenting on Nuland's "Fuck the E.U.!" outburst,
describing Nuland as "a friend of mine." The two women certainly weren't strangers, they had
worked closely together before. September 2012 saw them involved in discussions with Iran
negotiator Saeed Jalili over the country's supposed nuclear arms ambitions.
The question is not so much whether the three women talked about Ukraine's future –
it would be ridiculous to think they did not – but how closely they worked together,
and exactly how closely they might have been involved in events leading up to the overthrow
of the legitimate government in Kiev. More on this here:
Another failed "regime change". Aren't these guys (Neoconservatives) great. They fail,
piss off/kill millions, yet seem to keep making money and retaining power. Time to WAKE UP
AMERICA.
Skip Edwards , April 11, 2016 at 20:06
Read "The Devil'Chessboard" by David Talbot to understand what has been occurring as a
result of America's Dark, Shadow government, an un-elected bunch of vicious psychopaths
controlling our destiny; unless stopped. Get a clue and realize that "Yats is our guy"
Victoria Nuland was Hillary Clinton's "gal." Hillary Clinton is Robert Kagen's "gal." Time to
flush all these rats out of the hold and get on with our lives.
Joe L. , April 11, 2016 at 18:40
Mr. Parry thank you for delving into the proven history of coups and the parallels with
Ukraine. It amazes me how anyone can outright deny this was a coup especially if they know
anything about US coups going back to WW2 (Iran 1953, Guatemala 1954, Chile 1973, attempt in
Venezuela 2002 etc. – and there are a whole slew more). I read before, as you have
rightly pointed out, that in 1953 the CIA led a propaganda campaign in Iran against Mossadegh
as well as financing opposition protesters and opposition government officials. Another
angle, as well, is looking historically back to what papers such as the New York Times were
reporting around the time of the coup in Iran – especially when we know that the
US/Britain overthrew the democratically elected Mossadegh for their own oil interests
(British Petroleum):
New York Times: "Mossadegh Plays with Fire" (August 15, 1953):
The world has so many trouble spots these days that one is apt to pass over the odd one
here and there to preserve a little peace of mind. It would be well, however, to keep an eye
on Iran, where matters are going from bad to worse, thanks to the machinations of Premier
Mossadegh.
Some of us used to ascribe our inability to persuade Dr. Mossadegh of the validity of our
ideas to the impossibility of making him understand or see things our way. We thought of him
as a sincere, well-meaning, patriotic Iranian, who had a different point of view and made
different deductions from the same set of facts. We now know that he is a power-hungry,
personally ambitious, ruthless demagogue who is trampling upon the liberties of his own
people. We have seen this onetime champion of liberty maintain martial law, curb freedom of
the press, radio, speech and assembly, resort to illegal arrests and torture, dismiss the
Senate, destroy the power of the Shah, take over control of the army, and now he is about to
destroy the Majlis, which is the lower house of Parliament.
His power would seem to be complete, but he has alienated the traditional ruling classes
-the aristocrats, landlords, financiers and tribal leaders. These elements are
anti-Communist. So is the Shah and so are the army leaders and the urban middle classes.
There is a traditional, historic fear, suspicion and dislike of Russia and the Russians. The
peasants, who make up the overwhelming mass of the population, are illiterate and
nonpolitical. Finally, there is still no evidence that the Tudeh (Communist) party is strong
enough or well enough organized, financed and led to take power.
All this simply means that there is no immediate danger of a Communist coup or Russian
intervention. On the other hand, Dr. Mossadegh is encouraging the Tudeh and is following
policies which will make the Communists more and more dangerous. He is a sorcerer's
apprentice, calling up forces he will not be able to control.
Iran is a weak, divided, poverty-stricken country which possesses an immense latent wealth
in oil and a crucial strategic position. This is very different from neighboring Turkey, a
strong, united, determined and advanced nation, which can afford to deal with the Russians
because she has nothing to fear -and therefore the West has nothing to fear. Thanks largely
to Dr. Mossadegh, there is much to fear in Iran.
My feeling is that the biggest sin that our society has is forgetting history. If we
remembered history I would think that it would be very difficult to pull off coups but most
media does not revisit history which proves US coups even against democracies. I actually
think that the coup that occurred in Ukraine was similar to the attempted coup in Venezuela
in 2002 with snipers on rooftops, immediate blame for the deaths on Hugo Chavez where media
manipulated the footage, immediate acceptance of the temporary coup government by the US
Government, immediately offering IMF loans for the new coup government, government positions
for many of the coup plotters, and let us not leave out the funding for the coup coming from
USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy. I also remember seeing the New York Times
immediately blaming Chavez and praising the coup but when the coup was overturned and US
fingerprints started to become revealed (with many of the coup plotters fleeing to the US)
then the New York Times wrote a limited retraction buried in their paper. Shameless.
SFOMARCO , April 11, 2016 at 15:16
How was NED able to finance "scores of projects inside Ukraine training activists,
paying for journalists and organizing business groups", not to mention to host such
dignitaries as Cookie Nuland, Loser McCain and assorted Bidens? Seems like a recipe for a
coup "hidden in plain sight".
Bob Van Noy , April 11, 2016 at 14:36
Ukraine, one would hope, represents the "Bridge Too Far" moment for the proponents of
regime change. Surely Americans must be catching on to what we do for selected nations in the
name of "giving them their freedoms". The Kagan Family, empowered by their newly endorsed
candidate for President, Hillary Clinton, will feel justified in carrying on a new cold war,
this time world wide. Of course they will not be doing the fighting, they, like Dick Cheney
are the self appointed intellects of geopolitical chess, much like The Georgetown Set of the
Kennedy era, they perceive themselves as the only ones smart enough to plan America's
future.
Helen Marshall , April 11, 2016 at 17:11
I wish. How many Americans know ANYTHNG about what has happened in Ukraine, about Crimea
and its history, and/or could even locate them on a map?
Pastor Agnostic , April 12, 2016 at 04:11
Nuland is merely the inhouse, PNAC female version of Sidney Blumenthal. Which raises the
scary question. Who would she pick to be SecState?
"... Given that Guaidó was trained by a group funded by USAID's sister organization, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) -- and is known to take his marching orders from Washington, including his self-proclamation as "interim president" and his return to Venezuela following the "humanitarian aid" showdown -- it is worth considering that this USAID document may well serve as a roadmap to the upcoming and Guaidó-led "tactical actions" that will comprise "Operation Freedom." ..."
"... Titled "Rapid Expeditionary Development (RED) Teams: Demand and Feasibility Assessment," the 75-page document was produced for the U.S. Global Development Lab, a branch of USAID. It was written as part of an effort to the "widespread sentiment" among the many military, intelligence, and development officials the report's authors interviewed "that the USG [U.S. government] is woefully underperforming in non-permissive and denied environments," including Venezuela. Notably, some of the military, intelligence and development officials interviewed by the report's authors had experience working in a covert capacity in Venezuela. ..."
"... The report goes on to state that "RED Team members would be catalytic actors, performing development activities alongside local communities while coordinating with interagency partners." It further states that "[i]t is envisioned that the priority competency of proposed RED Team development officers would be social movement theory (SMT)" and that "RED Team members would be 'super enablers,' observing situations on the ground and responding immediately by designing, funding, and implementing small-scale activities." ..."
"... Also raising the specter of a Venezuela link is the fact that the document suggests Brazil as a potential location for a RED Team pilot study. Several of those interviewed for the report asserted that "South American countries were ripe for pilots" of the RED Team program, adding that "These [countries were] under-reported, low-profile, idiot-proof locations, where USG civilian access is fairly unrestrained by DS [Diplomatic Security] and where there is a positive American relationship with the host government." ..."
"... This January, Brazil inaugurated Jair Bolsonaro as president, a fascist who has made his intention to align the country close to Washington's interests no secret. During Bolsonaro's recent visit to Washington, he became the first president of that country to visit CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. President Donald Trump said during his meeting with Bolsonaro that "We have a great alliance with Brazil -- better than we've ever had before" and spoke in favor of Brazil joining NATO. ..."
"... This is supported by the troubling correlation between a document produced by the NED-funded group CANVAS and the recent power outages that have taken place throughout Venezuela, which were described as U.S.-led "sabotage" by the country's government. A recent report by The Grayzone detailed how a September 2010 memo by CANVAS -- which trained Juan Guaidó -- described in detail how the potential collapse of the country's electrical infrastructure, like that recently seen in Venezuela, would be "a watershed event" that "would likely have the impact of galvanizing public unrest in a way that no opposition group could ever hope to generate." ..."
"... The document specifically named the Simon Bolivar Hydroelectric Plant at Guri Dam, which failed earlier this month as a result of what the Venezuelan government asserted was "sabotage" conducted by the U.S. government. That claim was bolstered by U.S. Senator Marco Rubio's apparent foreknowledge of the power outage. Thus, there is a precedent of correlation between these types of documents and actions that occur in relation to the current U.S. regime-change effort in Venezuela. ..."
With its hands tied when it comes to military intervention, only covert actions - such as those described in the RED Team document
- are likely to be enacted by the U.S. government, at least at this stage of its ongoing "regime change" effort in Venezuela.
Juan Guaidó, the self-proclaimed "interim president of Venezuela" who is supported by the United States government, recently announced
coming "tactical actions" that will be taken by his supporters starting April 6 as part of "
Operation Freedom ," an alleged grassroots effort
to overthrow Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
That operation, according to Guaidó, will be
led by "Freedom and Aid Committees" that in turn create "freedom cells" throughout the country -- "cells" that will spring to
action when Guaidó gives the signal on April 6 and launch large-scale community protests. Guaidó's stated plan involves the Venezuelan
military then taking his side, but his insistence that "all options are still on the table" (i.e., foreign military intervention)
reveals his impatience with the military, which has continued to stay loyal to Maduro throughout Guaidó's "interim presidency."
However, a document released by the U.S. Agency for
International Development (USAID) in February, and highlighted last month in
a report
by Devex, details the creation of networks of small teams, or cells, that would operate in a way very similar to what Guaidó
describes in his plan for "Operation Freedom."
Given that Guaidó
was trained by a group funded by USAID's sister organization, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) -- and is known to take
his marching orders from Washington, including
his self-proclamation as "interim president" and his return to Venezuela following the "humanitarian aid" showdown -- it is worth
considering that this USAID document may well serve as a roadmap to the upcoming and Guaidó-led "tactical actions" that will comprise
"Operation Freedom."
RED Teams
Titled "Rapid Expeditionary Development (RED) Teams: Demand and Feasibility Assessment," the 75-page
document was produced for the U.S. Global Development Lab,
a branch of USAID. It was written as part of an effort to the "widespread sentiment" among the many military, intelligence, and development
officials the report's authors interviewed "that the USG [U.S. government] is woefully underperforming in non-permissive and denied
environments," including Venezuela. Notably, some of the military, intelligence and development officials interviewed by the report's
authors had experience working in a covert capacity in Venezuela.
The approach put forth in this report involves the creation of rapid expeditionary development (RED) teams, who would "be deployed
as two-person teams and placed with 'non-traditional' USAID partners executing a mix of offensive, defensive, and stability operations
in extremis conditions." The report notes later on that these "non-traditional" partners are U.S. Special Forces (SF) and the CIA.
The report goes on to state that "RED Team members would be catalytic actors, performing development activities alongside local
communities while coordinating with interagency partners." It further states that "[i]t is envisioned that the priority competency
of proposed RED Team development officers would be social movement theory (SMT)" and that "RED Team members would be 'super enablers,'
observing situations on the ground and responding immediately by designing, funding, and implementing small-scale activities."
In other words, these teams of combined intelligence, military and/or "democracy promoting" personnel would work as "super enablers"
of "small-scale activities" focused on "social movement theory" and community mobilizations, such as the mobilizations of protests.
The decentralized nature of RED teams and their focus on engineering "social movements" and "mobilizations" is very similar to
Guaidó's plan for "Operation
Freedom." Operation Freedom is set to begin through "Freedom and Aid committees" that cultivate decentralized "freedom cells" throughout
the country and that create mass mobilizations when Guaidó gives the go ahead on April 6. The ultimate goal of Operation Freedom
is to have those "freedom cell"-generated protests converge on Venezuela's presidential palace, where Nicolás Maduro resides. Given
Guaidó lack of momentum and popularity within Venezuela, it seems highly likely that U.S. government "catalytic actors" may be a
key part of his upcoming plan to topple Maduro in little over a week.
Furthermore, an appendix included in the report states that RED Team members, in addition to being trained in social movement
theory and community mobilization techniques, would also be trained in "weapons handling and use," suggesting that their role as
"catalytic actors" could also involve Maidan-esque behavior. This is a distinct possibility raised by the report's claim that RED
Team members be trained in the use of both "offensive" and "defensive" weaponry.
In addition, another appendix states that RED Team members would help "identify allies and mobilize small amounts of cash to establish
community buy-in/relationship" -- i.e., bribes -- and would particularly benefit the CIA by offering a way to "transition covert
action into community engagement activities."
Feeling Bolsonaro's breath on its neck
Also raising the specter of a Venezuela link is the fact that the document suggests Brazil as a potential location for a RED Team
pilot study. Several of those interviewed for the report asserted that "South American countries were ripe for pilots" of the RED
Team program, adding that "These [countries were] under-reported, low-profile, idiot-proof locations, where USG civilian access is
fairly unrestrained by DS [Diplomatic Security] and where there is a positive American relationship with the host government."
This January, Brazil inaugurated Jair Bolsonaro as president, a fascist who has made his intention to align the country close
to Washington's interests no secret. During Bolsonaro's
recent visit to Washington, he became the first president of that country to visit CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. President
Donald Trump said during his meeting with Bolsonaro that "We have a great alliance with Brazil -- better than we've ever had before"
and spoke in favor of Brazil joining NATO.
Though Bolsonaro's government
has claimed late in February that it would not allow the U.S. to launch a military intervention from its territory, Bolsonaro's
son, Eduardo Bolsonaro -- an adviser to his father and a Brazilian congressman --
said
last week that "use of force will be necessary" in Venezuela "at some point" and, echoing the Trump administration, added that
"all options are on the table." If Bolsonaro's government does allow the "use of force," but not a full-blown foreign military intervention
per se, its closeness to the Trump administration and the CIA suggests that covert actions, such as those carried out by the proposed
RED Teams, are a distinct possibility.
Frontier Design Group
The RED Team report was authored by members of Frontier Design Group (FDG) for USAID's Global Development Lab. FDG is a national
security contractor and its mission statement on its website is quite revealing:
Since our founding, Frontier has focused on the challenges and opportunities that concern the "3Ds" of Defense, Development
and Diplomacy and critical intersections with the intelligence community. Our work has focused on the wicked and sometimes overlapping
problem sets of fragility, violent extremism, terrorism, civil war, and insurgency. Our work on these complex issues has included
projects with the U.S. Departments of State and Defense, USAID, the National Counterterrorism Center and the U.S. Institute of
Peace."
FDG also states on is website that it also regularly does work for the Council on Foreign Relations and the Omidyar Group -- which
is controlled by Pierre Omidyar, a billionaire with deep ties to the U.S. national security establishment that were the subject of
a recent MintPress series. According to journalist Tim Shorrock, who mentions the document in
a recent investigation
focusing on Pierre Omidyar for Washington Babylon , FDG was the "sole contractor" hired by USAID to create a "new counterinsurgency
doctrine for the Trump administration" and the fruit of that effort is the "RED Team" document described above.
One of the co-authors of the document is
Alexa Courtney , FDG founder
and former USAID liaison officer with the Department of Defense; former manager of civilian counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan
for USAID; and former counterinsurgency specialist for U.S. intelligence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton.
In addition, according to Shorrock, Courtney's name has also been found "on several Caerus [Associates] contracts with USAID and
US intelligence that were leaked to me on a thumb drive, including a $77 million USAID project to track 'licit and illicit networks'
in Honduras." Courtney, according to
her LinkedIn account, was also
recently honored by Chevron Corporation for her "demonstrated leadership and impact on development results." MintPress
recently reported
on the role of Chevron in the current U.S.-led effort to topple Maduro and replace him with Guaidó.
Send in the USAID
Though Devex was told last month that USAID was "still working on the details in formulating the Rapid Expeditionary Development
(RED) Teams initiative," Courtney
stated
that the report's contents had been "received really favorably" by "very senior" and "influential" former and current government
officials she had interviewed during the creation of the document.
For instance, one respondent asserted that the RED Team system would "restore the long-lost doing capacity of USAID." Another
USAID official with 15 years of experience, including in "extremely denied environments," stated that:
We have to be involved in national security or USAID will not be relevant. Anybody who doesn't think we need to be working
in combat elements or working with SF [special forces] groups is just naďve. We are either going to be up front or irrelevant
USAID is going through a lot right now, but this is an area where we can be of utility. It must happen."
Given that the document represents the efforts of the sole contractor tasked with developing the current administration's new
counterterrorism strategy, there is plenty of reason to believe that its contents -- published for over a year -- have been or are
set to be put to use in Venezuela, potentially as part of the upcoming "Operation Freedom," set to begin on April 6.
This is supported by the troubling correlation between a document produced by the NED-funded group CANVAS and the recent power
outages that have taken place throughout Venezuela, which were described as U.S.-led "sabotage" by the country's government. A
recent report by The Grayzone detailed how a September 2010 memo by CANVAS -- which trained Juan Guaidó -- described in detail
how the potential collapse of the country's electrical infrastructure, like that recently seen in Venezuela, would be "a watershed
event" that "would likely have the impact of galvanizing public unrest in a way that no opposition group could ever hope to generate."
The document specifically named the Simon Bolivar Hydroelectric Plant at Guri Dam, which failed earlier this month as a result
of what the Venezuelan government asserted was "sabotage" conducted by the U.S. government. That claim was bolstered by U.S. Senator
Marco Rubio's apparent foreknowledge of the power outage. Thus, there is a precedent of correlation between these types of documents
and actions that occur in relation to the current U.S. regime-change effort in Venezuela.
Furthermore, it would make sense for the Trump administration to attempt to enact such an initiative as that described in the
document, given its apparent inability to launch a military intervention in Venezuela, despite its frequent claims that "all options
are on the table." Indeed, U.S. allies -- including those close to Venezuela, like Colombia --
have rejected military intervention, given the U.S.' past role in bloody coups and civil wars throughout the region.
Thus, with its hands tied when it comes to military intervention, only covert actions -- such as those described in the RED Team
document -- are likely to be enacted by the U.S. government, at least at this stage of its ongoing "regime change" effort in Venezuela.
"... On Wednesday while meeting with the wife of opposition leader Juan Guaidó, President Trump called on Russia to pull its troops out of Venezuela, warning that "all options" were on the table to make that happen. ..."
Days after Trump's Secretary of State Mike Pompeo demanded that Russia " cease its unconstructive behavior " by landing a transport
plane
full of Russian troops in Caracas last Saturday, the Kremlin has responded - essentially telling Washington to pound sand - and
that their troops will remain in Venezuela "for as long as needed " according to the
Independent .
In the latest indication the crisis in Venezuela is taking on elements of a proxy battle between the former Cold War rivals,
a spokeswoman for Russia's foreign ministry said the troops had been dispatched to fulfil "military contracts".
" They are involved in the implementation of agreements in the sphere of military and technical cooperation ," said Maria Zakharova,
according to the AFP, adding that the troops would stay there " for as long as needed ".
" Russia is not changing the balance of power in the region, Russia is not threatening anyone ," she said. -
Independent
Last week we also noted that
new satellite images reveal a major deployment of S-300 air defense missile systems to a key air base south of Caracas shortly
after Russia arrived.
On Wednesday while meeting with the wife of opposition leader Juan Guaidó, President Trump called on Russia to pull its troops
out of Venezuela, warning that "all options" were on the table to make that happen.
Juan Guaido getting a ''warm'' welcome from population in El Valle. Apparently, Venezuelan
masses have had enough of comprador sellouts backed by European powers.
Without police presence, the Yankee puppet would in all likelihood end up lynched and
hanging from lamppost.
Exceptionals are in for a rude awakening, if they attempt to overthrow Chavistas using
direct kinetic operations.
Any invasion will be met with fierce resistance. No volveran to Pre-Chavez years. Orange
dotard and his neo-confederates in the white house fancy themselves crushing ''subhuman''
resistance from shitholes and securing the hemisphere for wall street looters. The gambit
will backfire, and could end up kickstarting hostilites that will span the Continent from
Patagonia to Rio Grande. MAGA the gift that keeps on giving. #winning... https://www.facebook.com/venesolidarite/videos/814971605532561/
Seems to me what that BigLie's about is this tale: Relations with Russia during the
post-USSR age were going along swell until Russia began involved in the Venezuelan
Crisis.
The attempt is to try a new narrative using a different angle to blame Russia which is the
goal of the BigLie. Signal a new line of approach in dealing with the attitude toward Russia
to the trusty echoers of His Master's Voice.
"I don't know why you don't listen. You're making me hurt you. I'm doing it for your own
good! -- but it's your fault!"
Does that sound eerily familiar to you? When I look at America and Britain, I see the rise
of what I'll simply call mafia politics. It sums up Trumpism and Brexit in a nutshell: abuse
gone mega-scale, the search absolute power through the threat of violent aggression,
legitimized as "democratic" -- but bullying, threats, intimidation, harassment,
and extortion are not democracy, my friends. What are they? Mafia-ocracy.
Democracy is degenerating into mafia-ocracy, and mafia-ocracy goes something like this.
Step one: intimidation. "Listen. Wise up. Do what's good for you. Do what we say! Or else!"
Or else what?
Step two: threat. "Or else well it'd be a shame if something happened to that nice democracy
you've got there!" Like what?
Step three: violence. "People might just rise up. You might get hurt, you know. In fact,
it's pretty likely. It's not what we want, of course. But "
Step four: victim blaming. But what? "It's what you'll make happen!" Me? Wait: what will I
make happen?
Step five: dominance. "What's coming to you, if you thwart us! Nobody can blame us, after
all -- it's your fault! For not doing what's good for you!"
What the? Do you see the bizarre contradictory logic? The pattern? I see it every single day
now, in Anglo politics. You're quite right if it reminds you of abusive relationships --
it is one, at a social scale. If the sudden proliferation of angry, bellowing men in
ill-fitting suits, sneering and jeering with dull, brutish expressions, isn't evidence enough,
first let me give you a few concrete examples.
Brexiters -- the politicians -- explicitly invoke this chain of
logic. They warn of all kinds of things if their wish isn't carried through --
everything from mass civil unrest to riots to all out war. Riots? War? Really?
Brexiters -- the individuals -- explicitly say: "I'll never vote
again!", as if to reinforce the threat, that they'll resort to cruder means of carrying out
their wishes. Or maybe you read, as I read, recently, that chants of "AOC sucks!" broke out at
a recent rally -- adding to the usual "Lock her up!" Do I really need to explain
how those exemplify the logic above?
The logic above, my friends, has no place in a democracy. You see, a democracy is not a
place for any of the above. When the line is crossed, we're not really practicing democracy
anymore. What are we practicing?
Mafia-ocracy.
All the above is the logic every mafia from the beginning of time has used to
extort, shake down, bully, harass, and destabilize. "Sure be a shame if something happened to
that nice democracy you got there. Who knows what might end up happening? It'd be your fault,
though."
Do you see what's happening here? Here's what that logic isn't. Policy. Vision. Ideas. An
agenda. A plan to deal with real problems. Laws to expand freedom, justice, and equality. The
line above -- the essence of mafia-ocracy -- is outside the bounds
of democracy.
Democracies were centered around "parliaments" for a very good reason. "Parliament"
literally means "talking it out." But we are not talking our issues out if you are threatening
me. If you are trying to intimidate me. If you are victim blaming me for the implied violence
you will do me.
We are "talking it out" in democracies when we discuss issues of substance. Issues of, as
Americans say, "policy." What is "policy"? Have you ever thought about it? "Policy" is just
something like: 'laws we hope to make to solve very real problems in our society." Policy is
not: "ways I will intimidate and punish you for failing to obey me." If that is what policy is,
we are not in a democracy anymore, my friends.
Where are we? We are in a twilight zone between authoritarianism, fascism, and false
democracy, democracy used as a weapon. That is why I call it mafia-ocracy. It is the
institutions of democracy used for anti-democratic purposes, to destroy and shatter
democracy.
You can use a "parliament", a place to "talk it out", to issue threats and intimate and
bully. Just as you can use a local street to intimidate and extort shop-owners. But just as
that mafias stalking shop owners is not legitimate commerce, but only harassment, so too,
threats and intimidation in parliaments or other democratic fora (like town halls or rallies
and so on) are not democracy. Do you see the parallel I am drawing?
Mafia-ocracy uses the institutions of democracy as weapons. Its intent is to destroy the
very essentials of true democracy. There are three. Freedom, equality, and justice. But when
the Brexiter or Trumpist says, "Hey, there might be riots, upheaval, a civil war --
and it's your fault. Why don't you just give in?", those three things are being
undermined.
There is less equality, every time that one group in society uses threats and intimidation
to overpower others. There is less freedom, every time one group in society threatens another
with violence or harm to get their way. And there is less justice when these things happen, of
course, too -- in enduring ways.
In that way, mafia-ocracy is a strange thing, a new thing. It isn't quite classical
authoritarianism or fascism -- it's democracy weaponized. It's using the basic
institutions of democracy, Congresses, the idea of "parliament", town halls, courts, and so
forth, to tear democracies apart, as weapons for one group to overpower all the others, with
threats, intimidation, bullying, and harassment.
Hence, it's supporters can call it "democracy" -- and usually do. Nobody has
taught them that a democracy has red lines -- within them lie issues of
substance, policy, and outside them lie the threat, the wish to harm, the intimidation, the
intent to do real injury. Nobody seems to have taught the true believers of mafia-ocracy that
trying to extort and shake down their neighbors and colleagues isn't democracy --
but it's undoing.
And why would anyone be surprised by that? The forces that rule our world --
capitalism, neoliberalism, supremacy -- all these say: the strong survive,
and the weak perish, and that's fair, right, and just. Everyone for themselves. You're predator
or prey, burden or "self-reliant" indvidual", somebody -- or nobody. It's not a
surprise, given this binary logic that much of the world is turning to Mafia-ocracy. They're
only really doing what capitalism, neoliberalism, and supremacy have taught them is perfectly
acceptable, legitimate, even morally right: the shakedown, the threat, bullying, extorting.
Hence, the striking parallels of Brexit and Trumpism. Both are movements where the idea that
we should bully, intimidate, threaten, and shake down our neighbours -- both
inside and outside our societies -- is the right, best, necessary, and only thing
to do. If we cannot do it -- we might be the weak ones, and they might be the
strong ones. We might be the prey, and they might be the predators.
Hence, democracy used as a weapon, as a hammer -- one that destroys freedom,
justice, and equality, not to mention trust, decency, and humanity, in the aggressive search
for the power to abuse, demean, dehumanize, and devalue.
Because, my friends, when we threaten, intimidate, and vilify, that is what we are really
doing: we are saying that you are not really as human as I am. Therefore, I deserve to have
more power than you. That is the only logic whereby one can conclude: "you made me do it! It's
your fault I hurt you!"
"It's your fault I hurt you!" Is also, of course, the logic of the abuser. Abusers believe
they are more than perfectly justified -- it's something like their moral duty to
abuse their victims. "It's your fault I hurt you!" also means "you're better off being being
hurt!" This rule out the possibility of a genuine relationship of equals, seeking
greaterfreedom, granting each other justice -- which is what democracy really is.
Just as a democratic relationship is not an abusive one, so too an abusive society is not a
democratic one -- no matter how much the abusers cry that it is.
Again, it's not a surprise that the dynamics of abuse have gone mega-scale, have come to
conquer even our political systems, have corroded our democracies. That's because, again,
capitalism, neoliberalism, and supremacy all justify abuse -- treat it as a duty.
Not paying your workers as little as possible? Letting them have bathroom breaks? You're
violating your duty to shareholders! Abuse is hardwired into capitalism because the division
into people who "own" things and people who don't of course creates power imbalances that
cannot yield freedom, equality, or justice, only abuse. It's not a surprise, then, that the
abused have become abusive. It is all they have ever known -- the quest for the
power to abuse, when they were not being abused themselves. Can anyone teach there is a
different world?
Mafia-ocracy is democracy being used as a weapon, abusive relationships going mega-scale,
threats, intimidation, extortion, regarded as legitimate forms of democratic discourse, "It's
your fault I hurt you! You made me do it!!" What it isn't is democracy.
Democracy is a lever, not a hammer. When democracy is used as a hammer, it is not democracy
at all. The lever lifts. Democracy is greater freedom, justice, equality, by "talking it out",
parlez, parley. If we are at the point that me telling you: "You are going to make me hurt you,
for your own good, and it will be all your fault!", then, my friends, we are not upholding the
great tradition and enacting the sacred and noble idea of democracy. We are becoming little
versions of the mafias who have abused us all our lives long -- even if we have
been taught to call them "elites."
They lost control of Saudi Arabia, after trying to take down MBS and then betraying him by unexpectedly allowing waivers on
Iranian oil in November.
The U.S. cannot take down Iran without Venezuelan oil. What is worse, right now they don't have access to enough heavy oil
to meet their own needs.
Controlling the world oil trade is central to Trump's strategy for the U.S. to continue its empire. Without Venezuelan oil,
the U.S. is a bit player in the energy markets, and will remain so.
Having Russia block the U.S. in Venezuela adds insult to injury. After Crimea and Syria, now Venezuela, Russia exposes the
U.S. as a loud mouthed-bully without the capacity to back up its threats, a 'toothless tiger', an 'emperor without clothes'.
If the U.S. cannot dislodge Russia from Venezuela, its days as 'global hegemon' are finished. For this reason the U.S. will
continue escalating the situation with ever-riskier actions, until it succeeds or breaks.
In the same manor, if Russia backs off, its resistance to the U.S. is finished. And the U.S. will eventually move to destroy
Russia, like it has been actively trying to do for the past 30 years. Russia cannot and will not back off.
Venezuela thus becomes the stage where the final act in the clash of empires plays out. Will the world become a multi-polar
world, in which the U.S. becomes a relatively isolated and insignificant pole? Or will the world become more fully dominated by
a brutal, erratic hegemon?
Stay Out Of Western Hemisphere! Bolton Warns Russia Over Troops In Venezuela
by Tyler Durden
Fri, 03/29/2019 - 18:25 162 SHARES
The White House has dramatically stepped up its rhetoric threatening action against Russia's
military presence in Venezuela after the Kremlin deployed a troop contingency to Caracas last
Saturday.
Trump's national security adviser John Bolton took tensions to a new level, on Friday
issuing a new Monroe doctrine of sorts, telling Moscow any attempt to establish or expand
military operations in the western hemisphere constitutes a "provocative" and "direct threat"
to international peace and security in the region. "We strongly caution actors external to the
Western Hemisphere against deploying military assets to Venezuela, or elsewhere in the
Hemisphere, with the intent of establishing or expanding military operations," Bolton said in
a statement .
"We will consider such provocative actions as a direct threat to international peace and
security in the region," he added. This follows the president's own warning on Wednesday that
"all options" are on the table regarding potential expanding Russian presence in Venezuela.
Two Russian aircraft carrying about 100 servicemen and 35 tons of cargo arrived in Caracas
last Saturday, led by Russian General Vasily Tonkoshkurov, identified as chief of the Main
Staff of the Ground Forces and First Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Land Forces of
Russia.
This prompted Trump's Wednesday warning to Russia against involvement in the Latin American
nation; he told reporters in
the Oval Office that :
" Russia has to get out."
Kremlin officials responded by explaining that it deployed military specialists merely to
service preexisting arms contracts with Venezuela, and that Russia is not interfering in the
Latin American country's internal affairs.
Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at a press briefing on Thursday when asked how long the
Russian troop contingency led by a high ranking general will stay:
"How long? As long as they need to, and as long as the Venezuelan government needs them.
It all is being done based on bilateral agreements."
Russia's position is that it is not interfering in Venezuela's internal affairs by merely
cooperating on legal and existing service contracts, and that no other country should do so
either. It said that only "specialists" had entered Venezuela under a pre-existing agreed upon
military cooperation deal .
However, the White House isn't buying it, as Bolton's Friday statement further condemned
Maduro's "use of foreign military personnel in his attempt to remain in power, including the
introduction of Russian military personnel and equipment into Venezuela."
"Maduro will only use this military support to further repress the people of Venezuela;
perpetuate the economic crisis that has destroyed Venezuela's economy; and endanger regional
stability," Bolton
said .
All of this also comes as the Maduro government stripped US-backed opposition leader Juan
Guaido of his position in the National Assembly, further barring
him from holding public office for 15 years .
"... When we mix this with the recent India-Pakistan scuffle, a wider message emerges. There was absolutely no interest by Prime Minister Imran Kahn, the Pakistani Army and the Pakistani intelligence, ISI, to launch an attack on India in Kashmir. Pakistan was about to run out of money and about to be bolstered by the U.S., via Saudi Arabia with $20 billion and an IMF loan. ..."
"... At the same time, there were two almost simultaneous terrorist attacks launched from Pakistan – against Iran and against India in mid-February. There's no smoking gun yet, but these attacks may have been manipulated by a foreign intelligence agency. ..."
"... Lavrov explained how Washington was engaged in acquiring mortars and portable air defense systems "in an East European country, and mov(ing) them closer to Venezuela by an airline of a regime that is rather absolutely obedient to Washington in the post-Soviet space." ..."
"... That leaves Plan D – which is essentially to try to starve the Venezuelan population to death via viciously lethal additional sanctions. Sanctioned Syria and sanctioned Iran didn't collapse. Even boasting myriad comprador elites aggregated in the Lima group, exceptionalists may have to come to grips with the fact that deploying the Monroe doctrine essentially to contain China's influence in the young 21stcentury is no "cakewalk." ..."
A hefty case can be made that the Empire of Chaos currently has no allies; it's essentially
surrounded by an assortment of vassals, puppets and comprador 5thcolumnist elites professing varied
degrees of – sometimes reluctant – obedience.
The Trump administration's foreign policy
may be easily deconstructed as a crossover between The Sopranos and late-night comedy
– as
in the whole episode of designating State Department/CIA regime change, lab experiment Random Dude
as President of Venezuela. Legendary cultural critic Walter Benjamin would have called it
"the
aestheticization of politics,"
(turning politics into art), as he did about the Nazis, but this
time it's the Looney Tunes version.
To add to the conceptual confusion, despite countless "an offer you can't refuse" antics
unleashed by psychopaths of the John Bolton and Mike Pompeo variety, there's this startling
nugget
.
Former Iranian diplomat Amir Moussavi has revealed that Trump himself demanded to visit Tehran, and
was duly rebuffed. "Two European states, two Arab countries and one Southeast Asian state" were
mediating a series of messages relayed by Trump and his son-in-law Jared "of Arabia" Kushner,
according to Moussavi.
Is there a method to this madness?
An attempt at a Grand Narrative would go
something like this: ISIS/Daesh may have been sidelined – for now; they are not useful anymore, so
the U.S. must fight the larger "evil": Tehran. GWOT has been revived, and though Hamza bin Laden
has been designated the new Caliph, GWOT has shifted to Iran.
When we mix this with the recent India-Pakistan scuffle, a wider message emerges. There was
absolutely no interest by Prime Minister Imran Kahn, the Pakistani Army and the Pakistani
intelligence, ISI, to launch an attack on India in Kashmir. Pakistan was about to run out of money
and about to be bolstered by the U.S., via Saudi Arabia with $20 billion and an IMF loan.
At the same time, there were two almost simultaneous terrorist attacks launched from Pakistan –
against
Iran
and against India in mid-February. There's no smoking gun yet, but these attacks may have
been manipulated by a foreign intelligence agency. The Cui Bono riddle is which state would profit
immensely from a war between Pakistan and Iran and/or a war between Pakistan and India.
The bottom line:
hiding in the shadow of plausible deniability – according to which
what we understand as reality is nothing but pure perception – the Empire of Chaos will resort to
the chaos of no-holds-barred Hybrid War to avoid "losing" the Eurasian heartland.
Show Me How Many Hybrid Plans You Got
What applies to the heartland of course also applies to the backyard.
The case of Venezuela shows that the "all options on the table" scenario has been de
facto aborted by Russia,
outlined in an
astonishing
briefing
by Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman of the Russian Foreign Ministry, and then
subsequently
detailed
by Russian
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
Meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj at a
crucial RIC (part of BRICS) summit in China, Lavrov said, "Russia keeps a close eye on brazen US
attempts to create an artificial pretext for a military intervention in Venezuela The actual
implementation of these threats is pulling in military equipment and training [US] Special Forces."
Lavrov explained how Washington was engaged in acquiring mortars and portable air defense
systems "in an East European country, and mov(ing) them closer to Venezuela by an airline of a
regime that is rather absolutely obedient to Washington in the post-Soviet space."
The U.S. attempt at regime change in Venezuela has been so far unsuccessful in several ways.
Plan A – a classic color revolution -has miserably failed,
in part because
of a lack of decent local intelligence.
Plan B was a soft version of humanitarian imperialism,
with a resuscitation
of the nefarious, Libya-tested
responsibility to protect (R2P)
; it also failed, especially
when the American tale that the Venezuelan government burnt humanitarian aid trucks at the
border with Colombia was a lie exposed, no less, than by
The New York Times.
Plan C was a classic Hybrid War technique: a
cyberattack
,
replete with a revival of
Nitro
Zeus
, which shut down 80 percent of Venezuela's electricity.
That plan had already been
exposed
by
WikiLeaks, via a 2010 memo by a U.S.-funded, Belgrade-based color revolution scam that helped
train self-proclaimed "President" Random Dude, when he was just known asJuan Guaidó. The leaked
memo said that attacking the Venezuelan power grid would be a "watershed event" that "would
likely have the impact of galvanizing public unrest in a way that no opposition group could ever
hope to generate."
But even that was not enough.
That leaves Plan D – which is essentially to try to starve the Venezuelan population
to death
via viciously lethal additional sanctions. Sanctioned Syria and sanctioned
Iran didn't collapse. Even boasting myriad comprador elites aggregated in the Lima group,
exceptionalists may have to come to grips with the fact that deploying the
Monroe
doctrine
essentially to contain China's influence in the young 21stcentury is no "cakewalk."
Plan E -- for extreme -- would be U.S. military action, which Bolton won't take off the
table.
Show Me the Way to the Next War Game
So where do all these myriad weaponizations of chaos theory leave us? Nowhere, if they
don't follow the money.
Local comprador elites must be lavishly rewarded, otherwise you're
stuck in hybrid swamp territory. That was the case in Brazil – and that's why the most
sophisticated hybrid war case history so far has been a success.
In 2013, Edward Snowden and WikiLeaks revealed how the NSA was spying on Brazilian energy giant
Petrobras and the Dilma Rousseff government beginning in 2010. Afterwards, a complex, rolling
judicial-business-political-financial-media coup ended up reaching its two main objectives; in
2016, with the impeachment of Rousseff, and in 2018, with Lula thrown in jail.
Now comes arguably the juiciest piece of the puzzle. Petrobras was supposed to pay $853 million
to the U.S. Department of Justice for not going to trial for crimes it was being accused of in
America. But then a dodgy
deal
was struck
according to which the fine will be transferred to a Brazilian fund as long as Petrobras commits to
relay confidential information about its businesses to the United States government.
Mattis: Wrote on hybrid war in 2005.
Hybrid war against BRICS member Brazil worked like a charm, but trying it against nuclear
superpower Russia is a completely different ball game. U.S. analysts, in another case of culture
jamming, even accuse Russia itself of deploying hybrid war – a concept actually invented in the
U.S. within a counter-terrorism context; applied during the occupation of Iraq and later
metastasized across the color revolution spectrum; and featuring, among others, in an
article
co-authored
by former Pentagon head James "Mad Dog" Mattis in 2005 when he was a mere lieutenant general.
At a recent conference about Russia's military strategy, Chief of General Staff Gen.
Valery Gerasimov stressed that the Russian armed forces must increase both their "classic" and
"asymmetrical" potential.
In the U.S. this is interpreted as subversion/propaganda hybrid
war techniques as applied in Ukraine and in the largely debunked Russia-gate. Instead, Russian
strategists refer to these techniques as "complex approach" and "new generation war".
Santa Monica's RAND Corporation still sticks to good ol' hot war scenarios. They have been
holding "Red on Blue"
war
games
simulations since 1952 – modeling how the proverbial "existential threats" could use
asymmetric strategies. The latest
Red on Blue
was not exactly swell.
RAND analyst
David Ochmanek famously said that with Blue representing the current U.S. military potential and
Red representing Russia-China in a conventional war, "Blue gets its ass handed to it."
None of this will convince Empire of Chaos functionary Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, who recently told a Senate Armed Services Committee that the Pentagon will
continue to
refuse
a "no first use" nuclear strategy.
Aspiring Dr. Strangeloves actually believe the U.S. can start a nuclear war and get away with it.
Talk about the Age of Hybrid Stupidity going out with a bang.
Following the 'red lines' meeting between Ryabkov and Elliot Abrams in Rome a couple of
days ago, after which Ryabkov said bluntly:
"We assume that Washington treats our priorities seriously, our approach and
warnings."
One of those warnings delivered by Ryabkov is understood to have been that no American
military intervention in Venezuela will be tolerated by Moscow.
For his part, Abrams sounded as if he had emerged from the meeting after having been given
a severe reprimand.
"No, we did not come to a meeting of minds, but I think the talks were positive in the
sense that both sides emerged with a better understanding of the other's views," he told
reporters.
"A better understanding of the other's views," means that the American side was given a
red line to back off.
So, the Russian Army advanced party has arrived today, 99 in an Il-62 and goodness knows
what in an An-124 on a direct flight from Syria.
And now, according to journalist Javier I. Mayorca, Colonel General Vasily Tonkoshkurov,
chief of the Main Staff of the Ground Forces - First Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Land
Forces of Russia, arrived in Venezuela.
So we have one of the most significant Russian Generals now in Venezuela with his staff
and protection teams with their equipment coming out the back of the Antonov and I think we
can be certain that there is no beachware included.
This is looking more like the start up of Russian ops in Syria. This is the 'what do you
need, how can we help' team.
This could be Venezuela transforming from a hedgehog into a porcupine.
I bet the An-124 was filled with captured NATO arms, particularly TOWs, of which there're
many warehouses in Syria packed to the rafters--$billions$ in armaments at no charge! In
contrast with France, every Saturday there's a massive Solidarity March in
Caracas and other Venezuelan cities in support of Maduro, the government and the Bolivarian
Constitution. One of the most important differences between Venezuela and other
South-of-the-border regime changes is that an entire generation has grown up under
Chavezismo, the Bolivarian Constitution, and the great social changes--literacy and education
for the masses being #1--that have occurred over the past 20+ years. Those coming of age now
will be even more Anti-USA and Anti-OAS than ever before. This chart shows almost 50% of
the current population's coming of age During the Bolivarian/Chavista Age proves that
point.
As with Iran and Cuba, the Bolivarian Revolution's ingrained into the government's
structure, and perpetuated by society and culture. The penchant for the Outlaw US Empire to
task its vassals with killing off the entire Leftist political spectrum leaving only
reactionaries and their kin has always been genocidal in scope, and in Venezuela's case would
amount to @22 million requiring purging. And let's not kid ourselves--A world filled with
docile reactionaries is exactly the sort of prole-based planet the Outlaw US Empire
craves.
Guado looks more and more like Russian Navalny -- another color revolution Trojan Horse.
Notable quotes:
"... Half a BILLION dollars to be spent to overthrow Maduro, and they spent how much time making claims like Putin hacked the election.... Lies, More lies, Damn lies..... Same as it ever was. ..."
"... "The first round of the U.S. 'regime change' change attempt in Venezuela failed but it is far from over. The State Department alone foresees to spend $500 million more on it: ..."
"... The Fiscal Year 2020 budget request includes funding to support democracy in Venezuela and provides the flexibility to make more funds available to support a democratic transition, including up to $500 million in transfer authority." ..."
"... Given the results of the last 70 years of US policies I would say that quote should now be updated to "Trillions for war, but not one cent for the people." ..."
On February 23 the U.S. created a 'humanitarian aid' stunt at the border between Colombia
and Venezuela. The stunt ended in a riot during which the supporters of the self declared
'president' Guaidó burned the trucks that where supposed to transport the 'aid'. Even
the New York Times had to admit that.
The riots also marked the day that Guaidó
lost the legal argument he had used to make himself 'interim president'.
Guaido also lost his original legal position. He claimed the presidency on January 23 under
this paragraph of article 233 of the Venezuelan constitution :
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.
That the "elected President becomes permanently unavailable" was never the
case to begin with. But if article 233 would apply Guaido would have had 30 days to hold
new elections. The 30 days are over and Guaido did not even call for elections to be held.
He thereby defied the exact same paragraph of the constitution that his (false) claim to
the presidency is based on.
The hapless coup plotters in Washington DC were finally put on notice that the issue
creates a legal problem for them. During a March 15 press briefing Elliott Abrams, the
U.S. Special Representative for Venezuela, was asked about the issue:
QUESTION: [C]ould you explain to us the article under which Mr. Guaido declared himself
president? It is said that it has expired last month. Could you explain that to us? What is
the --
MR ABRAMS: As to the Venezuelan constitution, the National Assembly has passed a resolution
that states that that 30-day period of interim presidency will not start ending or counting
until the day Nicolas Maduro leaves power. So the 30 days doesn't start now, it starts
after Maduro. And they – that's a resolution of the National Assembly.
A resolution of the National Assembly, which the Supreme Court of Venezuela holds in
contempt over the seating illegally elected persons, can change the country's constitution?
That does not sound convincing to me. The journalists in the briefing were equally curious of
how the rules could be changed like that during the ongoing game:
During Bosonaro's visit to the US Trump also announced his support for
Brazil's entrance into the NATO alliance, if I was Germany I'd veto that idea outright, the
last thing NATO needs is a basket case like Brazil.
But I imagine the Pentagon is already
counting all the additional arms they can sell to Brazil as a member of NATO without having
to go through all the additional hoops they would while it's just an ally of NATO
Never Mind the Bollocks , Mar 19, 2019 2:39:09 PM |
link
Random Guy also appointed an ambassador, Carlos Vecchio, to the US who just took over the
Venezuela's diplomatic buildings (empty since Venezuela broke off relations with the US over
the attempted coup), including the consular building in New York.
So far it doesn't look like
the US has succeed in replacing Venezuela's representative to the UN with a US stooge, but I
imagine the US is working hard on that front as well.
The US looks just ridiculous doing a
stunt this, but B is right, the US always doubles down, especially on a losing plan.
Half a BILLION dollars to be spent to overthrow Maduro, and they spent how much time making
claims like Putin hacked the election.... Lies, More lies, Damn lies..... Same as it ever was.
thanks b... some crazy talk in that daily press briefing with abrams...
"Q: So Juan Guaido is the interim president of an interim that doesn't exist yet?
A: The 30-day end to his interim presidency starts counting. Because he's not in power,
that's the problem. Maduro is still there. So they have decided that they will count that
from when he actually is in power and Maduro's gone. I think it's logical.
Q: So then he really isn't interim president, then?
A: He is interim president, but he's not --
Q: With no power."
that sounds about par fe the course for the usa... as kadath says - they always double
down on losing plans!
i am a bit mystified as to the plan of maduros to get the cabinet to resign.. what is the
concept there? does he have a number of members that could be persuaded by the logic of
abrams? with a little bribery money, no doubt..
i wonder how brazilians are looking at the stooge they have in power now, sucking up to
the usa-cia..
The optics of groveling to the US and Israel, and military opposition, are not good for our
friend Jair. It's only a matter of time until Bolsonaro starts hemorrhaging support and
Brazilian nationalism abandons him.
- If Maduro is in power, then the office is not vacant. Therefore, Guaidó cannot be
interim president.
- If the office is vacant, then there is no president. Therefore, Guaidó either is or
isn't the interim president (i.e. he can't be the interim president of the interim president,
which in this case is nobody).
If you want to suspend the Constitution, declare a civil war. If you win the civil war,
then you can do whatever you please (including obeying and/or reinterpreting the old
Constitution). In the strict legal sense, Guaidó's position is untenable. Even the
counting of days was wrong: January has 31 days, not 30, therefore his alleged 30-day mandate
was over at the 21st of February, not at the 23rd.
Re:#6 James, normally when you request that your own cabinet resigns it means that you've
either lost faith in their ability to perform their jobs - OR - your making a drastic change
in direction for your government and you need people with a different skill set to run the
various government departments. I imagine Maduros's decision is a mixture of needing to
create a "war government" to fight the economic war the US is waging against him and ensuring
the loyalty of powerful political rivals by giving them cabinet posts. Maduro will probably
announce some major new policies in the coming weeks aimed at 1) resisting US economic
pressure 2) increase Maduro's support among the population (maybe some policies aimed at the
urban middle class to split them off from Random Guy) and 3) announce some foreign
relationship drive to hopefully block more countries from supporting random guy's
pseudo-government and hopefully win some countries back. economic advisors from Russia, Cuba,
China and maybe Iran & Syria will be providing vital support for any economic policies
aimed at avoid US sanctions
"The first round of the U.S. 'regime change' change attempt in Venezuela failed but it is far
from over. The State Department alone foresees to spend $500 million more on it:
The Fiscal Year 2020 budget request includes funding to support democracy in Venezuela and
provides the flexibility to make more funds available to support a democratic transition,
including up to $500 million in transfer authority."
Tell me again how much it will cost to bring clean water to Flint, MI and our other cities
with water problems. You know, the things we don't have money for.
@ lgfocus who asked
"
Tell me again how much it will cost to bring clean water to Flint, MI and our other cities
with water problems. You know, the things we don't have money for.
"
Keep asking those questions and maybe Americans will grow the sentiments necessary to
stand up.
Where are the Bernie crowd that are going to make so much difference in the coming
(s)election?
Even the counting of days was wrong: January has 31 days, not 30, therefore his alleged
30-day mandate was over at the 21st of February, not at the 23rd.
Posted by: vk | Mar 19, 2019 3:33:55 PM | 10
They made their general ops to produce public results specifically at 23 of this month or
for several more months. They obviously wanted to make a point like they were doing at least
since 2016 for almost each consequtive month, only for that period favorable date number was
11. Check events for every 11th of each month since 2016 and check what dominated US and EU
news.
Yet in current Venezuela events there seem to be so much FAIL regarding the US
clandestine strategies.
There's also rising domestic pushback within the Outlaw US Empire while the hypocrisy of
Russiagate rises like a massive iceberg on the horizon. This also puts additional pressure on
Vassal EU governments whose publics see through the Empire's lies and thus further
delegitimizes their national governments.
French Yellow Vests will not surrender until Macron
and his backing Establishment does, and they're motivating other nation's citizens.
Will
Poroshenko get reelected in 12 days or ?
IMO, both Trump and Bolsonaro will be ousted before
Maduro. It appears the Truth Brigades outnumber the liebots thanks to b and a host of other
genuine journalists.
@11 kadath.. thanks for the response to my question.. we will have to wait and see how this
unfolds.. it reminds me a bit of the ukraine 2014 scenario, but different too... in ukraines
case, they already had a split dynamic in the country itself.. here, i don't see it.. the
split seems to be along economics - who are the upper class, with some middle class in tow,
verses everyone else..
@13 lgfocus - that sounds suspiciously like something a COMMUNIST would say!!!!!!! During the
1797 XYZ scandal C.C. Pinckney reportedly said "Millions for defense, but not one cent for
tribute." which has been quoted by the Military Industrial Complex ad nauseam for the last 70
years to justify massive military budgets to fight the forever wars.
Given the results of the
last 70 years of US policies I would say that quote should now be updated to "Trillions for
war, but not one cent for the people."
So if Elliott Abrams is correct, the Venezuelan National Assembly (a now illegitimate entity
by the way) has passed a resolution that Juan Guaido's "interim presidency" only begins AFTER
Nicolas Maduro leaves the presidency? Is that not admitting that Maduro is the legitimate
president?
That Jair Bolsonaro is visiting the CIA to discuss overthrowing Maduro may alarm quite a
few people even among the top tiers of the Brazilian military who otherwise support him.
What's to stop Bolsonaro from discussing with the CIA how to get rid of more than a few top
Brazilian generals who disagree with overthrowing the government of a neighbouring
country?
Now let's all imagine what would happen if Brazil was accepted into NATO like Trump &
the MIC wants and the Brazilian Generals decided to continue their time-honoured tradition of
toppling the current Brazilian President. NATO has no means of ejecting or even suspending a
member so any such crisis in Brazilian leadership would immediately trigger a crisis within
NATO itself on how to respond and accepting a coup government into NATO would kill the
illusion that NATO is some sort of league of Democracies that Bolton hopes to promote as a
replacement to the UN assembly.
Well, Bolsonaro's complete and absolute submission to Donald Trump and the US is probably
surprising even the most optmistic hawks in the White House. The golden shower president will
probably accept anything the US tries to push to Brazil.
It strikes me that the futility of trying to stir up a revolution with an elite constituency
seems completely lost on the coup planners. The Venezuelan elite might want the government
overthrown but there is no way that they'll put their own blood on the line for it. It's
really puzzling trying to understand how they see this playing out. And what will their elite
supporters think if US sanctions mean they can't use their Visa or MasterCard? And the
businesses that cater to the elite?
The Brazil to NATO call sounds awfully like a forecast of significant cross-border
provocations by Brazil which, if responded to by the Venezuelans, could trigger the old
Article 5 musketeers to intervene militarily. Just as ludicrous (and dangerous) as the UK 's
FCE attempt to confer diplomatic status on the BBC Farsi woman jailed in Iran. Student union
politics.
Abrams is attempting to claim that Random Guy is "interim President-in-waiting".
Q: What is that Interim President-in-waiting actually waiting for?
A: He's waiting for the position of President to become vacant.
THAT is the fatal flaw in all of Abrams legal mumbo-jumbo i.e. the articles of the
Venezuelan Constitution that Random Guy invoked to claim the title of Interim President are
only applicable when the office of President (and also Vice President) are VACANT.
Then and only then can the leader of the National Assembly take on the role of "interim
President" until elections take place 30 days later.
Abrams is admitting that the office of President isn't vacant.
This is an important legal point, so it bears repeating: Abrams accepts that someone holds
that position, albeit he is insisting that the current office-holder's claim to that chair is
illegitimate (in Constitutional terms, Maduro is "unfit" to be President).
Again, that exposes Abrams argument as legal mumbo-jumbo, precisely because the leader of
the National Assembly does not possess the authority to declare that a sitting President is
"unfit" for the office. The Venezuelan Constitution is quite clear on that point: that
authority rests with the supreme court, who are perfectly satisfied with Madura's fitness to
be President.
Abrams argument is therefore fraught with danger for Random Guy.
The Constitution clearly states that he can not claim the "interim Presidency" unless the
position is already vacant, which it clearly is not.
The Constitution also clearly states that he does not have the authority to declare the
position to be vacant.
Yet Guaido has done both, and done so at the acknowledged urging of a foreign power.
At the very least that amounts to insurrection, if not treason.
1. Counterpunch
I want to add extra focus on the excellent interview b linked to over at Counterpunch which
was also posted over at Zerohedge.
CG: There's not the chaos US and Trump were expecting. (Opposition leader and
self-proclaimed president Juan) Guaidó is the most hated guy in Venezuela. He has to
stay in luxury hotel in La Mercedes, an expensive neighbourhood of Caracas. They have
electricity there, as they were prepared, so bought generators. That is why Guaidó
went there, and has a whole floor of a luxury hotel for him and his family. While people
are suffering Guaidó is trying on suits for his upcoming trip to Europe. It is a
parallel world.
AG: You think Guaidó will fail?
CG: Venezuelans are making so many jokes with his name, as there's a word similar to
stupid in Spanish – guevon. And look at the demonstration in La Mercedes the other
day (12 March), the crowds didn't manifest. It is becoming a joke in the country. The more
the Europeans and the US make him a president, the more bizarre the situation becomes, as
Guaidó is not president of Venezuela! Interestingly, Chavez predicted what is
happening today, he wrote about it, so people are going back to his works and reading him
again.
2. Military Times
It could well have been me making b's conclusion on the following as well but since it isn't
it gives me an opportunity to warn about and completely disagree when it comes to the content
at Military Times and the conclusions drawn from it: that content if anything is
circumstantial proof that a decision has already been made in favor of a larger war
(technically the US has already launched a war by its actions, or at least according to its
own definitions as it applies it to others attacking them, if I remember correctly they would
even allow themselves to respond with nuclear weapons in such a scenario).
It might not have been the intent of Military Times (I do not know them) but everything
about their content at that link screams war is coming.
Notice how the US congress etc. portrays themselves as unwilling to go to war. We all know
this is untrue.
Notice how "everyone" portray themselves as more or less being forced against their will to
get involved. We all know this is untrue.
"They" love to do this, to wallow in "reluctance", to play innocent, to further the
narrative of "the good guys", because doing so preys on those who still believe they are on
the side of good (or in this case preys on anybody's remaining hope that they have some shred
of sanity left or that they've run out of bloodlust) and more or less guarantees their
support or silent acceptance in the general public. I recognize this all to well because I
fell for it myself in the past. It is a large part of their cherished narrative and has
self-reinforcing properties. They would say it even if no one listened but it is still
completely untrue.
Notice how they constantly hint at what amounts to "if we had to we would".
Notice that despite how every US action mentioned (except for some nebulous bill that might
as well be a unicorn fart) goes against avoiding a war they quote some ex-CIA person on all
of it being the exact opposite and a way to avoid war (but still meet their objective
consisting of unconditional demands).
Notice how at first they claim to believe it would be hard and thus something they obviously
wouldn't want to choose and thus if given no choice then it can't be their fault.
Nevertheless, the crisis is deteriorating rapidly.
Yeah of course it is, as planned and as caused by themselves.
Notice the laundry list of "bad stuff happening".
Notice the appeal to military solutions.
Notice how they then claim it might not be so hard after all, or at least necessary or worth
it.
Notice how they list military options to choose between.
It has already been decided and has already started.
3. Refinery fires
Did anyone else wonder at the sudden pair of refinery fires in Houston?
Posted by: Peter VE | Mar 19, 2019 4:22:48 PM | 19
Yes, since the second larger one went off because I didn't hear about the first one until
then and don't know anything more than that there was one. These things do happen during
normal operation of plants and refineries because every day it doesn't happen
unavoidably breeds some false sense of security and familiarity with the potential energies
involved.
And if that's not what happened then it will be a very hot US summer.
For those who didn't catch it here's all I've got (two measly links). RT
(2nd one)
ZH today (2nd one is now bigger):
This Moderate Rebels Transcript contains excellent revelatory points about Bolsonaro, the
rise of Brazilian Fascism and its connections to the Outlaw US Empire and its ally Zionistan.
I'm uncertain if b linked to it previously as I just stumbled across it.
After the people of Brazil got a taste of power with Lula, their social and national
conscience has risen. A Brazilian military aggression in Venezuela on behalf of American
Imperialism will be viciously opposed by the peoples of Latin America and Spain and Portugal.
The Colombian ELN and Venezuela's Bolivarian militias will unite and begin to attack the US
military in Colombia and fight the vassal state of Colombia. These militias will fight to the
death. Ecuador will catch on fire as well since traitor Moreno backs the US invasion. This
will get ugly.
US will just make up another excuse. These guys don't follow any laws so there is no point
interpreting them. Raw power and a good defense strategy is what it counts now for Venezuela.
They need more S-300, Buk, coastal defense and allies. This is the key for survival of
Venezuela. US will then back down or nuke Venezuela into democracy and freedom of press.
The always interesting Florida Maquis YT channel covers S. America extensively and mentioned
today Trump is putting Brazil forward for OECD membership which may give leverage to their
fascist leader.
The news that Maduro is making a new cabinet could be very important. The current cabinet was
chosen to implement policies designed to prevent a coup by compromising with moderate
elements of the bourgeoisie. Such policies involved the watering down of the revolutionary
policies of 21st Century Socialism, which has led to the erosion of political support for
Maduro without making any perceptible difference the bourgeois commitment to coups and other
antidemocratic measures.
If the revolution is to survive it must continue to deepen, bringing gains to the masses
besides which the inconveniences of sanctions/sabotage are pinpricks which only serve to
deepen popular support of national independence and socialist reform.
If the revolution deepens it will not only increase the strength of the popular movement but
broaden the appeal of Venezuela's policies to the millions of Latin Americans currently
watching in dismay as neo-liberalism cuts into their living standards and aspirations of
security. Nowhere are there millions more sympathetic to revolutionary programmes than in
Colombia, a byword for bad government and inequality and Brazil where the current Presidency
is completely illegitimate.
It will be interesting to see whether Maduro's new cabinet is more attuned to the revolution
and less interested in compromises with a comprador class whose alliance with the US is based
as much on racism and hatred of its own countrymen as it is on greed. Anbd that is saying
something.
Thank you Karlof1 and Zachary Smith, I'll do my best to remember not to go "link crazy" in
the future :D
Aside from all that and on the comments here on Colombia it makes me reconsider if there
was any positive value at all in the mediation by Norway (and others? I think the current
"social democrat" secretary general of NATO was prime minister there at the time...) to
curtail or end the civil war or if it was all a ploy in bad faith. I could be wrong about
this.
I was wrong but I've found out where the confusion stems from; Norway was the second
"guarantor country" after Cuba.
Once the negotiators had been agreed upon, the two sides moved to designate foreign
guarantor countries. Cuba, host to previous encounters, was a logical choice, while Norway
was chosen as the second guarantor country for its active role in international conflict
mediation. Additionally, two facilitator or 'accompanying countries' were also designated.
The FARC chose Venezuela, while the Colombian government chose Chile.[14] Exploratory
meetings continued in Havana in February 2012, with limited [...]
"With more candidates early on, it takes all that energy and diffuses it for petty warfare
instead of a firmly focused "machine" that would take over Congress through the Dem
party."
Well, when your strategy is identity politics you do need a crowd; so all of your supporters
can "identify" with their own special someone and be sad and upset when they lose.
Keep them divided, keep it about race/sexual identity/religion/favorite vegetable if need be,
oh, and of course that favorite mantra; hatred of the "other(s)."
The Dem party is gone, what is left is a divisive machine whose sole purpose seems to be to
separate people into separate boxes with separate identities only united by their hatred of
"other" parties and always completely blind to what is being done in the world in their (US)
name.
Nowhere are there millions more sympathetic to revolutionary programmes than in Colombia, a
byword for bad government and inequality ... bevin | Mar 19, 2019 8:34:12 PM
Current president was elected with rather thin majority -- not as thin as Trump -- and
while economy is "thriving" according to some measures, the fruits of it are even less evenly
distributed than in USA, and the resurgence of the left is fully possible. Importantly,
Colombian society is still very divided in the aftermath of La Violencia of 1950-s, violence
that never truly went away. Colombia and Venezuela are closely connected since colonial times
and troubles easily cross the border. In turn, Venezuelans seems to be easy going
bunglers.
Chavista have "the heart in right place", but even in easier times they had troubles with
the economy. The opposition is all thumbs. The freedom fighters who defected into Colombia
seem to be a bunch of loosers, correctly evicted from a homeless shelter once found useless.
Their putative paymasters seem particularly egregious, good for them to manage to get rid of
the traitors before the latter found a nerve to unionize, but what was the plan anyway?. Sic
sempter traditoribus.
"The Colombian ELN and Venezuela's Bolivarian militias will unite and begin to attack the US
military in Colombia and fight the vassal state of Colombia. These militias will fight to the
death. Ecuador will catch on fire as well since traitor Moreno backs the US invasion. This
will get ugly."
You left out the elephant or rather landmass in the room; Latin America is connected to the
US by land. This US misadventure will come home to roost, it will explode everywhere and
anywhere, finally and at long last IMO the US will reap what it has sown.
lgfocus @ 13 said in part;"Tell me again how much it will cost to bring clean water to Flint,
MI and our other cities with water problems. You know, the things we don't have money for."
This would be a excellent point for all the Dems chasing the POTUS, but, even if they did,
it probably wouldn't get any play on the corporate MSM.
It makes too much sense!
kudos for the relevant mention......
German foreign policy disaster. German freelancer journalist Billy Six jailed in Venezuela,
now back in Germany after intervention by Russian foreign minister Lawrov.
Press conference
with Billy after his arrival in Germany. Must see (German) Germany is accused in the
participation of the drone attack against Maduro.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tsg5Jx5xzrU
Abrams trying to explain Guano and Venezuelan law is a bit like trying to explain western
democracy VS 'non democratic' Assad and Putin and Maduro. Doesn't matter the majority of
people have voted for them. That's not 'democratic'. A lot of Guano in western so called
democracy.
"The far-right President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil supported that but the military of Brazil,
which holds significant power in the cabinet, vetoed it..."
I would be willing to bet that one of the purposes of Bolsonaro's visit to the CIA and DC
was to see how he could remedy that situation, perhaps by getting rid of just a few of these
troublesome military generals who are opposed to his using the Brazilian military, overt and
covert, against Venezuela....
not to mention of course the usual and disgusting CIA options of subversion and other
covert operations agasint Venezuelan democracy
Maybe Maduro is changing his cabinet to get people in who are not under US sanctions. The US
claims most of it's sanctions are against bad guys but the reality is naming individuals is a
propaganda ruse as the sanctions go far deeper than the individuals. People who don't look
past the headlines believe it's only individuals so they fall for the US line it's Maduro and
his polices not the US that's causing the economic problems in Venezuela. Thus a new cabinet
could give Maduro some breathing room until the US can sanction the new guys.
If the US does shut off Mastercard and Visa it will be huge mistake as I doubt very few of
the governments supporters have credit cards. Those the US claims to be hitting with this
action can get a Russian credit card if it's possible. The upper class Gweedo lovers will be
the ones hardest hit which doesn't bode well for Gweedo boy who spouts guano and promises he
can't keep every time he opens his mouth.
Lots of blather of the citizens of the US should stand against the governments actions in
Venezuela. The US government and it's lap dog press control the narrative thus it won't
happen. But if it came to a military invasion the citizens will come out of cocoons and say
hell no like they did with Syria when Obama wanted to bomb that country into the stone age
when Assad, it was the rebels that used gas, crossed his red line. A military invasion and
resulting guerilla warfare in Venezuela will send American boys and girls home in body bags
and Trump can kiss his reelection goodbye and he knows it. Thus no invasion by the US but
that doesn't rule out covert commando raids and sabotage by US personnel inside the
country.
The attack took place when vehicle traffic was stopped at a train crossing, but whether the
raiders indeed had intended to steal the uranium shipment has yet to be determined. Civil
Police are now trying to establish the motive behind the incident. The attackers have
managed to flee the scene, but police have recovered a 9mm pistol which they are now trying
to trace back to the armed group.
I don't speak Portuguese or Brazilian Portuguese but those that do will likely find more
information in the
Globo article .
The Globo article says an enriched Uranium convoy, sent to the Angra dos Reis nuclear power
plant, was attacked by local criminal gangs. The area of Angra dos Reis, renowned for its
beautiful coastline and luxury resorts, is now roamed by criminal gangs that threaten the
population and overtly defy law enforcement forces. Police forces and armed convoys moving
along the highway are frequently ambushed.
Despite Bolsonaro's campaign promises, gangs seems to remain in charge, even in Angra dos
Reis! From the Globo article:
"One of the most beautiful places of the State of Rio, the county of Angra dos Reis has
experienced an increase in violence, with the presence of fire-armed drug dealers inside
communities that were previously considered peaceful."
There is also an extended version of the press conference where Billy Six answers some
more questions. One is particulary interesting as he points out the economic interests of the
German government in Venezuela. He mentions explicitly SIEMENS, Linde, Lufthansa and DHL
which are excluded from free-convertability into Dollar-reserves since Chavez established
currency controls in 2003.
He also claims that the Federal Government in the person of the now expelled German
ambassador to Venezuela Daniel Kriener has met with the father of Juan Requesens who is/was
member of the National Assembly, associated to the student protest newtwork of 'Generation
2007' to which Juan Guaido belongs, and whose party Primero Justicia is the party of Julio
Borges - the former president of the National Assembly and co-plotter of the 2002 coup on
Chavez. Juan Requesens is under arrest and accused to be part of the drone attack on Maduro
in August last year along with 16 other conspirators. According to Six - who had contact with
several of these plotters in prison - the coup in effect did happen and failed because the
Maduro government was pre-informed about the plot and an anti-drone shield could prevent the
assault.
What made it even worse for Six, according to what was told to him by SEBIN (political police
force of Venezuela), was that the German government was aware of this drone in advance which
is why the German embassy had taken such a stand for Juan Requesens to get him out of prison.
This, however, is suppose to be one of the reasons why, of those foreign ambassadors of
Venezuela who received Guaido at the airport two weeks ago, German ambassador Kriener was the
only one who was to leave the country upon the advice of the Bolivarian Government.
There is certainly more to follow and it is perhaps not wrong to keep an eye on this
I would not trust the Brazilian people or the Brazilian left to take care of the issue.
The non-Venezuelan Latin American left is one of the most innofensive, docile and
innefective lefts of the Third World. This is specially the case of the Brazilian left, which
is also deeply balkanized, torn down in inumerous factions -- from the social liberals to
communists.
Besides, the far-right has genuine and huge popular support in Brazil. Bolsonaro's is not
a political giant by any means, nor is he the novelty/outsider e.g. Trump is (he was a
Congressman for 28 consecutive years before becoming president). The far-right is at least
25% of the voting adult population, most probably around 40%, and this mass will go until the
end with their design. Bolsonaro is no Temer.
Excellent post B. Thanks for keeping Venezuela front and center in your blogs.
From my perspective, it looks like Russia is effectively running Venezuela.
What are the indicators:
- Russia is handling Venezuelan oil sales
- Russia is handling Venezuelan international banking
- Maduro has made no strategic mistakes during the coup attempt. Every U.S. move has been
effectively thwarted.
- With few exceptions, military discipline has been maintained.
- The new government realignment looks like something that Maduro would not have come up with
on his own. It is probably a part of the economic plan the Russia prepared for Venezuela over
the past couple of months.
Venezuela is starting to look a lot like Crimea. The U.S. wanted Crimea in order to take
over the Russian naval base and effectively neutralize Russia's Black Sea Fleet. But Russia
was there first, thwarted the U.S.' every move, and now the U.S., in the Black Sea, is in a
much weaker position than before 2014.
In Venezuela, the U.S. wanted Venezuelan oil. But Russia was there first. So far every
U.S. move has been thwarted and the U.S. is starting to suffer from a scarcity of heavy
crudes. If past is prologue, the U.S. will have no more success in Venezuela than it did in
Crimea. It will not dare to take on Venezuela militarily, as this would mean to take on
Russia militarily.
Venezuela will represent another watershed moment in separating the world into those who
are with the U.S., and those who are against. And the U.S. side will be somewhat smaller than
it was before their Venezuelan adventure started.
There's a mind-boggling Extortiongate scandal going on in Argentina - with links throughout
Latin America including Venezuela, and to Elliot Abrams:
Don't Spy
for Me Argentina In fact, it connects with virtually everything!
Abrams to media....."Constitutional rules? We ain't got no rules! We don't need no rules!
I don't have to show you any stinking rules!" The US cannot be serious, $500 million to take
over Venezuela with the greatest oil reserves on the planet. Victoria Nuland said the US
spent $5 Billion on regime change in Ukraine.. F-----g cheapskates. They will double down,
wait for the secondary sanctions, it is so important that Venezuela keeps its oil markets,
especially Russia and China.
Contrary to what the article states, Brazil has a negligible wheat production. However,
Argentina has, and its main importer until now was Brazil. A huge blow to the Argentinian
economy, whose trade balance will fall even more. The situation in Brazil so calamitous that it produced an extremely rare Chinese
manifestation about the country:
It looks like the US is having to rescue some of the Venezuelan oligarchs from the effect
of the sanctions. This being Fox, it blames socialism, which is utterly backwards, but the
facts are there.
US lifts
sanctions on wives of Venezuela TV magnates
Oh the poor dears. How they must have suffered.
Also, it looks like they (US) are thinking about cutting off credit cards, which as you've
opined, would hurt the middle and upper classes much more than the typical Chavista.
Credit card
sanctions?
That whole press conference exchange has a faintly Mad Hatter Tea Party quality to it.
At one point Abrams says the interim presidency doesn't start counting until "after
Maduro", but the whole raison d'etre of article 233 in the first place is to ensure a
constitutional transition of power in the event that the president becomes unavailable. So
that (the president becoming unavailable) would had to have happened FIRST -- prior to the
implementation of (the relevant passage of) article 233. In other words, that would have to
be the triggering event.
If this seems a bit like stating the obvious -- it is. As the article states,'That the
"elected President becomes permanently unavailable" was never the case to begin with.' That's
end of discussion right there. It never happened. And they have everybody talking in circles
about whether or not the thirty day election requirement was fulfilled? It's absurd.
One thing I'll give the neo-cons credit for is their ability to take obvious lies/complete
fabrications and somehow get people to discuss them as if there was any reality to it. Like
in the case of Iraq they had the whole world discussing the threat of non-existent WMDs. All
these "serious" pundits would prattle on endlessly about the pros and cons of an issue for
which there was not a scintilla of evidence. I think even Goebbels would have to stand back
in awe of what they do.
"The #TrumpRegime is not a government that can provide services. It is a transnational
criminal organization which should be designated as a terrorist group."
Holy crap on a cracker, Batman! Half of all the evil entities in the world are crawling
about within this massive web of crime and treason.
I would beg to make one small change to the exposé; instead of --
" The CIA, under 'extraordinary rendition' proponent Gina Haspel, has become a foot
soldier army for Trump's whims and Bolton's and Pompeo's neo-con dark policies, "
-- I would say that Trump, Bolton, Pompeo and Haspel have become foot-soldiers for the
CIA's neo-con dark policies.
Venezuela: Guaido loyalists seize diplomatic properties in US
Envoys loyal to Venezuela's interim president have taken control of diplomatic buildings
and a consulate. Caracas has severed ties with the US, accusing it of staging a coup against
acting President Maduro.
Don't Spy for Me Argentina. In fact, it connects with virtually everything!
Posted by: BM | Mar 20, 2019 11:35:21 AM | 69
The CIA, under "extraordinary rendition" proponent Gina Haspel, has become a foot soldier
army for Trump's whims and Bolton's and Pompeo's neo-con dark policies. It is clear that
Abrams, Bolton, Pompeo, Rubio, Bannon, and their cohorts, including Macri and Bolsonaro,
are attempting to re-create OPERATION CONDOR, the 1960s, 70s, and 80s alliance of the
intelligence services of the Latin American military dictatorships of Argentina, Bolivia,
Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay, which were full members, with Ecuador and Peru as
associate partners. Tens of thousands of leftist dissidents were tracked down and executed
during CONDOR, which operated with the full approval and involvement of the CIA.
They lost so many opportunities during the 70's. USSR was in their way in so many places.
But now happy days are here again, with Russia, China containment strategies and Trump and
other supremacist leaders being installed everywhere in the West and Americas.
It's about opening Pandora's Box though. 0 latency networks, even negative time ...with
whatever that implicates and a space programe but not the one you see in plain view.
There is a three part video of the UN conference featuring Anya Parampil, Alfred de Zayas and
Max Blumenthal which has debunked the US propaganda on Venezuela at a United Nations Human
Rights Council session in Geneva on March 19.
See also "The Visible Hand of the Market- Economic War in Venezuela" by Pasqualina
Curcio.
Perhaps random guy Guaidó will join other collaborators with the US are just seen as
throw-away pawns by the Empire:
"The Venezuelan military deserters who crossed over to Colombia on February 23, 2019, now
find themselves abandoned both by Colombia and the United Nations High Commission for
Refugees. The UNCHR and the Colombian Government have given the soldiers 4 days to leave the
refugee camp"
The good news is that the health of Venezuelans is improving due to a more healthy diet
due to US led sanctions. Everyone has been forced to have a vegetarian diet substituting
vegetables, lentils, and black beans for meat. Seems that lots of people are growing their
own (organic) vegetables.
From a sociological point of view even the electrical blackouts are bringing the people
together as they spend the time sharing:
"During blackouts, people told stories, played music, or went out and talked on the streets.
It was a paradise, no TVs, smartphones, but real human contact. People cook together. During
the day they're playing board games, dominoes, and kids are having fun."
Thanks for your report! The unintended consequences as you note can be powerful allies for
those being attacked. The well stated case at the UN will also have consequences and generate
more solidarity for Venezuela and condemnation of the Outlaw US Empire, Pompeo, Rubio,
Abrams, Bolton, and Trump.
Two hundred years after the birth of Karl Marx and fifty years after the last Western
upsurge of revolutionary ferment in 1968, the term "monopoly capitalism" might seem like a
relic of outmoded enthusiasms. But economists are increasingly coming to the view that
monopolies, and associated market failures, have never been a bigger problem.
and the conclusion
The problems of monopoly and inequality may seem so large as to defy any response. But we
faced similar problems when capitalism first emerged, and Western countries came up with the
responses that created the broad-based prosperity of the mid twentieth century. The internet,
in particular, has the potential to enhance freedom and equality rather than facilitate
corporate exploitation. The missing ingredient, so far, has been the political will.
"Monopoly" is such an ugly term. We prefer to call it "market power" these days, because of
course it's a good thing if the job creators and their enterprises have more power to do all
the good things they do for us. It's clearly class warfare, if not racism, to use the term of
abuse, "monopoly", when you mean "market power".
Of all the examples to choose, airlines would seem to be a bad one. They come and go with
rapidity, and airlines are now being used as an example of how to reform banks.
Running the modern air industry needs lots of infrastructure and lots of regulations, so
would seem to be an obvious place to have monopoly airlines. The critical thing that has
happened has been the splitting of the infrastructure from the market-facing entities. So the
booking systems, airport handling, and other services are all done by firms who don't
directly face the paying customer. Pretty much anyone can set up an airline, and they
can become quite
big
Banking regulation is going in the direction of the airline industry. The idea being to
split up the major systems and financial risk repositories from the market-facing companies.
Hence, again, anyone can set up a bank.
One significant issue behind the growth in monopolies is regulation. The debate in the UK
over the EU has included much discussion of regulation, much of it from a Remain/pro EU angle
being that more regulation is a costless good. But there is an obvious and well-known cost,
that regulation acts as a barrier to new entrants, and hence destroys innovation and creates
conditions for monopolies, cartels, and oligopolies. It is surely no coincidence that the EU,
an organisation that cannot look at any object without trying to regulate it, is sliding into
recession and has effectively zero productivity increase this century. If you regulate what
you have now, you just make the status quo your future. In the end, you just end up like the
CBI, reduced to demanding
more and more cheap labour to fuel your dinosaur members' wishes for more profit.
So. Split the resource-heavy stuff from the market-facing stuff, and try to avoid
regulating your economy into a coma.
A significant fraction of the population can't keep track of their actual cost structures
and will, cheerful and unknowing, sell at a loss. Unless you can exclude them from the market
-- unless you have some mechanism for excluding people from the market -- the clearing price
will be below the cost price: no market that does not have exclusion mechanisms can possibly
be profitable.
That is to say: a profitable sector of industry requires exclusion mechanisms and all
profit relies on rent .
The question we have to ask is, then: how do we distribute rent opportunities? We used to
be able to use transport costs to create rent "naturally", but we can't do that any more: at
least with monopoly some things still get made and some people still make
money.
[honestly? I think uniform tariff barriers coupled with socialism [or
socialism-approximating structures like dirigisme among firms with
effectively-universally-held shares] are the only real solution.]
Um. "Monopoly" triggers thoughts of a scotty dog and a flat iron. Regarding the minimum wage,
I'm encouraged to see oligopsony mentioned, not just because I love rare words; it's only
recently than in such discussions the more common word "monopsony" was used. But how else to
explain how Walmart greeters and burger flippers, despite their disparate productivity and
different employers, are paid the same meager wage?
It says something about our common discourse, by which I mean American politics, that
people preach as though market power was as unimaginable as ethical conduct, the first of
which is tacitly assumed and the second generally acknowledged as nonexistent.
@Dipper I'm sure you'll sympathize when I observe that Australia is different from other
places (a point you've often made about Britain), at least with respect to airlines.
We've only had one successful entry on a substantial scale in the history of commercial
aviation (when Virgin Blue displaced Ansett in 2001). Against that, there has been a long
string of failed attempts to break up the duopoly (now consisting of two full-service
airlines each with a low-cost subsidiary).
So, in an Australian publication, airlines are on obvious example.
You argue that what has been missing is political will, but at the same time you acknowledge
that new versions of the old solutions for these problems must be found. I would focus more
on the latter than the former. Yes, the EU is creating stronger privacy protection now, but
one of the main impacts will be to strengthen existing large players. Do we really want to
move to a regulated monopoly model so quickly? These new markets have been evolving rapidly
over the past 15 years and models of the internet economy that made sense even 10 years ago
are now out-dated. I think we still need to figure out what people need out of these new
provided services and how to get there. It seems a lot harder than simply breaking up the
producers and distributers of basic commodities.
And here i was thinking Dipper would try to make his weak case with the strongest arguments-
Ryanair or Easyjet*. Virgin Atlantic, really? While airlines in Europe are probably not the
most obvious easy to comprehend example for monopoly or oligopoly one could pick, those terms
are still quite accurate as a description of the current situation in most submarkets.
*The crux with those two is that there are and were a gazillion other discount carriers,
but non of those are sucesfull, Ryanair in particular in contrast produces an insane return
on equity.
Have you read 'Game of Mates' about cronyism among the elite in Australia ? Kind of
interesting and eye opening(at least for an outsider like me) Might be of interest if you
havent.
"Corporations must be in the service of the nation, not the other way around." Bingo! As
long as corporations have the constitutional rights of "persons," they will continue to
pummel those of us for whom constitutional rights were intended. Please urge your congress
critter to sign on to cosponsor the We the People Amendment and implore your senators to
introduce companion legislation in the U.S. Senate:
Note: Tulsi Gabbard and Ilhan Omar are original co-sponsors in the 116th Congress, but not
yet AOC, so if anyone from her district is reading, give her office a call !
P.S. For those of you who had concerns about it, a section 3 has been added to the
original resolution: "Nothing contained in this amendment shall be construed to abridge the
freedom of the press."
Strictly speaking, this was unnecessary: the press has, and has always had, its first
amendment rights BECAUSE it is the PRESS, not because of its corporate form. But people's
inability to make that distinction caused so much angst that the sentence, redundant as it
is, was added to the proposed amendment.
"... Making matters worse, America's low tax-to-GDP ratio – just 27.1% even before the Trump tax cut – means a dearth of money for investment in the infrastructure, education, health care, and basic research needed to ensure future growth. These are the supply-side measures that actually do "trickle down" to everyone. ..."
"... The policies for combating economically damaging power imbalances are straightforward. Over the past half-century, Chicago School economists , acting on the assumption that markets are generally competitive, narrowed the focus of competition policy solely to economic efficiency, rather than broader concerns about power and inequality. The irony is that this assumption became dominant in policymaking circles just when economists were beginning to reveal its flaws. The development of game theory and new models of imperfect and asymmetric information laid bare the profound limitations of the competition model. ..."
"... The law needs to catch up. Anti-competitive practices should be illegal, period. And beyond that, there are a host of other changes needed to modernize US antitrust legislation. Americans' need the same resolve in fighting for competition that their corporations have shown in fighting against it. ..."
Rising inequality and slow growth are widely recognized as key factors behind the spread of public discontent in advanced economies,
particularly in the United States. But these problems are themselves symptoms of an underlying malady that the US political system
may be unable to address.
The world's advanced economies are suffering from a number of deep-seated problems. In the United States, in particular,
inequality is at its highest since 1928 ,
and GDP growth remains woefully tepid compared to the decades after World War II.
After
promising
annual growth of "4, 5, and even 6%," US President Donald Trump and his congressional Republican enablers have delivered only
unprecedented deficits. According to the Congressional Budget Office's
latest projections , the federal budget deficit will reach $900
billion this year, and will surpass the $1 trillion mark every year after 2021. And yet, the sugar high induced by the latest deficit
increase is already fading, with the International Monetary Fund
forecasting US growth
of 2.5% in 2019 and 1.8% in 2020, down from
2.9% in 2018.
Many factors are contributing to the US economy's low-growth/high-inequality problem. Trump and the Republicans' poorly designed
tax "reform" has exacerbated existing deficiencies in the tax code, funneling even more income to the highest earners. At the same
time, globalization continues to be poorly managed, and financial markets continue to be geared toward extracting profits (rent-seeking,
in economists' parlance), rather than providing useful services.
But an even deeper and more fundamental problem is the growing
concentration of market power , which allows dominant firms to exploit their customers and squeeze their employees, whose own
bargaining power and legal protections
are being weakened . CEOs and senior executives are increasingly extracting higher pay for themselves at the expense of workers
and investment.
For example, US corporate executives made sure that the vast majority of the benefits from the tax cut went into dividends and
stock buybacks, which exceeded a record-breaking
$1.1 trillion in 2018 . Buybacks raised share prices and boosted the earnings-per-share ratio, on which many executives' compensation
is based. Meanwhile, at 13.7% of GDP , annual investment
remained weak, while many corporate pensions went underfunded.
Evidence of rising market power can be found almost anywhere one looks. Large markups are contributing to high
corporate profits . In sector after sector,
from little things like cat food to big things like telecoms, cable providers, airlines, and technology platforms, a few firms now
dominate 75-90% of the market, if not more; and
the problem is even more pronounced at the level of local markets.
As corporate behemoths' market power has increased, so, too, has their ability to influence America's money-driven politics. And
as the system has become more rigged in business's favor, it has become much harder for ordinary citizens to seek redress for mistreatment
or abuse. A perfect example of this is the spread of arbitration clauses in labor contracts and user agreements, which allow corporations
to settle disputes with employees and customers through a sympathetic mediator, rather than in court.
Multiple forces are driving the increase in market power. One is the growth of sectors with large network effects, where a single
firm – like Google or Facebook – can easily dominate. Another is the prevailing attitude among business leaders, who have come to
assume that market power is the only way to ensure durable profits. As the venture capitalist Peter Thiel famously
put it , "competition
is for losers."
Some US business leaders have shown real ingenuity in creating market barriers to prevent any kind of meaningful competition,
aided by lax enforcement of existing competition laws and the failure to update those laws for the twenty-first-century economy.
As a result, the share of
new firms in the US is declining.
None of this bodes well for the US economy. Rising inequality implies falling aggregate demand, because those at the top of the
wealth distribution tend to consume a smaller share of their income than those of more modest means.
Moreover, on the supply side, market power weakens incentives to invest and innovate. Firms know that if they produce more, they
will have to lower their prices. This is why investment remains weak, despite corporate America's record profits and trillions of
dollars of cash reserves. And besides, why bother producing anything of value when you can use your political power to extract more
rents through market exploitation? Political investments in getting lower taxes yield far higher returns than real investments in
plant and equipment.
1
Making matters worse, America's low tax-to-GDP ratio – just
27.1% even before the Trump tax cut –
means a dearth of money for investment in the infrastructure, education, health care, and basic research needed to ensure future
growth. These are the supply-side measures that actually do "trickle down" to everyone.
The policies for combating economically damaging power imbalances are straightforward. Over the past half-century,
Chicago School economists , acting on the assumption that markets are generally competitive, narrowed the focus of competition
policy solely to economic efficiency, rather than broader concerns about power and inequality. The irony is that this assumption
became dominant in policymaking circles just when economists were beginning to reveal its flaws. The development of game theory and
new models of imperfect and asymmetric information laid bare the profound limitations of the competition model.
The law needs to catch up. Anti-competitive practices should be illegal, period. And beyond that, there are a host of other changes
needed to modernize US antitrust legislation. Americans' need the same resolve in fighting for competition that their corporations
have shown in fighting against it.
The challenge, as always, is political. But with US corporations having amassed so much power, there is reason to doubt that the
American political system is up to the task of reform. Add to that the globalization of corporate power and the orgy of deregulation
and crony capitalism under Trump, and it is clear that Europe will have to take the lead.
Venezuela production is not only being hit by the blackout – which seems to have
damaged their overall grid capacity – but by new sanctions. Their diluent supplier has
just stated they will stop business.
Perhaps useful to note that Maduro was just as incompetent 6 months ago as presumably he is
now. He was just as incompetent 9 months ago as presumably he is now. And indeed, he was just
as incompetent three months ago as he is now. In fact we could take it back years.
Thus, it surely is just a coincidence that their blackout occurred at a point in time when
a foreign coup attempt was underway, rather than 9 or 6 or 3 months ago. Sabotage could not
be involved because we're told that incompetence and corruption is responsible, of the sort
that just happened to manifest itself at this point in time.
The 20 folks who are alleged to have died in hospitals from lack of power just
coincidentally died at this particular point in time. Because it is merely coincidence, the
saboteurs probably cannot be tried for murder.
Power has apparently been restored. Oil will resume its flow at whatever magnitude.
Of course there are no coincidences, just the things that the CIA, the Illuminati, the
freemasons, the jewish bankers and the Martians wanted to happen.
"Thus, it surely is just a coincidence that their blackout occurred at a point in time when a
foreign coup attempt was underway, rather than 9 or 6 or 3 months ago. Sabotage could not be
involved because we're told that incompetence and corruption is responsible, of the sort that
just happened to manifest itself at this point in time."
I am sure the US is trying to speed up the process. After all, those Aid buses were not
torched by Mo or his supporters but by Western agents. Its difficult to know who is really to
blame for the blackout, but the US has an agenda to take control over VZ. I would not rule
out the US causing it.
Well Pelosi, here we have attempted murder as a high crime to Impeach Trump, Pence,
Pompeo, Bolton and Abrams with, or is that something too "trivial" for you!
Washington announced late Monday that it is withdrawing all of its embassy personnel from
Caracas in what may signal preparations for a direct US military intervention to consummate
the protracted regime change operation unleashed against Venezuela.
"This decision reflects the deteriorating situation in Venezuela as well as the conclusion
that the presence of U.S. diplomatic staff at the embassy has become a constraint on U.S.
policy," Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement.
Pressed at a State Department press conference Tuesday as to what Pompeo meant by
"constraint," Elliott Abrams, the Trump administration's special envoy for regime change in
Venezuela, said that it was "prudent to take these folks out" because their presence made it
"more difficult for the United States to take the actions that it needed to do to support the
Venezuelan people."
Asked whether military intervention was being prepared and if the Maduro government should
see Pompeo's statement as a threat, Abrams, a former Reagan administration State Department
official who oversaw vast war crimes in Central America in the 1980s and was convicted of
lying to Congress about an illegal operation to fund the "contra" terrorist war against
Nicaragua, responded that he would "continue to say, because it is true, all options are on
the table."
"... When Guaido returned to Venezuela on March 4 he was greeted at the airport by several foreign diplomats. Among the receiving dignitaries was Germany's envoy Daniel Kriener. ..."
"... What's more, the explicit backing of Juan Guaido by Germany's envoy was carried out on the "express order" of Foreign Minister Heiko Maas , according to Deutsche Welle. ..."
"... Russia's envoy to the UN Vasily Nebenzia, at a Security Council session last month, excoriated the US for its gross violation of international law with regard to Venezuela. Moscow's diplomat also directed a sharp rebuke at other nations "complicit" in Washington's aggression, saying that one day "you will be next" for similar American subversion in their own affairs. ..."
"... German politicians, diplomats and media were apoplectic in their anger at perceived interference by the US ambassador in Berlin's internal affairs. Yet the German political establishment has no qualms whatsoever about ganging up – only weeks later – with Washington to subvert the politics and constitution of Venezuela. ..."
Germany has
taken the lead among European Union member states to back Washington's regime-change agenda for
Venezuela.
Berlin's hypocrisy and double-think is quite astounding.
Only a few weeks ago, German politicians and media were up in arms protesting to the
Trump administration for interfering in Berlin's internal affairs.
There were even
outraged complaints that Washington was seeking "regime change" against Chancellor Angela Merkel's
government.
Those protests were sparked when Richard Grenell, the
US ambassador to Germany,
warned
German
companies involved in the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline with Russia that they could be hit with
American economic sanctions
if they go ahead with the Baltic seabed project.
Earlier, Grenell provoked fury among Berlin's political establishment when he openly gave his
backing to opposition party Alternative for Germany. That led to consternation and denunciations of
Washington's perceived backing for regime change in Berlin. They were public calls for Grenell to
be expelled over his apparent breach of diplomatic protocols.
Now, however, Germany is shamelessly kowtowing to an even more outrageous American
regime-change plot against Venezuela.
Last week, the government of President Nicolas Maduro ordered the expulsion of German ambassador
Daniel Kriener after he greeted the US-backed opposition figure Juan Guaido on a high-profile
occasion. Guaido had just returned from a tour of Latin American countries during which he had
openly called for the overthrow of the Maduro government. Arguably a legal case could be made for
the arrest of Guaido by the Venezuelan authorities on charges of sedition.
When Guaido returned to Venezuela on March 4 he was greeted at the airport by several
foreign diplomats. Among the receiving dignitaries was Germany's envoy Daniel Kriener.
The opposition figure had declared himself "interim president" of Venezuela on January 23 and
was immediately recognized by Washington and several European Union states. The EU has so far not
issued an official endorsement of Guaido over incumbent President Maduro. Italy's objection blocked
the EU from adopting a unanimous position.
Nevertheless, as the strongest economy in the 28-member bloc, Germany can be seen as de facto
leader of the EU. Its position on Venezuela therefore gives virtual EU gravitas to the geopolitical
maneuvering led by Washington towards the South American country.
What's more, the explicit backing of Juan Guaido by Germany's envoy was carried out on
the "express order" of Foreign Minister Heiko Maas
,
according
to
Deutsche Welle.
"It was my express wish and request that Ambassador Kriener turn out with representatives of
other European nations and Latin American ones to meet acting President Guaido at the airport,"
said Maas.
"We had information that he was supposed to be arrested there. I believe that the presence
of various ambassadors helped prevent such an arrest."
It's staggering to comprehend the double-think involved here.
Guaido was hardly known among the vast majority of Venezuelans until he catapulted on to
the global stage by declaring himself "interim president".
That move was clearly executed
in a concerted plan with the Trump White House. European governments and Western media have
complacently adopted the White House line that Guaido is the legitimate leader while socialist
President Maduro is a "usurper".
That is in spite of the fact that Maduro was re-elected last year in free and fair
elections by a huge majority of votes.
Guaido's rightwing, pro-business party boycotted
the elections. Yet he is anointed by Washington, Berlin and some 50 other states as the legitimate
leader.
Russia, China, Turkey, Cuba and most other members of the United Nations have refused to
adopt Washington's decree of recognizing Guaido.
Those nations (comprising 75 per cent of
the UN assembly) continue to recognize President Maduro as the sovereign authority. Indeed, Russia
has been highly critical of Washington's blatant interference for regime change in oil-rich
Venezuela. Moscow has warned it will not tolerate US military intervention.
Russia's envoy to the UN Vasily Nebenzia, at a Security Council session last month,
excoriated
the
US for its gross violation of international law with regard to Venezuela. Moscow's diplomat also
directed a sharp rebuke at other nations "complicit" in Washington's aggression, saying that one
day "you will be next" for similar American subversion in their own affairs.
Germany's hypocrisy and double-think is, to paraphrase that country's national anthem,
"über alles" (above all else).
German politicians, diplomats and media were apoplectic in their anger at perceived interference
by the US ambassador in Berlin's internal affairs. Yet the German political establishment has no
qualms whatsoever about ganging up – only weeks later – with Washington to subvert the politics and
constitution of Venezuela.
How can Germany be so utterly über servile to Washington and the latter's brazen
criminal aggression towards Venezuela?
It seems obvious that Berlin is trying to ingratiate itself with the Trump
administration. But what for?
Trump has been pillorying Germany with allegations of "unfair trade" practices. In particular,
Washington is recently stepping up its threats to slap punitive tariffs on German auto exports.
Given that this is a key sector in the German export-driven economy, it may be gleaned that Berlin
is keen to appease Trump. By backing his aggression towards Venezuela?
Perhaps this policy of appeasement is also motivated by Berlin's concern to spare the
Nord Stream 2 project from American sanctions.
When NS2 is completed later this year, it
is reckoned to double the capacity of natural gas consumption by Germany from Russia. That will be
crucial for Germany's economic growth.
Another factor is possible blackmail of Berlin by Washington.
Recall the
earth-shattering revelations made by American whistleblower Edward Snowden a few years back when he
disclosed that US intelligence agencies were tapping the personal phone communications of
Chancellor Merkel and other senior Berlin politicians.
Recall, too, how the German state
remarkably
acquiesced
over what should
have been seen as a devastating infringement by Washington.
The weird lack of action by Berlin over that huge violation of its sovereignty by the Americans
makes one wonder if the US spies uncovered a treasure trove of blackmail material on German
politicians.
Berlin's pathetic kowtowing to Washington's interference in Venezuela begs an ulterior
explanation. No self-respecting government could be so hypocritical and duplicitous.
Whatever Berlin may calculate to gain from its unscrupulous bending over for Washington,
one thing seems clear, as Russian envoy Nebenzia warned: "One day you are next" for American
hegemonic shafting.
Germany already forgot, how they blew up Yugoslavia.
It was
because of German diplomacy plotting and meddling, that Croatia
and Slovenia announced their abandonment of federation of Balkan
states - which Yugoslavia de facto was.
Another reason for this, was to destroy a forming Hexagonale -
an alliance of central and southern european states.
As long as Germany has its imperial resentements, there will be
no peace in Europe.
They want in on the Venezuelan petroleum game if/when regime
change happens, obviously. Aruba (controlled by the Dutch) is
about 20miles off the coast of Venezuela and and there is a small
but significant population of German Venezuelans in Venezuela.
CITGO was was trying to restart the large refinery located in
Aruba not long back, haven't heard anything about it lately.
The Strategic Culture Foundation. A culture of strategy? That
sounded interesting. So I dug.
". . . Benefiting from the expanding power of the Internet,
we work to spread reliable information, critical thought and
progressive
ideas
."
That explains why I'm seeing
socialists defending socialists. What a surprise. Not very
critical if you ask me, but definitely "progressive" to the
core.
And as for the author, nearly every one of his articles attack the
US and its allies. You'd think that if he's writing for the
Strategic Culture Foundation, he'd be into
critical thought
.
Meaning, we'd see some minuses
and
pluses in his
work. The fact that we don't, makes him a propagandist, not a
journalist. Then again,
is there such a thing as a journalist
anymore these days
?
I'd like to think so. Yet, when you evaluate someone's work and
see little more than the fermenting of hatred and discontent,
there has to be a motive. For him, it could be personal, given
the amount of passion and conspiracy theory that he puts into his
hatred. For his employers, though, the motive seems to be
strategic
.
Anyway, it's disappointing to find it here at ZH, but I guess the
bills must get paid somehow.
"Military intervention in
Venezuela is totally unacceptable."
She opposed the US and the self-appointed Guaido.
It follows that she had to act not only with the consent of
Berlin and Paris, but in their mandate. This suggests that the EU
has reassessed the situation and changed its position on President
Maduro.
Berlin has come to know that the EU has created an
international contact group, including Germany and France. The
group is conducting talks with the Venezuelan government and with
the opposition, aiming to achieve a peaceful solution to the
critical situation in Venezuela, and as the group spokesman said,
everything will be done to make the solution democratic.
The unnamed French source claims that Beijing and Moscow are
behind the change of Berlin and Paris.
"Hypocrisy" or "getting it right for a change" - that is the
question ! Merkel, the putative Conservative, has sold her own
people down the river many times in the last few years. She has
demonstrated the George W Bush style, over the people in her own
Party. And the results are obvious.
Now, after ruining her
country both culturally and financially, she makes ONE correct
decision. Hardly HYPOCRISY; more like contrition for her
ineptitude.
Well, Merkel is doing a good job of protecting Germany's interests
by opposing the U.S. regarding North Stream 2. The German stand on
Venezuela is disappointing, but they might be figuring no skin off
their back, since Venezuela is not in Europe, so might as well
appease cheeto head.
Shocking, right? Lol. I could have written this article myself.
Just had this conversation with a friend here regarding German
hypocriscy. Germany is a true vassal nation run by puppets.
Highlights the total lack of coordination at the highest levels of
German government. They just can't concieve that anyone is onto
their game but it is blatanly obvious to anyone who can chew gum
and walk simultaneously. The link to the demographic crisis (and
by exstension the coming pension crisis) to the importation of
"refugees" is a bit harder for many to see but still plainly
obvious if one tries just a little. Truly sad state of affairs in
all of Europe only masked over by the ECB. At least for now.
After almost 1 week it seems Venezuela is still around
85%
to 90% blacked-out
'We call it survival': Venezuelans improvise solutions as
blackout continues
With the crisis in its sixth day, neighbors are sharing
generators, contraband supplies and skills for survival
Joe Parkin Daniels and Patricia Torres in Caracas
Tue 12 Mar 2019
18.30 AEDT
Last modified on
Wed 13 Mar 2019
03.06 AEDT
People use their mobile phones at the Distribuidor Altamira
-main exit of Francisco Fajardo highway- where they can get
telephone service during a partial power outage in Caracas on
March 9, 2019.
At a street corner in eastern Caracas, Rosa Elena stepped
from her car and started picking handfuls of leaves from a
modest tree growing at the roadside. "This is neem," she said.
"It's high in sugar and great in a tea." Her interest was more
than academic: Rosa Elena is diabetic, and when the lights went
out in Venezuela last Thursday, she began to worry that the
blackout would ruin her insulin supply, which must be kept
refrigerated. Since then she has been making rounds of the
city, stockpiling neem leaves, which some people believe can be
used to control diabetes.
As a crippling blackout drags into a sixth day,
Venezuelans are being forced to improvise solutions for a
crisis that is affecting every aspect of daily life. Although
there is intermittent power in the capital, some neighbourhoods
have been in the dark since last week, and schools and
businesses will remain closed on Tuesday.
Food has rotted in refrigerators, hospitals have struggled
to keep equipment operating, and people gather on street
corners to pick up patchy telephone signals.
At Residencias Karina, an apartment complex in the
south-eastern municipality of Baruta – the power was still off
on Monday evening, and residents had come together to share
expertise and survival tactics. One elderly resident has lent
his generator to the operation, with cables running up the side
of the red-brick building into a flat where neighbours charge
their phones. To stop the device overheating or getting rained
out, they have fashioned a cover out of cardboard and
tarpaulin.
In ordinary times, petrol is practically free in Venezuela,
due to government subsidies. But power cuts have put many pumps
out of action, and fuel is hard to come by. It is illegal to
fill jerry cans at petrol stations, so people are often forced
to resort to the black market to obtain fuel for generators.
"The government calls it contraband – we call it survival,"
said Carolina, one resident who preferred not to give her
surname for fear of reprisals.
Members of the Bolivarian National Police escort a tanker as
they help organize the distribution of drinking water to
residents of San Agustin neighbourhood in Caracas on March 11,
2019, while a massive power outage continues affecting parts of
the country.
Another neighbour, Pedro Martínez, was once a farmer in the
country's vast western plains, and has brought his own unique
skillset to the team. "I'm a campesino," he said. "I don't know
about phones and I can live without them. But I do know how to
salt meat." Martínez has been turning the residents' supplies
of beef into jerky, so food supplies can last longer. "The
chicken and the fish people had is already rotten," he said.
Late on Sunday night, the housing complex was rocked by a
string of explosions after an electrical substation caught fire
in circumstances which remain unexplained. "It sounded like a
plane taking off," said Carolina, as the stench of burnt
plastic drifted across from the smouldering power plant. The
explosion added to a sense of desperation in a neighbourhood
that had already seen outbreaks of looting. Residents have
mounted lookouts to warn of the government security forces and
paramilitary gangs called colectivos, who they fear will take
down their jerry-rigged infrastructure. "It's like Jumanji
here," Martínez said. "Except instead of elephants and lions
running around it's the national guard and colectivos."
Residents have started pumping water from a well behind the
front gate, and taking turns to carry supplies to elderly
neighbours on higher floors. Water is in short supply across
the city: at a pharmacy in the upmarket commercial
neighbourhood of Las Mercedes, the queue for bottled water
stretched for several blocks – longer than the line outside
some petrol stations. Moisés de Lima, a homeowner and new
father, loaded gallon bottles of water into his car. He was
stockpiling in expectation of a prolonged crisis.
"We are in a wartime economy now," De Lima said, his
voice trembling with anger. "This is what this government has
done to us, and it has the nerve to just make excuses and play
the blame game."
On Monday night Maduro made a
conspiratorial televised address to the nation,
claiming the
power cut was part of a "demonic" plot dreamed up in the White
House by Donald Trump
in an attempt to plunge Venezuela
into chaos and justify a military invasion and occupation.
Most locals, however, are convinced the cause is years of
under-investment, mismanagement and corruption. "Chavistas have
been in power for 20 years and we have had 20 years of energy
crises," said De Lima
, who paid for his water in dollars,
which swiftly became the de facto currency as cashpoints and
card-readers went out of action.
"After 20 years, you can't
blame other people for your problems."
Outside La Carlota military airbase near the centre of the
city, locals had descended on a tap outside a local police
station, bringing empty bottles, jugs and tubs. Waiting in line
was Jeancary Lugo, a business administrator, who was dismayed
by the efforts of some storekeepers to profit from the crisis.
"On Friday, I bought a bag of ice from a store for $1.50.
Yesterday they wanted $8," she complained. "There's a lot of
solidarity here but there's also people taking advantage. I
feel like they are [trying to] rob us."
Across the road, dozens of national guardsmen lined up,
with riot shields and gas masks at the ready. "Is this what
Venezuela deserves?" one person in line shouted at a police
officer by the station house. The officer shrugged. "In the
command centre there's no water either, and electricity comes
and goes. We're all suffering the same," he said.
Venezuela: Guaidó under investigation for 'sabotage' of
power grid
Tom Phillips Latin America correspondent
Wed 13 Mar 2019
06.20 AEDT
First published on Wed 13 Mar 2019 05.13 AEDT
Venezuelans head to collect water from a sewage canal at the
river Guaire in Caracas. President Nicolás Maduro has alleged a
US attack crippled the country's electrical system.
Venezuela's chief prosecutor has asked the country's supreme
court to open an investigation into opposition leader Juan
Guaidó for alleged involvement in the "sabotage" of the
country's power grid. Tarek Saab announced the inquiry on
Tuesday, a day after the embattled president, Nicolás Maduro,
accused Donald Trump of masterminding a "demonic" plot with the
country's opposition to force him from power.
Guaidó – who most western governments now recognize as
Venezuela's legitimate interim leader – is already under
investigation for allegedly fomenting violence, but authorities
have not tried to detain him since he violated a travel ban and
then returned home from a tour of Latin American countries.
Saab said the case against Guaidó also involves messages
allegedly inciting people to robbery and looting during the
crippling blackout which began on Thursday.
Maduro's political foes and many specialists believe the
nationwide blackout is the result of years of mismanagement,
corruption and incompetence. "We are in the middle of a
catastrophe that is not the result of a hurricane, that is not
the result of a tsunami," Guaidó told CNN on Sunday. "It's the
product of the inefficiency, the incapability, the corruption
of a regime that doesn't care about the lives of Venezuelans."
But in a televised nationwide address on Monday night
Maduro accused the White House of launching an imperialist
"electromagnetic attack".
Critics condemned it as a cynical
attempt to deflect criticism of his regime's responsibility.
"The United States' imperialist government ordered this
attack," Maduro claimed in his 35-minute speech, only his
second significant intervention since the crisis began last
week. "They came with a strategy of war of the kind that only
these criminals – who have been to war and have destroyed the
people of Iraq, of Libya, of Afghanistan and of Syria – think
up." Maduro alleged the US had conducted the attack – in league
with "puppets and clowns" from the Venezuelan opposition – to
create "a state of despair, of widespread want and of conflict"
that would justify a foreign intervention.
Maduro, who gave no evidence for his claims, gave little
hint that an end was in sight to a crisis that the opposition
blames for at least 21 deaths and many fear could plunge the
country into violence and turmoil.
On Tuesday, the foreign
minister, Jorge Arreaza, ordered US diplomats to leave the
country within 72 hours. "The presence on Venezuelan soil of
these officials represents a risk for the peace, unity and
stability of the country," the government said in a statement.
The US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, had announced on Monday
night that Washington was withdrawing all remaining diplomatic
staff from Caracas. "This decision reflects the deteriorating
situation in Venezuela as well as the conclusion that the
presence of US diplomatic staff at the embassy has become a
constraint on US policy," Pompeo tweeted.
Maduro has been fighting for political survival since
January when Guaidó declared himself Venezuela's legitimate
leader and was swiftly recognised as interim president by
dozens of western nations including the US and Britain.
Maduro's many opponents –
who blame him for an economic
collapse that has triggered the most severe migration crisis in
recent Latin American history
– ridicule his claims that
the outage is part of a White House conspiracy. Anna Ferrera, a
student activist in Caracas, said:
"They go around and
around saying this was sabotage and how the US always sabotages
things and the empire is going against Venezuela. But they
haven't given any [credible] explanation. "They always make up
stories to explain the flaws of the system. This is
outrageous," added Ferrera, who said she feared many might
accept Maduro's version because the blackout had knocked out
communication systems across the country, giving his
administration a monopoly on information.
Dimitris Pantoulas, a Caracas-based political analyst, said
Maduro had appeared "worried, anxious and absolutely
desperate" in his Monday night broadcast,
suggesting the
situation was dire. "It is clear, from what he said, that
the government does not control the situation (nobody does) and
they do not have any plan or strategy,"
Pantoulas tweeted.
In his speech, Maduro, who inherited Hugo Chávez's
Bolivarian revolution after his 2013 death, vowed that the
supposed attack on Venezuela's grid would be thwarted. "Victory
belongs to us," he declared. "What you can be certain of is
that sooner rather later, in the coming days, we will win this
battle definitively. We will win – and we will do it for
Venezuela. We will do it for our homeland. We will do it for
you. We will do it because of our people's right to happiness."
An epic cautionary tale of the danger of electing loony left
governments, led by hopey water-melons and warped and insane
neo-communist idiots. These poor sad scared people are going to be
stuffed for at least the next generation.
Germany excuse in WWII: "just obeying orders"
Germany excuse in VZ: "just obeying orders"
Some people never learn. It is obvious that Germany after ww2
became a US vassal following the dictamenes from WDC otherwise
it will face the consequences.
With Germany awash with migrant crime - no go areas - their
women and children afraid to go to swimming pools, concerts,
new year celebrations, rather than deal with their own horrific
issues they want to overthrow a democratically elected leader -
just another USA poodle state
Nah, the Orange Messiah doesn't need an excuse. He'll cut SS
and Medicare for the poor while giving trillions to his
oligarch buddies in tax cuts and crony capitalist MIC
contracts, while spending huge treasury to advance ZioNazism
and Bolshevism worldwide. TrumpTARDs suck his mushroom to his
satisfaction in any event.
A U.S. official has stated that the position from Trump's administration is to "persuade, urge and argue"
for India to stop buying oil from Venezuela.
The United States government "persuades and urges" India to stop buying oil from Venezuela, Washington's
special envoy for the Latin American country, Elliot Abrams stated Sunday.
"We say you should not be helping this regime," Abrams added as President Donald Trump's
administration continues to increase sanctions and interventionist tactics to financially pressure the
Venezuelan government.
Actions that come as a response to India's position to continue doing business with Venezuela on the
basis of purely economic considerations, despite international pressure. As India's Ministry of Foreign
Affairs spokesman, Raveesh Kumar,
said
Feb. 14 their nation "doesn't have any barter system with Venezuela; commercial considerations
and related factors will determine the value of trade which we have with any country."
A sovereign position that is key for Venezuela. The Indian market is a potential lifeline for
Venezuela's economy as it has historically been the second-largest cash-paying customer for the
Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries country's crude, behind the United States, which
through Trump's sanctions have handed control of the revenue to Juan Guaido, the opposition lawmaker who
self-proclaimed as the "interim president" of the country.
Currently, Venezuela exports approximately 366,000 oil barrels per day to India, a figure that the
nation's Oil Minister, Manuel Quevedo,
expressed
they expect to double in the near future. However, such plans could be stopped by the
intervention of the U.S.
On the NYT story, you have to love how transparent the propaganda is, and yet they
(Bolton, Pompeo, Rubio) don't care whatsoever. Oh, and not one critical word about people
throwing Molotov cocktails. Like that's a perfectly normal, non-violent means of protest.
Predictably during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee
hearing on Thursday , Republican chairman Marco Rubio condemned Venezuela's Maduro as a
"clear danger" and a "threat to the national security of the US." To be expected the hearing
was filled with plenty of threats and talk of flipping "military elites" and enforcing tougher
sanctions.
But perhaps unexpected was just how out in the open and brazen Rubio's own admissions of how
far he's willing to go in promoting regime change in Caracas. In public testimony he called on
the US to promote " widespread unrest " in order to eventually bring down the Maduro
government. It appears Rubio is now urging the White House to initiate a full-on "Syria
option" for Venezuela , which implies covert arming, funding, and militarization of the
opposition to reach peak escalation and confrontation with the government, perhaps inviting
broader external military intervention, similar to efforts to topple Syria's Assad over the
past years.
We've commented before about how popular anti-Maduro protests seemed to have lost
significant momentum of late, pretty much fading out altogether over the past couple weeks,
after tensions came to a head on Feb. 23 when US-backed opposition leader Juan Guaido
led a failed attempt to get an unauthorized humanitarian aid convoy across the
Colombian-Venezuelan border.
This as it appeared the opposition was itching for a provocation that might draw the US and
regional allies into some of kind of more direct intervention , and as a significant uptick in
US military flights went to and from Colombia near the border with Venezuela. During Thursday's
Senate hearing, there appeared a willingness to admit the fact that it appears Maduro is not
going anywhere anytime soon , for example, when the committee's top Democrat, Sen. Bob Menendez
of New Jersey, said
, "Confronting tyranny requires sustained commitment. But Maduro is not invincible. He's far
from it."
Though issuing plenty of threats of tighter sanctions and strangling Venezuelan oil exports,
the Democrats on the committee stopped short of endorsing military action: "The support that we
have lent unequivocally on Venezuela does not include the use of force," Menendez said
further .
However, Rubio's extreme "regime change by any means possible" hawkishness was on full
display. Journalist Max Blumenthal reports:
At Senate hearing on Venezuela just now, Marco Rubio called for the US to promote
"widespread unrest" as a means of encouraging regime change . His proposal was met with
approval .
Blumenthal noted this was a reference to instigating further "violent guarimba riots" --
referencing the local Spanish word -- that have been a feature of Venezuelan city streets since
Maduro was sworn in for a second six year term in January, and which has further represented
the more violent side of Venezuelan politics for years.
Your Spanish lesson for the day is guarimba , (feminine, as in ' me voy a la
guarimba ' I'm going to the guarimba ) the blocking of roads, lighting of tires,
and sometimes involving defensive acts of rock-throwing , a practice adopted by the
Venezuelan opposition in response to elections they feel are unfair. Those who participate in
the guarimbas are known as guarimberos . It is presently the season of
guarimbas , and one can only hope, for the sake of the nation, that they will soon
come to an end.
Though Maduro has survived the latest round of international pressure to succumb to internal
coup efforts led by a US-supported opposition, the fires of unrest Venezuela don't look to be
extinguishable anytime soon.
As Ben Norton also pointed out on Thursday while speaking of using "humanitarian aid" as a
pretext for regime change: "They're not even hiding it at this point."
What makes "Gangster Capitalism" so worthwhile is that it helps in understanding what has
led us to the 2007-8 financial meltdown. As the book shows, like during the 1920's,
deregulation led the way for powerful companies to allow the very wealthy to get wealthier at
the expense of average people by using poor working conditions, low wages, etc, plus at the
same time supporting supposedly moral movements (against gambling, alcohol, drugs, etc)
which mainly served the purpose of making these trades more profitable to crooks and
therefore created rampant gangsterism there. The result was such a society wracked
with gangsterism at all levels, but because most people felt they were prospering, few
complained.
But, then it all collapsed with the 1929 crash and resulting Depression, which led the way
for FDR and the New Deal programs which increased regulation of corporations, repeal of
Prohibition, etc. Though the Depression lingered until WWII, the New Deal was successful in
restructuring our laws and public infrastructure to create a better footing for the
prosperity which would follow.
The book effectively traces how much of this regulation was reduced piece by piece,
beginning in earnest with Nixon, using Cold War fears to tilt the nation toward more
corporate power and away from reform, support of right-wing dictators around the world,
re-energizing a 'moral crusade' especially by beginning the War on Drugs, thereby making the
illegal drug trade super profitable, etc.
The nation had shifted Right and even Democratic presidents like Carter who was
instrumental in deregulating industry and Clinton who signed into law the repeal of
Glass--Steagle weren't able to stop the shift. Then, the 'Gangster Capitalism" went on
steroids with G. W. Bush. By 2003, corporate taxes only amounted to 7% of revenues,
while payroll taxes amounted to 40%.
Of note, the book makes clear it is opportunity which leads to much crime, so the approach
of massive deregulation of corporations, plus focusing on arrests and imprisonment for
victimless crimes ends up with the wrong results, more entrenched crime, even allowing
corporations to capitalize on a prison industry.
The book is also good at highlighting how corporations and outright gangsters were able to
corrupt legal drugs (price-fixing), tobacco, asbestos, body parts, autos (Pintos), etc. Some
other things in the book, of note: Hamid Karzai included drug traffickers in his Afghan
administration.
And, our support of Suharto (Indonesia), Mobuto (the Congo), and Marcos (the Philippines)
allowed 'looting' of these countries.
A corrupt financial infrastructure included the BCCI bank and offshore banking to evade
taxes also developed. Plus, laundering money from illegal arms sales, drugs, and so many
other illegal activities passed through our financial system.
The book is definitely tilted toward a liberal way of looking at things, therefore it
doesn't go into the good things about capitalism, but there are disturbing patterns which are
important to understand, and this book does that very well.
Despite the fact that I was
predisposed to agree with many of the author's views, this book was a huge disappointment.
First, the basic premises:
American business enterprise is singularly corrupt;
Most of the crime that Americans suffer from is corporate crime;
American methods of fighting crime focus on lurid fantasies of underworld
conspiracy;
The USA exports criminality through its foreign & trade policies.
Each of these premises could have been, and in other venues have been, well-argued. The
first three suffer from a lack of generally accepted, objective measures, but experts on
criminology have overcome worse obstacles. What we get instead is an unfocused, rambling
listing of claims (plausible, but very poorly documented) about the criminal underworld,
anecdotes about corporate crime, and extreme statements. No doubt "legitimate" business
enterprise does rip off more money from customers each year than do gangsters or mafiosi; but
the latter also account for a tiny fraction of the total US labor force. And comparing deaths
from industrial accidents to mob hits is just over the top.
Woodiwiss says that the book
"had its inception during a seminar series on transnational organized crime run by
Adam Edwards and Peter Gill... Adam and Peter put together several of the best academic
researchers from Europe and North America...."
Yet the book is exasperatingly badly substantiated. I noticed almost no original research.
Woodiwiss's footnotes, which--like cops--are never around when you need them (viz., when he
is actually saying something that requires documentation), are almost exclusively from
articles in the *Guardian* or from other sensational exposes. Radical literature has its
place, of course, but saying, "US capitalism is just like organized crime... see, it says so
in 'The New Left Review'" is just a harangue, not evidence.
The back cover declaims:
"..[T]he position of large multinational corporations...actually provide the most
enticing opportunities for illegal profit... Gangster Capitalism shows how respectable
businessmen and revered statesmen have seized these opportunities in an orgy of fraud and
illegal violence that would leave the most hardened mafiosi speechless."
In fact, it's a disappointing pile of clippings. With the exception of his
claims--again, plausible but unsubstantiated--you are not going to find any surprises
here.
As I mentioned, he attacks conventional wisdom regarding the mafia and J. Edgar Hoover
(who comes off surprisingly well); unfortunately, Woodiwiss offers almost no support for
those contentions that are likely to be controversial.
For example, on p.78 he mentions President [Nixon]'s Advisory Council on Executive
Organization, "Organized Crime Strike Force Report" [1969], which included a vaguely worded
remark that the reliance on legal sanctions to fight drug abuse was actually causing
organized crime to flourish." This is footnoted.
Then he says that Nixon was so horrified by this that he ruthlessly suppressed the report.
This is not footnoted.
The next paragraph (p.49) includes a quote from a law enforcement officer claiming that
gambling arrests were made just to pad the arrest numbers; this is footnoted. The next
paragraph declares that gambling is no more corrupt than the rest of the economy. A
surprising observation, it is predictably not footnoted.
The result: lots of footnotes documenting that water is a bit on the damp side, but
nothing to support the controversial stuff. Only a small part is devoted to crime; the rest
is a paste-up job from two dozen radical critiques of the USA.
Anything from the 1971 ditching of the gold exchange standard to the various covert
activities of the CIA are brought up, with no more compelling a connection to Woodiwiss'
original point than being bad things that Americans did.
The conclusions are so insipid (it calls for "fair trade" with no further specification of
how that would be any different... capital punishment for corporations--evidently Mr.
Woodiwiss has never heard of 'money laundering,' in which a vehicle corporation commits
suicide), that it is pointless to spend any time on them.
Woodiwiss needs to actually learn something about economics; ironically enough, for
someone who claims business is closely tied to crime, he knows almost nothing about it. He
needs to know, and say what he knows, about law enforcement and business practices abroad, so
he can make a comparison. And finally, he needs to actually learn how to write.
Bravo Much respect to this woman as opposed to the gutless spineless members of the US
Congress as a whole who function as enablers of the fascist war criminals who themselves are
the stooges and puppets of the American elite.
Absolutely. I like that her contention the west intended to use the aid trucks as a wedge to
start an intervention is described as a 'far-left conspiracy'; in fact I heard it said that
the trucks which were burned contained wire and materials for making barriers, among their
foodstuffs. You will not hear it in any western publications, but according to a Colombian
news source, the reports are accurate.
It also answers the question of where Guaido is now – not holed up in the US Embassy
in Venezuela, but in Bogota, still trying to overthrow the government of his own country from
there, although I daresay he spends much of his time in the US Embassy in Bogota. At present
he cannot return to Venezuela, and it seems to me a talented child could make out a case for
treason – he openly colluded with a foreign government to overthrow the elected
government of his own country. Try that in the USA, and see if they think it is treason.
So much of US meddling operations in foreign countries depends on momentum – getting
something going and then constantly accelerating, action piling on top of action with no time
to think, until when the dust settles, the US aim has been achieved and any reservations are
drowned out by a burst of cheering and flag-waving – a triumphant parade featuring the
victors, as everyone is invited to join in celebrating the latest bold step in the democratic
adventure. But if there is a pause in which people have time to think, many of them think
"there's something not right about this".
One more thing – the western governments encouraged the Venezuelan opposition to
boycott the election, because they knew very well they were unlikely to make any gains. They
then used that as an excuse to call the elections illegitimate, and that as an excuse to
declare Guaido the rightful ruler since the elected president came to power through a sham
election. Neat trick – you'll want to watch for that one, because it is likely to
appear again in some guise or other. The opposition was not shut out of the election; it
chose not to participate. New elections have to be held within 30 days, so let's see if the
opposition tries the same trick again, afraid to face Maduro.
All the Venezuelan people who are quoted in the western press, usually just a first name
and age (Rosa, 32, says she can't go on under Maduro, can't feed her children), have the
perfect right to vote against him. If not enough people do so to prevent him from winning,
then surprise!! that's how democracy works. Any time not liking the results of an election is
reason to declare it illegitimate and appoint someone else, let me know; there's quite a few
western leaders who could be looking for new jobs before next week's out.
Yes, she is impressing many people with her courage but not the Washington Party (I no longer
distinguish between Democrats and Republicans as there is no meaningful difference on issues
that matter).
I don't think so; look at all the time Navalny has been around, and although they have not
quite gotten around to announcing him as the new president of Russia (that'd be funny, but it
would be wise to note the differences and why the west thought it would work in Venezuela),
he is still rated as the 'opposition leader' although he is not even really a politician, has
no party and only engages in politics when prodded by the west. But he has not been
sacrificed in a blaze of glory. No reason for Guaido to be, either. If Maduro was going to
rub him out, he would have already done so, and instead seems to be proceeding deliberately
toward legal action for treason or something like that.
Guaido very much alive is a useful reminder of the failed coup, and perhaps the west would
like to get rid of him for that reason, but their capacity for taking decisive action in
Venezuela seems to be a little short of what they thought it was.
Navalny has no chance to lead a revolution in Russia but he is a useful biting insect. His
death would not advance the Western objective one micron (going metric here). So, keeping him
around has value to the West.
Guaido has an expiration date. His value is diminishing at an exponential rate. Soon, he
will need to be written out of the script. Killing him off would seem the most obvious, but,
not the only choice. Much depends if the US in planning an imminent military invasion, If
they are, they will need Guaido, otherwise, he may be more useful dead as part of a
longer-term propaganda operation.
It closes with a recommendation that some other entity than the United States take over
mediation, and try to work out a solution which would culminate in 'free elections' (the west
is obsessed with the idea that Maduro stole the last election, or at least is committed to
that narrative). But I'm pretty confident that Condition Number One for such 'free' elections
would be that Maduro must not stand as a candidate – the west fears a win that could
not be called illegitimate.
Interestingly, the piece also discusses that Guaido is merely a smiley face for some of
the most radical figures in Venezuelan politics, fierce liberals who would hand control of
the nation's energy industry to the conqueror. Also, it explains how the wealthy make a bit
extra on the side by re-selling state-subsidized commodities in neighbouring countries at a
significant markup.
Guaido's main mentor is Leopoldo Lopez who is currently under house arrest in Venezuela. He
was previously involved in the 2002 coup to remove Hugo Chavez as President and has tried
hijacking student protests, Dar'aa-style, to instigate violence from which coup attempts can
be launched. He's far more dangerous than Lorenzo Mendoza.
God, that Trish Regan is a moron on steroids. But, it was very heartening to see Russia
stepping up with aid. Certainly, the physical aid is important to Venezuela but, more
important, is the knowledge that they are not facing the US alone – cautiously
optimistic that Venezuela can survive the assault.
Soooo many bullshit moments, my head is reeling. "The ones who are the aggressors here are
the RUSSIANS, the United States supports a peaceful transition of power". Yes, to the leader
it picked for the country, in a process about as far from democracy as an egg is from an
eggplant. "Russia might not have the same good sweet deals, there would be a more competitive
landscape, and they don't like that". Trish, baby – your National Security Advisor is
on record as publicly stating it would make a big difference to the US economy if the USA
could invest in and produce Venezuela's oil. It already has complete control of the refining
end – if it were also investing in it and producing it what would be left for the
Venezuelans?
It is important to Americans that they always are doing the right thing, the just thing,
the altruistic thing, and that nothing so smutty as American profit and financial gain come
into it. It is for this reason they are fed such self-serving pablum daily by their news
media.
But why should someone as wealthy and well known as Robert Kraft visit a massage parlor in a
strip mall? He could have top whores from around the world flown in to his penthouse . For
god's sake, he could have gone to that private Caribbean Island where the insiders go for
illicit sex with whomever/whatever they could imagine. Something is weirder than average
here.
Log books show Bill Clinton just loved Island hospitality as evidenced by his numerous
visits. Odd, how utterly quiet the MSM is about this – y'ld think that industrial scale
rape of young girls would be newsworthy in the MSM. No, just the Covington Kid get them
going. Eyes Wide Shut at work here.
I think it's the thrill of the chase that appeals, plus knowing that you did something
illegal (either secretly or in full view) and got away with it. Having whores flown to your
place wouldn't have the same appeal.
Well, I suppose being a Peeping Tom could his next adventure. Nevertheless, it still makes
little sense from a psychological aspect. Some say he was somehow set up as a lot of NFL
owners are tired of his team winning the Superbowl every other year and wanted to take him
down a notch or two.
I suspect that most super rich, if not perverts from a young age, end up being perverted
– the power of money and a highly developed market offering perversion is just too much
to resist for most humans. That is a major reason why capitalism or free markets or whatever
you want to call a system that encourages accumulation of vast amounts of wealth is (drum
roll) perverted.
Again, the only defense needed by a cop in killing a suspect was "I thought my life was in
danger" regardless if that were actually the case. In the particular instance, I do think the
cops may have thought such but they were apparently trigger happy and reacted to a "flash of
light" or glint off some something metallic. They thought it was a muzzle blast. Really? They
offered confusing statements as well – the suspect advanced on them in a shooting
stance but refused to show his hands. What kind of shooting stance would that be?
I don't think it was cold blooded murder in this case – just manslaughter. They
ought to be charged accordingly and kicked off the force. But no, everything is OK, nothing
to see. Besides, it would have a chilling effect on police everywhere if they were fearful of
being charged every time they killed someone. I mean, like, who would want to be a cop?
I note that in this instance, though, the deceased was committing a crime; a series of them,
in fact. Nothing he needed to be killed for, certainly, but a case removed from all the other
black men who have been shot with their cell phone in their hand, or nothing at all, while
the cops who decided to 'question' them ( sometimes for nothing more than walking on the
sidewalk in a mostly-white neighbourhood) had no apparent reason to be bothering them. Police
intervention was certainly called for here, although it is hard to believe it could not have
been carried out without any real violence at all. The list of people who actually decided to
go for their gun when ordered to put their hands up by police who already have their weapons
out must be a short one.
Police in America seem uniformly convinced that black men they detain will try to kill
them. I wonder why? Have a lot of police officers been shot to death by black men? I bet the
list of black men killed by police is a lot longer.
To partially address the question of how many police are killed by felonious acts (shot, run
over, etc.) versus how many they have killed by shooting (not counting fatalities from
crashes during police chases), its roughly 65 to 1,000+. or better than a 15 to 1 kill ratio.
31% of the civilian victims were black.
In Britain and Japan, there were a few civilians killed by police last year. China had 4
(US rate was 1,500 times higher per capita). Could not find info on Russia. Philippines was
way higher than the US rate apparently due to the drug war and terrorists may be included in
that data as well.
The standoff between Venezuela and the AngloZionist Empire last week-end has clearly ended
in what can only be called a total defeat for Elliott Abrams. While we will never know what was
initially planned by the demented minds of the Neocons, what we do know is that nothing
critical happened: no invasion, not even any major false flag operation. The most remarkable
facet of the standoff is how little effect all the AngloZionist propaganda has had inside
Venezuela. There were clashes, including some rather violent ones, across the border, but
nothing much happened in the rest of the country. Furthermore, while a few senior officers and
a few soldiers did commit treason and join forces with the enemy, the overwhelming majority of
the Venezuelan military remained faithful to the Constitution. Finally, it appears that Maduro
and his ministers were successful in devising a strategy combining roadblocks, a concert on the
Venezuelan side, and the minimal but effective use of riot police to keep the border closed.
Most remarkably, "unidentified snipers" did not appear to shoot at both sides (a favorite
tactic of the Empire to justify its interventions). I give the credit for this to whatever
Venezuelan (or allied) units were in charge of counter-sniper operations along the border.
Outside Venezuela this first confrontation has also been a defeat for the Empire. Not only
did most countries worldwide not recognize the AngloZionist puppet, but the level of protest
and opposition to what appeared to be the preparations for a possible invasion (or, at least, a
military operation of some kind) was remarkably high. While the legacy corporate Ziomedia did
what it always does (that is whatever the Empire wants it to do), the Internet and the
blogosphere were overwhelmingly opposed to a direct US intervention. This situation also
created a great deal of internal political tensions in various Latin American countries whose
public opinion remains strongly opposed to any form of US imperial control over Latin
America.
In this respect, the situation with Brazil is particularly interesting. While the Brazilian
government fully backed the US coup attempt, the Brazilian military was most uncomfortable with
this. My contacts in Brazil had correctly predicted that the Brazilian military would refuse to
attack Venezuela and, eventually, the Brazilians even issued a statement to that effect
.
Alas, there are still plenty of US puppet regimes in Latin America to mindlessly do whatever
Uncle Shmuel wants them to (Colombia would be the worst offender, of course, but there are
others). But that is not the main problem here.
The main problem is that the Neocons cannot accept defeat and that they are likely to do
what they always do, double down and make a bad situation even worse. The head of the Russian
Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev, has warned
that the US has deployed special forces in Colombia and Puerto Rico in preparation for a
possible invasion. Uncharacteristically, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs made
intelligence information public, which described in some detail what kind of plans the Empire
and its allies had, even before this past week-end's confrontation. See for yourself:
In fact, the leaders of the Empire and their puppets are not keeping any secrets about their
determination to overthrow the constitutional government and replace it with the kind of
comprador regime the US already imposed in Colombia. Pompeo, Abrams and Pence have been
particularly hysterical in their threats, but the entire "Lima Group" is still at it:
As for the Russian UN Ambassador, he was very clear on what Russia expects to happen
next:
The Neocons are not even content to threaten Venezuela, and John Bolton could not help
himself and publicly
threatened Nicaragua as being next in line for a US-sponsored regime change. He even spoke
of a "
Troika of Tyranny " reminiscent of the famous " Axis of Evil ".
This is all hardly surprising: US politicians always resort to infantile comic-book kind of
language when they want to give their threats a special gravitas. Next we will be told that
Maduro is a "New Hitler" and that he is "genociding his own people", possibly with chemical
weapons ("highly likely", no doubt!). If not that, then Maduro will be distributing Viagra to
his forces to
help them rape more women . To those puzzled by the fact that presumably adult politicians
use the kind of language one could find in grade school, I can only say that this just reflects
the state of the political discourse in the US, which has been dumbed-down to an incredibly low
level. Be careful, however, because while US politicians are rather comical in their infantile,
ignorant, illiteracy, and while they have an almost perfect record of embarrassing failures,
the past decades have also shown that they are quite capable of murderous rampages (in Iraq
alone the US invasion resulted in over one million dead Iraqi civilians) or of wrecking even a
very prosperous country (which Libya under Muammar Gaddafi definitely was).
Next, the Empire will probably strike-back
There is a small chance that Abrams & Co. will conclude that the situation in Venezuela
is a total mess and that the Empire cannot capitalize on it in the short to middle term. This
is possible, yes, but also highly unlikely.
The truth is that Mr MAGA and his Neocon puppet-masters have failed, at least so far, at
absolutely everything they tried. And if taking on China, Russia, Iran or even Syria is no easy
task, Venezuela is by far the most fragile country in what could be called the "Resistance
countries": Venezuela is far away from it's allies (except Cuba), it is surrounded by more or
less hostile countries (especially Colombia), it's economy is crippled by US sanctions and
sabotage and its armed forces are dwarfed by the immense firepower the Empire has available in
the region. Add to this the truly demonic mindset of Neocons like Abrams and the future for
Venezuela looks bleak.
ORDER IT NOW
The good news is that the Colombians and the rest of the Lima Group "friends of Venezuela"
probably don't have the military power to take on Venezuela by themselves. The preferred option
for the US would be to use the Colombians like the KLA was used in Kosovo or how al-Qaeda (and
derivatives) were used against Syria: as boots on the ground while the US provides air power,
electronic warfare capabilities, intelligence, bomb and missile strikes, etc. The US also has
immense naval capabilities which could be used to assist (and, of course, direct) any military
operations against Venezuela (I highly recommend this analysis by my friend Nat South who
describes in some detail the US naval capabilities and operations in the region).
My gut feeling is that this approach will not work. As is often the case, the US has all
sorts of impressive capabilities except for the main one: a military force capable of providing
the boots on the ground (as opposed to a non-US proxy). The problem for the US military would
not be so much getting in, as staying inside and getting something done before leaving –
what the US called an "exit strategy". And here, there are really no good options for the
US.
It is therefore far more likely that the US will use the weapon which it truly masters
better than anybody else on earth: corruption.
There is big money, really big money, all around the Venezuelan crisis: not only oil money,
but also drug money. And there are a lot of truly evil and corrupt people involved in this
struggle who will use that corruption-weapon with devastating effect against the
constitutionally elected government. And, just to make things worse, Venezuela is already
devastated by corruption. Still, there are quite a few factors which might well save Venezuela
from being reconquered by the Empire.
First, while US Neocons are too arrogant to bother with anybody's opinion except their own,
and while the various US agencies primarily talk with the immensely wealthy rulers of Colombia
and the rest of Latin America, it does appear that a strong majority of Venezuelans support
their elected government. Furthermore, US leaders simply don't understand how hated the
"Yankees" are in Latin America (at least among the masses, not the comprador elites) and
how fantastically offensive the appointment of a felon like Elliott Abrams as Envoy to
Venezuela is to the vast majority of the people of this continent.
Second, Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro did empower, for the very first time, the masses of
the Venezuelan people, especially those who lived in abject poverty when Venezuela was still a
US colony. These people are under no illusion about what a Guaido regime would mean to them.
And while most of the supporters of Chavez and Maduro are not influential or wealthy, there are
a lot of them and they will probably fight to prevent a complete reversal of all the
achievements of the Bolivarian revolution.
Third, Latin America might well be changing, just like the Middle-East did. Remember how,
for years, the Israelis could attack their neighbors with quasi-total impunity and how poorly
the Arab armies performed? That suddenly changed when Hezbollah proved to the entire region and
even the world, that the "Axis of Kindness" (US, Israel, KSA) could be successfully defeated,
even by a comparatively tiny resistance with no air force, no navy and very little armor. As I
never cease to repeat – wars are not won by firepower, but by willpower . Oh sure,
firepower helps, especially when you can fire from far away with no risk to yourself and your
victim cannot fire back, but as soon as big firepower is met by big willpower the former
rapidly fails. There is a very real possibility that Venezuela might do for Latin America what
the Ukraine did for Russia: act as a surprisingly effective "vaccine" against the AngloZionist
propaganda. An indigenous leader like Evo Morales, who has declared his full and total support
for the elected government of Maduro, is an inspiration to the people of Latin America far
beyond the borders of Bolivia. The Russian ambassador to the UN got it right: there are already
other leaders after Maduro which the AngloZionists want to eliminate and replace by a pliable
puppet à la Guaido or Duque Márquez. At the end of the day, this is a
typical dialectical problem: the more brutal and overt the US aggression against Latin America
is, the more successful coups or even invasions the US organizes, the stronger the anti-Yankee
feelings generated among the people of the continent. Think of it this way: the US has already
terminally alienated the people of China, Russia and Iran, along with most of the Arab and
Muslim world, and thanks to that alienation, the leaders of China, Russia and Iran have enjoyed
the support of their people in their struggle against the AngloZionist Empire. Could something
very similar not already be happening in Latin America?
Conclusion: focus on the right question
To defeat the Empire's plans for Venezuela, it is crucial that we all keep hammering over
and over again: the choice is not between Maduro or Guiado, the choice is not between poverty
under the Chavistas and prosperity under the AngloZionists. This is how the agents of the
Empire (whether paid or simply stupid) want to frame the discussions. The real issue at stake
here is the rule of law . The rule of law inside Venezuela, of course, and the rule of law
internationally.
First year law students are often taught that the purpose of the law is not "justice" per
se, but to provide a mechanism to solve disputes. That mechanism is, admittedly, a highly
imperfect one, but it is understood by civilized people as being preferable to the alternative
. The alternative, by the way, is what happens in every time a so-called "humanitarian
intervention" is launched: a humanitarian disaster.
Yet, this is the typical modus operandi of the Neocons (and of all imperialists,
really). First, chose a country for destabilization, then use your control of the international
financial markets and trade to trigger an economic crisis; then, send your "democracy
promoting" spooks and agents of influence to foment protests or, even better, violent
disorders; then send some "unidentified snipers" if the legitimate government does not use
enough violence to quell the protests, then denounce the leader you want replaced as "monster"
"animal" or even "new Hitler" and threaten to overthrow him. After that, declare urbi et
orbi that it is "highly likely" that the "new Hitler" will massacre his own people, add a
false flag op if needed, and then declare a "coalition of the willing" composed of "friends" of
the country you want to occupy who will take action due to the "ineffectiveness of the US",
ditch any thoughts about international law and only speak of " rules-based order ". Check out
how Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov explains the meaning of this substitution:
When you listen to the supporters of Guaido you will always hear them talking about how
terrible Maduro is, how horrible the economic situation of Venezuela really is, how corrupt the
members of the regime are, etc. etc. etc. This is all a smokescreen. Even the accusation that
the last elections were stolen by Maduro is just another smokescreen. Why? Because even if
Maduro did steal the election, Guaido did not have the right to declare himself President,
Trump had no right to recognize him as such, and the Empire had no business threatening a
military intervention or even a violation of the sovereign border of Venezuela under the
ridiculous pretext of bringing in humanitarian aid while, at the same time, keeping the country
under draconian (and fully illegal) sanctions. The solution to a crisis brought about by a
violation of law cannot be a wholesale abandonment of the very core principles of law, but such
a solution can only be a restoration of law and order by legal means. Kinda obvious, but so
many seem to forget this, that it is worth repeating. And here, I will again post a graphic
which really says it all:
The most powerful tools in the arsenal of the Empire are not it's nuclear forces or its
bloated, if generally ineffective, armed forces. The most powerful tool in the Empire's arsenal
is its ability to frame the discussion, to set what is focused upon and what is obfuscated. The
Empire's legacy corporate Ziomedia even dictates what words should or should not be used in a
discussion (example: never speak of "illegal aggression" but speak of "humanitarian
intervention").
This is why we must speak of " true sovereignty ", of " international law ", of "
constitutional procedures " and of " aggression " and " threat of aggression " as war crimes.
We need to continue to demand that basic fundamental principles of civilized societies (such as
the principle of "innocent until proven guilty") be upheld by governments and by the media. We
need to deny the rulers of the Empire the right to declare that they have the right to
completely ignore the most sacred principles of the post-WWII international order . We need to
continue to insist that a just international order can only be a multi-polar one; that a single
World Hegemon can never deliver justice and that there shall be no peace if there is no
justice. Finally, we need to ceaselessly demand that each country and each nation live
according to its own traditions and beliefs and reject the notion that a single political model
must, or even can, be applied universally.
These are all principles which the Neocons hate and which they would love to bundle together
under a single all encompassing concept, like George Orwell's " crimethink ". Mostly, the Neocons like to
use the "anti-Semite" and "anti-Semitic" to dismiss these principles, and when that fails, then
"terrorist" is always available for use. Don't let them do that: every time they try that
trick, immediately denounce it for what it is and continue focusing on what really matters. If
we can force the Neocons to deal with these issues we win. It is really that simple.
It is impossible for me to guess how this conflict will play itself out. Will the brazen
arrogance of "the Yankees" be enough to seriously red-pill the people of Venezuela and the rest
of Latin America? Maybe. My hope and my gut feeling is that it might
I'm probably the only one who's willing to entertain the possibility that Pompeo, Bolton
and Abrams were chosen and placed with the Empire's demise in mind. They're almost comic book
level caricatures of the worst any Empire could offer. Certainly, no serious empire would
allow them more than a soapbox on an obscure street corner. Shouting wild-eyed, spittle
filled gibberish at astonished passersby suits them better.
Anyway, give 'em some rope and they'll hang both themselves and the Empire with it.
They've been given all the rope they can carry, and are blundering forward at such a pace
they may yet hang the Empire before hanging themselves.
If the Russians didn't "suggest" it, they're counting their lucky stars. Do Presidents in
private discussion make personnel suggestions? No idea, but if they do, Putin couldn't have
suggested a better threesome. Having Grade A, strategically myopic, politically immune
megalomaniacs manning the highest levels of your adversary's security apparatus, alienating
both friends and neutrals while clusterf*cking every Imperial project they're charged with,
sounds too good to be true.
I know, it's an idyll. Be that as it may, we should be grateful, rather than revulsed that
they're at the helm. Coldly practical, talented Imperialists (such as a James Baker) would
have a vastly better chance at extending the late stages of the Empire's life to the entire
planet's detriment.
We're otherwise left with the hope the Russians have a sufficiently strong hold on their
power cords to unplug them before they do something suicidally stupid.
@Erebus I appreciate your sentiments re: the "almost comic book level caricatures of the
worst any Empire could offer. "
My worry is: such bunglers, when presented with a crisis I shudder to imagine Bolton's
reaction to a Cuban-missile level crisis
@Erebus Your suggestion is interesting and appears to have some face validity but it
wouldn't really explain the willingness of other countries to support those policies.
My own view is that the hereditary oligarchs of the western world, by which I mean
primarily the banking dynasties, are in the final stages of degeneration. Whilst the founders
of those dynasties were evidently intelligent people (regardless of what one thinks of their
ethics) their descendants evidently are not. Owing to the phenomenon known as the "mean
recession to the norm" we now find ourselves ruled by mundane individuals who consider
themselves practically supermen. The combination of arrogance, ignorance and a lack of real
intellectual weight, in combination with a tendency to hire "advisers" who are telling them
what they want to hear is destroying the west. The closest parallel is probably the end of
the Roman empire. We are living in the modern equivalent of the days of Nero and
Caligula.
They're almost comic book level caricatures of the worst any Empire could offer.
Certainly, no serious empire would allow them more than a soapbox on an obscure street
corner. Shouting wild-eyed, spittle filled gibberish at astonished passersby suits them
better.
The problem with empires is hubris and pomposity. They are so enamored with themselves
they don't notice their ass showing.
This is why I don't have high hopes for Tulsi Gambard:she is not a ruthless debater, and
therefore, she has allowed the neocons to define the terms of debate .The Framework .
Tulsi Gambard should have denounced John McCain Pompeo .Abrams as War Criminals who should
be brought to justice ..
If the neocons responded:"ASSAD IS A WAR CRIMINAL!!! .Gambard should respond:"Israel,
Saudi Arabia, and the Trump Administration aid and abett ISIS in Syria ."
But Tulsi Gambard at the end of the day is a Democrat onboard with the race war against
The Historic Native Born White Working Class Majority And this will be her focus during the
Democratic Party POTUS debates .along with homo rights She will make the rights of homos in
Iran a very high priority in her POTUS campaign.
Very good article. You're absolutely correct that the most powerful weapon the Zioempire has
is framing the situation through the Ziomedia and other Zio talking heads.
US leaders simply don't understand how hated the "Yankees" are in Latin America . .
.
Where is Latin America's media? You would think it would be easy to inveigh against
Yankees. They should have an entire news desk devoted to watching the US imperialists.
In Brazil, Brazil's corporate media led to Bolsonaro's victory. Why is there no strong
opposition media? How did the Corporate Media get so dominant?
Magisterial work. One cavil: characterizing criminal officials by their ideology as "Neocons"
plays into a particular aspect of US dogma. US state criminals like to pretend that
everything is policy: Torture is policy. Aggression is policy. Coercive foreign interference
is policy. Unilateral sanctions are policy. No, they're not, they're crimes. They're
internationally wrongful acts.
US official criminality is not ideological but institutional. It emanates from particular
organizations: from CIA, which depends on impunity for its existence; and CIA's Israeli
cutouts, AIPAC, ADL, &c. CIA's Israeli cutouts carry out illegal domestic coercive
interference for CIA including but not limited to bribery, blackmail, and propaganda.
If you want to make a state criminals' head pop like a zit, read them the laws that
they're trying to wreck. The "basic fundamental principles of civilized societies" are real.
They're written down in black and white:
@MarkU Yes, this globalist fish is rotting from the head down. Mediocrities on the top
are very confident and completely out of their depth. This will get ugly.
International Law, and law in general, mean nothing to Israel and all of its client states,
especially the USA. Israel and the US are the only states that consistently ignore judgements
against them.
Venezuela, like Iraq, is doomed. The only questions ares how much damage will be done, and
how will it be inflicted?
Capitalism and communism both thrive on conflict, and are intolerant of other economic
systems, of which Venezuela is one.
@Erebus I think the Russians must be relieved that the Americans are busy concocting
narratives away from the Ukraine. However, Porky is busy trying to regain their attention.
Here is the Kiev version – a total travesty of the truth:
Four Ukrainian soldiers wounded in action in Donbas since Tuesday morning 09:49, 27
February 2019 War 855 0 Nine invaders were killed on Tuesday, intelligence reports
say
This one won't be as easy as the Reagan era coups. The Venezuelans are pretty well armed and
ready to defend their homeland. Abrams and his goons were good at massacring indigenous
villagers armed with machetes. Venezuela knew this was coming, so they have prepared.
I think this will be as successful as the attempted coup on Erdogan, and will backfire on
the Wall St neocon scum spectacularly. Trump is a fool.
I know people who have been on the ground in Venezuela. It does sound pretty terrible. They
pay their employees with food. Now why this is, sanctions or awful government I don't pretend
to know.
I am a Chinese. I know quite a few Chinese people object to the legitimacy of Chinese
government.
My neighbor is an Iran family. I have seen demonstration against Iranian policy back home
held by Iranian immigrants on the street in my city. I have also worked in Russia for many
years. How can the author say "The US has already terminally alienated the people of China,
Russia and the leaders of China, Russia, Iran have enjoyed the support of their people"?
Quite contrary to the statement. , a few or even a lot of the Chinese, Russian and Iranian
people do no like their government and have to live with it.
Diasdado Cabello already sent two children to China via Moscow.
Even if US do not use force, Maduro will lose grip of power because water(people) can carry
boat(government) and sink boats too!
In Brazil, Brazil's corporate media led to Bolsonaro's victory.
Not true, what led to Bolsonaro´s victory was, in the first place the connivance of
the judicial system with the far-right to keep Lula Da Silva in jail and thus unable to
concur to the elections ( which he would have winned, as the polls were clearly showing )
under invented charges, and in the second place a social media massive campaign on fake-news
related to the left candidate which were spreaded by WhatsApp application to hundreds of
thousands of Brazilians directed by no other than Steve Bannon, which after that was
denounced and already apologized by WhatsApp ( but apologies does not reverse an unfair
elections result .)
The same strategy on massive WhatsApp messages was unfolded during Andalusian elections in
Spain in favor of far-right party Vox .
Why is there no strong opposition media? How did the Corporate Media get so
dominant?
Because they lack the money. Because they have the money.
Where is Latin America's media? You would think it would be easy to inveigh against
Yankees. They should have an entire news desk devoted to watching the US imperialists.
LatinAmerica´s media have been since ages in the hands of the cacique elites
comprador of the USA. Why wiould be easy to inveigh against yankees for LatinAmericans who,
until recently, were mainly illiterate people ( that only changing a bit under socialist
tendence governments ) left in that state by the "elites" in charge during fascist
dictatorships stablished by the US, when i tis not easy even for European people far more
literate and having experienced far more years of, at least resembling, democracy?
Can you in the US inveigh corporate media? I am seeing you are not capable, thus ..
While of course international law must be promoted, as it supposedly is by everyone, even by
the US whenever it suits its purpose, nobody really gives a rat's ass about it, as it is
hardly ever upheld if it stands in the way of the powerful and mighty.
I think what has really deterred the US military intervention so far has not been
mentioned, but the planners in the State Department, CIA, Pentagon, and wherever else they
make such decisions, have surely considered it, are the masses of freedom loving and
anti-imperialist, and mostly left wing, people of South and Latin America, in spite whatever
the political coloration of their present governments and regardless of what their MSM spew
out as being public opinion.
An invasion of Venezuela by the US military, even with any Colombian and Brazilian
assistance, has the potential to ignite the entire region and seriously threaten US long-term
interests and the newly elected right wing governments, and surely this is the last thing
they would all want. I think the protests and public unrest US military intervention would
unleash would be something unseen of in this world previously, and would make the Yellow
Vests protests look like a weekend picnic. Not to mention the potential for revitalising
guerilla wars and terrorist activity in an area rich with "gringo" targets. I don't think the
US, or the current leaders of Brazil, Colombia, etc. would want the region to plunge into
chaos. The US got away with it with Grenada and Panama, but taking on a country such as
Venezuela would send a much stronger message to the people elsewhere. Especially if the
Venezuelans can offer a stiff resistance and not cave in quickly, or mount a viable
insurgency against any US occupation quisling government.
Maybe this Maduro regime is useless and doesn't deserve to survive, and doesn't merit
popular support inside and outside of the country, but US imperialist machinations and
interests throughout the region surely deserve a severe drubbing, and more than just a bloody
nose, considering the bloody history of US interference, and I think the Latinos are capable
of it.
It is not simply a smokescreen to say that Maduro has brought poverty and economic collapse.
I believe that true legimacy in the eyes of GNON derives from success or failure. Maduro is
not illegitimate because he the US says so. He is illegitimate in the eyes of GNON because he
is unimaginably incompetent and has brought national economic failure in one of the most
resource rich nations on Earth where prosperity should be easy. By sharp contrast I mobilized
my network hard against international efforts to unseat Assad because I felt his competence
made him naturally the legitimate leader of an almost unrulable place.
A term like "Anglo-Zionist propaganda" is awkwardly descriptive of the United States. Anglo
Saxons were the founders of the nation but are now a small minority dwarfed by German
Americans, Italian Americans, Irish Americans, Latino Americans and African Americans.
Zionists or Jews are a similarly tiny percentage in the land. None of these much larger
groups have any love for Anglo Saxons and most have no clue nor interest in who is a Jew.
@MarkU"Your suggestion is interesting and appears to have some face validity but it
wouldn't really explain the willingness of other countries to support those policies. "
Most Western countries have lost any autonomy in defining their foreign policy and are
obliged to follow that drawn out by the US/Israel-based "Neo Conservatives" instead.
The turning point at which stage this autonomy was lost occurred about 30 years ago, when
financial globalisation rendered national sovereignty almost obsolete and established
overwhelming primacy of the banking industry over nation states.
The banking dynasties have reached such a level of control over Western democracies that
they can impose obedient and intellectually-challenged "yes-men" such as Bolton in foremost
positions, while in the past they would have to make compromise with more powerful political
apparatus and civil service, and accept "talented imperialists such as James Baker".
The real question that deserves an honest answer should be: do the interests and agenda of
the banking oligarchy really match those of the Western countries they control?
I know people who have been on the ground in Venezuela. It does sound pretty terrible.
They pay their employees with food. Now why this is, sanctions or awful government I don't
pretend to know.
Come on man, how many times have we seen this now? Yeah of course there are poor people in
Vene. like anywhere else, including America, but they're much better off under Chavez/Maduro
than they were when CIA puppets were in charge. The majority of refugees fleeing to America
are coming from countries where CIA puppets are in control, Honduras for example, which the
obama/Clinton regime overthrew in 2009, is where the "caravans" are coming from.
Nicaragua, Bolivia, and Venezuela still have democratically elected govts. in place, there
are minimal immigrants/refugees coming from these countries. But Bolton, Pompeo, Abrams, and
Trump aim to change that. So expect more "invaders" if they get their way.
After Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, etc you can't see what the "problem" is? Sanctions
are siege warfare, nothing less. Sanctions are intended to starve people into submission or
turn them against their govt. Add to that sabotage by the elites in the country that own the
warehouses and distribution, hoarding needed items. This is the same playbook they've been
using for decades now.
All the information is out there, I would suggest you check out Abby Martins videos on
youtube, Grayzone Project website and videos, Jimmy Dores videos, John Pilgers videos, all of
it is explained pretty well. Search youtube for CIA Coups Latin America. I would post a lot
of the videos but I don't want to hog up the page. Sometimes I think people here choose to be
willfully ignorant, the internet is your friend! The CIA/Wall St crowd wants to loot
Venezuela, this is nothing new, read the link in my comment above for some history on CIA
plundering and genocide in Latin America. Read Smedley Butlers book "War is a Racket".
Telesur is a good source for news in Latin America also.
Heres another interesting article on CIA/mercenary operations in Miami. Read the article then
think about 9/11 and all the connections there. Add the "mass shootings" in Orlando and
Parkland. Sure are a lot of coincidences when you start looking..
Miami and southern Florida were major operating areas for cells of Israeli Mossad agents
masquerading as "art students," who were living and working near some of the identified
future Arab "hijackers" in the months preceding 9/11.
@redmudhooch Some people are blind and deaf, or just fools who repeat ad nauseam
Einstein's definition of an idiot, or just shameless idiots (as in that saying "fool me once
), or just plain bastards propagating the eternal lie, or bots (but do they really need to
pay people to post comments on websites with so many idiots anyway taken in by their MSM
lies?). It's a shame seeing people propagating viewpoints of the wealthy and powerful,
especially when they won't benefit in any way when their evil plans come to fruition. What
benefits did ordinary westerners get from supporting wars in the Middle East? Getting blown
up by terrorists and raped by invading refugees in their own countries maybe.
Thanks for the links and videos but I for one can't be bothered looking at the details,
finer points, and all the wealth of evidence that proves a point – by now I know the
general outline of things, it's always the same old, same old, just applied to a new country.
Anyway good work on collating all this and hopefully it benefits someone not yet
convinced.
"... Trump's "opposition" in the Democratic Party is no less hostile to democratic rights. They have focused their anti-Trump campaign on bogus allegations that he is a Russian agent, while portraying the emergence of social divisions within the United States as the consequence of Russian "meddling," not the crisis of capitalism, and pushing for across-the-board internet censorship. ..."
"The finance aristocracy, in its mode of acquisition as well as in its pleasures, is nothing
but the rebirth of the lumpenproletariat on the heights of bourgeois society ." -- Karl
Marx, The Class Struggles in France
What Marx described, in his analysis of the corruption of the bourgeoisie in France
leading up to the 1848 revolution, applies with even greater force to the United States of
2019, where the bourgeoisie faces its own rendezvous with social upheaval and explosive class
battles.
That is how a Marxist understands the spectacle of Wednesday's hearing before the House
Oversight Committee, in which Michael Cohen, the former attorney and "fixer" for Donald Trump
for more than a decade, testified for six hours about how he and his boss worked to defraud
business partners and tax collectors, intimidate critics and suppress opposition to Trump's
acitvities in real estate, casino gambling, reality television and, eventually, electoral
politics.
What Cohen described was a seedier version of an operation that most Americans would
recognize from viewing films like The Godfather: Trump as the capo di tutti capi, the
unquestioned authority who must be consulted on every decision ; the children, Donald Jr.,
Ivanka and Eric, each now playing significant roles in the ongoing family criminal enterprise;
Allen Weisselberg, CFO of the Trump Organization, the consigliere in charge of finance,
mentioned by Cohen more than 20 times in the course of six hours of testimony as the man who
facilitated Trump's schemes to evade taxes, deceive banks or stiff business partners.
Cohen himself was an enforcer. By his own account, he threatened people on Trump's behalf at
least 500 times in a ten-year period, including business associates, politicians, journalists
and anyone seeking to file complaints or gain reimbursement after being defrauded by one or
another Trump venture. The now-disbarred lawyer admitted to tape recording clients -- including
Trump among many others -- more than 100 times during this period.
The incidents recounted by Cohen range from the farcical (Trump browbeating colleges and
even his military prep school not to release his grades or test scores), to the shabby (Trump
having his own "charitable" foundation buy a portrait of himself for $60,000), to the brazenly
criminal (deliberately inflating the value of properties when applying for bank loans while
deflating the value of the same properties as much as twenty-fold in order to evade
taxation).
One of the most remarkable revelations was Cohen's flat assertion that Trump himself did
not enter the presidential race with the expectation that he could win either the Republican
nomination or the presidency. Instead, the billionaire reality television "star" regularly told
his closest aides, the campaign would be the "greatest infomercial in political history," good
for promoting his brand and opening up business opportunities in previously closed
markets.
These unflattering details filled the pages of the daily newspapers Thursday and occupied
many hours on the cable television news. But in all that vast volume of reporting and
commentary, one would look in vain for any serious assessment of what it means, in terms of the
historical development and future trajectory of American society, that a family like the Trumps
now occupies the highest rung in the US political system.
The World Socialist Web Site rejects efforts by the Democrats and the corporate media
to dismiss Trump as an aberration, an accidental figure whose unexpected elevation to the
presidency in 2016 will be "corrected" through impeachment, forced resignation or electoral
defeat in 2020. We insist that the Trump administration is a manifestation of a protracted
crisis and breakdown of American democracy, whose course can be traced back at least two
decades to the failed impeachment of Bill Clinton in 1998-99, followed by the stolen
presidential election of 2000.
The US political system, always dominated by the interests of the capitalist ruling class
that controls both of the major parties, the Democrats as much as the Republicans, is breaking
down under the burden of mounting social tensions, driven above all by skyrocketing economic
inequality. It is impossible to sustain the pretense that elections at two-year and four-year
intervals provide genuine popular influence over the functioning of a government so completely
subordinated to the financial aristocracy.
The figures are familiar but require restating: over the past three decades, virtually all
the increase in wealth in American society has gone to a tiny layer at the top. Three
mega-billionaires -- Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates -- now control more wealth than
half the American population. This process of social polarization is global: according to the
most recent Oxfam report, 26 billionaires control more wealth than the poorer half of the human
race.
These billionaires did not accumulate their riches by devising new technologies or making
new scientific discoveries that increased the wealth and happiness of humanity as a whole. On
the contrary, their enrichment has come at the expense of society. Bezos has become the world's
richest man through the emergence of Amazon as the greatest sweatshop enterprise in history,
where every possible second of labor power is extracted from a brutally exploited
workforce.
The class of billionaires as a whole, having precipitated the global financial collapse of
2008 through reckless speculation and swindling in the sale of derivatives and other obscure
financial "products," was bailed out, first by the Republican Bush, then by the Democrat Obama,
to the tune of trillions of dollars. Meanwhile, the jobs, living standards and social
conditions for the great mass of working people sharply declined.
As for Donald Trump, the real estate swindler, casino con man and reality television mogul
is a living demonstration of the truth of Balzac's aphorism: "Behind every great fortune is a
great crime."
Trump toyed with running for president on the ultra-right Reform Party ticket in 2000 after
a long stint as a registered Democrat and donor to both capitalist parties. When he decided to
run for president as a Republican in 2016, however, he had shifted drastically to the right.
His candidacy marked the emergence of a distinctly fascistic movement, as he spewed
anti-immigrant prejudice and racism more generally, while making a right-wing populist appeal
to working people, particularly in de-industrialized areas in the Midwest and Appalachia, on
the basis of economic nationalism.
As World Socialist Web Site editorial board Chairman David North explained even
before the 2016 elections:
The Republican nominee for the presidency of the United States did not emerge from an
American version of a Munich beer hall. Donald Trump is a billionaire, who made his money in
Manhattan real estate swindles, the semi-criminal operations of casino gambling, and the
bizarre world of "reality television," which entertains and stupefies its audience by
manufacturing absurd, disgusting and essentially fictional "real life" situations. The
candidacy of Donald Trump could be described as the transfer of the techniques of reality
television to politics.
The main development in the two years since Trump entered the White House is the emergence
of the American working class into major struggles, beginning with the wave of teachers'
strikes in 2018, initiated by the rank and file in defiance of the bureaucratic unions. The
reaction in the American ruling elite is a panic-stricken turn to authoritarian methods of
rule.
The billionaire in the White House is now engaged in a systematic assault on the foundations
of American democracy. He has declared a national emergency in order to bypass Congress, which
holds the constitutional "power of the purse," and divert funds from the military and other
federal departments to build a wall along the US-Mexico border.
Whether or not he is immediately successful in this effort, it is clear that Trump is
moving towards the establishment of an authoritarian regime, with or without the sanction of
the ballot box. As Cohen observed in his closing statement -- in remarks generally downplayed
by the media and ignored by the Democrats -- he is worried that if Trump loses the 2020
election, "there will never be a peaceful transition of power."
Trump's "opposition" in the Democratic Party is no less hostile to democratic rights. They
have focused their anti-Trump campaign on bogus allegations that he is a Russian agent, while
portraying the emergence of social divisions within the United States as the consequence of
Russian "meddling," not the crisis of capitalism, and pushing for across-the-board internet
censorship.
The defense of democratic rights and genuine resistance to Trump's drive toward
authoritarian rule must come through the development of an independent political movement of
the working class, directed against both big business parties, the Democrats as much as the
Republicans, and against the profit system which they both defend.
This is from 2015. Not much changed... But relevant for Venezuela. So what will happen with Venesuellians if
the color revolution suceeed, is easy to predict using Ukrainian example
Notable quotes:
"... Ukraine, what a mess. As though it was ever about the people. It was a grab for resources, 19-century style. But with 21st-century stakes. You can see what the West is after when you look at the US-Ukraine Business Council. ..."
"... Meanwhile last night & this morning, just to distract the people of what is going on in the West, Kiev launched a massive shelling over Donetsk and other places in Donbass using weapons forbbiden by the Minsk agreements, including Tor missiles, one of which fell at a railway station but didn't explode... it was defused by emergency workers but the proof is there if you care to see... it was thesecond biggest attack since the cease fire... ..."
"... This is the IMF hired guns now going after the very people who helped the Wall Street IMF shysters in the illegitimate coup and the set up of the illegitimate Kiev junta, a mix of half Ukrainian and non-Ukrainian mongrels. ..."
"... Furthermore, instead of bringing in the people who helped overthrow Janukovich into the government fold, the IMF is placing it's foreign collaborators in ministerial positions by making them instant Ukrainian citizens, while keeping the right wing, without whose help the coup would not have succeeded, out of government and slowly trying to eliminate them with their private foreign mercenary force. ..."
"... Madame "F*ck the EU Nuland from the US state department bordello, a devout Zionist, enticed these supposed Ukrainian NAZIs to help her in her dirty deeds, no doubt with promises of power sharing. ..."
"... She no doubt got her position not by intelligence but by connections. More than 6000 Ukrainians, human beings, innocent men women and children, have died in madame Nuland's engineered coup, putting her in league with her mentor, Henry Kissinger, aka the butcher of Vietnam. ..."
"... The Ukrainian sub-saharan African minimum wage is now being accompanied by Somali-style politics. ..."
"... The BBC are bravely sticking to their decision not to report this story. Congratulations are in order for such dedication. The graun protected its readership from this confusing information for 24 hours and then caved to the temptation to report news. Too bad. ..."
"... Can we officially congratulate Nuland for a crappy job and also for providing Putin with all the tools he needed to bring back Ukraine under his wing. False flag operations for American private interests must stop now. They are immoral, unethical and only bring death and destruction to otherwise stable societies. The UN should have a say. ..."
"... Neither Azov nor Right Sector want peace. On 3 July 4,000 men from these units protested in Kiev, calling for resumption of the war against the eastern provinces. They favour ethnic cleansing. ..."
"... The west would not have dialogue with Russia because it was not what Washington wanted. Washington wanted to push a wedge between Russia and EU at any cost even 6500 lives and unfortunately they succeeded ..."
"... The Right Sector does not exist, or if it does, it has been created by Moscow. The crisis in Greece is also the work of Russian agents. The ISIS is financed and trained by Putin. Ebola was cooked up in a laboratory in Saint Petersburg. Look for the Russian! ..."
"... this is what happens when you play with fire: you get burned. Using Neo-Nazi's to implement Nato expansionist policies was always a very bad idea. It's just a shame it is not people like Victoria 'fuck the EU' Nuland who will have to suffer the blowback consequences- it is the poor Ukrainian people. This is not that different to what has happened in Libya- where Islamic extremists were used as a proxy force to oust Gaddafi. ..."
"... the jihadists in Ukraine are the integral part of Iraqization of Ukraine. The lovers of Nuland's cookies are still in denial that Ukraine was destined by the US plutocrats to become a sacrificial lamb in a fight to preserve the US dollar hegemony. ..."
"... Why, don't you know? They infiltrated Ukraine, the CIA (and NATO and the EU somehow) created Maidan, their agents killed the protesters, then they overthrew a legitimate government and installed a neo-nazi one, proceeded to instigate a brutal oppression against Russian speakers, then started a war against the peaceful Eastern Ukrainians and their innocent friends in the Kremlin, etc etc. Ignorant question that, by now you should know the narrative! ..."
"... The BBC investigative reported earlier this year that a section of Maidan protesters deliberately started shooting the police. This story was also reported in the Guardian. Google and you will easily find it. The BBC also reported that the Prosecutors Office in Kiev was forbidden by Rada officials from investigating Maiden shooters. ..."
"... have you ever studied geography? If yes, you should remember the proximity of Ukraine to Russia (next door) and the proximity of Ukraine to the US (thousands miles away). Also, have you heard about the CIA Director Brennan and his covert visit to Kiev on the eve of the beginning of the civil war in Ukraine? This could give you an informed hint about the causes of the war. Plus you may be interested to learn about Mrs. Nuland-Kagan (Ms. Nudelman), her cookies, and her foul language. She is, by the way, a student of Dick Cheney. If you were born before 2000, you might know his name and his role in the Iraq catastrophe. Mrs. Nuland-Kagan (and the family of Kagans she belongs to) finds particular pleasure in creating military conflicts around the globe. It is not for nothing that the current situation in Ukraine is called Iraqization of Eastern Europe. ..."
"... This newspaper and other western media documented the armed members of far right groups on Maidan. One BBC journalist was actually shot at by a Svoboda sniper, operating from Hotel Ukraina - the video is still on the BBC website. ..."
"... As predicted the real civil war in Ukraine is still to happen. The split between the east and the ordinary Ukrainian was largely manufactured ..."
"... "When the Guardian claims to be a fearless champion of investigative journalism - as it is, in some areas - why did it obey the dictats of the US neocon media machine which rules all Western mainstream media over the Ukrainian land grab, instead of telling the truth, at that time?" ..."
"... in time Ukrainians will regard Maidan's aftermath as most of them view the Orange Revolution -- with regret and cynicism. ..."
"... Of course the Guardian doesn't like to explain that 'Right Sector' are genuine fascists - by their own admission! These fascists, who wear Nazi insignia, were the people who overthrew the elected government of Ukraine in the US / EU-supported coup - which the Guardianistas and other PC-brainwashed duly cheered on as a supposed triumph of democracy. Since that glorious US-financed and EU-backed coup, wholly illegal under international law, Ukraine's economy has collapsed, as has Ukrainians' living standards. ..."
The Georgian authorities have asked Interpol to put a Red notice on Mikheil Saakashvili as the
request to Ukraine to return him for trial in Georgia was refused.
ww3orbust PrinceEdward 13 Jul 2015 20:22
That does not detract from the fact that the Ukrainian cabinet has been chosen by the US state
department. Natives of the US, Georgia and Lithuania were hastily granted Ukrainian citizenship
in order to maintain an iron grip on Ukraine, while accusing Putin of appointing majors or governors
- in his capacity as head of state?
ww3orbust 13 Jul 2015 20:16
Amazing, nothing at all mentioned by the BBC. It does not fit in to their narrative to see the
country descend into a new stage of anarchy, between the people who murdered police and protesters
on Maidan square, and the US state department installed cabinet. Presumably if Right Sector refuse
to disarm and continue torturing civilians and murdering police, the BBC will continue to ignore
it and focus instead on its Russo-phobic narrative, while accusing Russia of propaganda with the
self-righteous piety that only the BBC are capable of. Or god forbid, more stories about what
colour stool our future king has produced this week.
The thing is, Ukraine is unique in allowing their Nazi thugs to be armed and have some semi-official
status. Everywhere else (including Russia), governments are looking to constrain the activities
of Nazis and prosecute them where possible.
jgbg Pwedropackman 13 Jul 2015 18:26
If it was not for the right sector, Ukraine would still be one united nation.
Them and Svoboda. If it had just been Orange Revolution II, with a simple change of Jewish
oligarchs in charge, there might have been some complaints but little more. It is the Russian-hating
far right that has brought about the violence and everything that has happened since.
PrinceEdward GreatMountainEagle 13 Jul 2015 18:22
Last I heard, Ukraine owes China billions for undelivered Grain.
HollyOldDog gimmeshoes 13 Jul 2015 18:11
But the Euro Maidan press is just an Ukrainian rag that invents stories to support its corrupt
government in Kiev.
jgbg PrinceEdward 13 Jul 2015 17:54
I forget the article, but in the comments I mentioned that multiple Georgians were being
appointed to high level positions by Kiev, and some Russophobe called me a liar.
Not a few days later, Shakashvilli was appointed governor of Odessa. An ex-president of another
country, as governor of a province in another one! Apparently, none of the millions upon millions
of Ukrainians were qualified for the job.
Sakashvilli's former Minister of Internal Affairs in Georgia, Eka Zguladze, is First Deputy
Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine. Of course, the Georgian people removed these chumps from
power the first chance they got but the Ukrainian electorate haven't had any say in the appointments
of foreigners in their country.
Well ... when it comes to Ukraine, the need to stock up on popcorn. This bloody and unpredictable
plot is not even in the "Game of Thrones." And this is only the middle of the second season.
Today Speaker of the "RS" Andrew Sharaskin, said: Sports Complex in Mukachevo where the shooting
occurred, was used as the base of the separatists DNR.
- A place 1,000 kilometers from Donetsk! But it's a great excuse to murder the guard in the café
and wounded police officers.
I think tomorrow will say that there have seen Russian Army tanks and Putin - 100%
"Ukraine is part of Europe" - the slogans of the Maidan in action...
Pravyi Sektor were not wrong. However, you cannot have armed groups cleaning up corruption
outside the law...that only works in Gotham City.
Right Sector weren't trying to clean up corruption, they were simply trying to muscle in on
the cigarette smuggling business. If Right Sector cared about crime and public order, they wouldn't
be driving around, armed to the teeth, in vehicles stolen in the EU. (In the video linked in the
article, all of their vehicles have foreign number plates. At least one of those vehicles is on
the Czech police stolen vehicle database:
http://zpravy.idnes.cz/pravy-sektor-mel-v-mukacevu-auta-s-ceskymi-spz-fqj-/zahranicni.aspx?c=A150713_102110_zahranicni_jj)
The EU and the US have stated on many occasions that there are "No Right Wing Nationalists" operating
in Ukraine and its simply propaganda by Putin.
So there shouldn't be anything to worry about should there ?
Stas Ustymenko hfakos 13 Jul 2015 15:15
Yes, yes. You seem to tolerate Medvedchuk and Baloga mafias way better, for years.
Transcarpathian Region is the most corrupt in all of Ukraine (which is quite a fit). What we see
here is a gang war in fatigues.
tanyushka Jeff1000 13 Jul 2015 15:14
sorry i posted the same above... i was just to hasty.. sorry again...
in the main picture of the same article it's interesting to notice the age of most of the conscripted
soldiers... they are in their 30's, theirs 40's and even in their 50's... it's forced conscription,
they are not volunteers... while all the DPR & LPR soldiers are real volunteers...
an uncle, the father of a cousin, was conscripted in Kherson... my cousin had to run away to South
American to say with an aunt to avoid conscription... many men are doing it in Ukraine nowadays...
not because they are cowards but because they don't want to kill their brothers & sisters for
the benefit of the oligarchs and their NATO masters (and mistresses...)
did you know that all the conscripts have to pay for their own uniforms and other stuff, while
in the National Guard and the oligarchs batallions everything is top quality and for free... including
bulletproof vests and other implements courtesy of NATO
Demi Boone 13 Jul 2015 15:13
Well finally they reveal themselves. These Ukraine Nationalists are the people who instigated
the anarchy and shootings at Maidan and used it as an excuse to wrongfully drive out an elected
President and in the chaos that followed bring in a coup Government which represents only West-Ukraine
and suppress' East-Ukraine. You are looking at the face of the real Maidan and not the dream that
a lot of people have tried to paint it to be.
Stas Ustymenko MartinArvay 13 Jul 2015 15:11
Many Right Sector members are indeed patriots. But it looks like the organisation itself is,
sadly, much more useful for providing thugs for hire than "justice".
BMWAlbert PrinceEdward 13 Jul 2015 14:20
But seriously, the naval base is probably the reason, it is too important for some interests
to have a less-reliable (Ukrainian) in charge, this is a job only for the most trusted poodles.
If things had gone differently, the tie-eatimng chap would have been appointed Mayor of Sebastopol.
BMWAlbert PrinceEdward 13 Jul 2015 14:15
There appears to be a Quisling-shortage in Ukraine at present.
Stas Ustymenko obscurant 13 Jul 2015 13:32
More accurately, Kolomoyskiy is Ukrainian oligarch. Who happens to be ethnically, culturally
and, by all accounts, religiously, a Jew.
Stas Ustymenko Kaiama 13 Jul 2015 13:24
Ukrainian Volunteer Corps of the Right Sector fighting in Donbass is two battalions. How is
this a "key organization"? They are a well-known brand and fought bravely on some occasions, but
the wider org is way too eager to brandish arms outside of combat or training. They will be reigned
in, one way or another, and soon.
GameOverManGameOver Jeff1000 13 Jul 2015 12:02
Shh shh shh. This news does not exist yet in the western media, therefore it's nothing but
Russian propaganda.
Jeff1000 13 Jul 2015 11:54
It gets worse - soldiers from the UA are now refusing to follow orders in protest against the
total anarchy sweeping the chain of command, and their lack of rest and equipment.
Tensions have been rising between the government and the Right Sector militia that has
helped it fight pro-Russian separatists in the east of the country.
Finally, the Guardian decided to report the actual new after satisfying itself with ample discussion
of the quality of Russian cheeses. Right sector "helped" to fight "separatists"? Really? Does
Alec Luhn know that there are currently two (!) RS battalions at the front and 19 (!) inside Ukraine?
They are some warriors. Now they are occupying themselves fighting as criminals they are for the
control of contraband.
At the ATO zone, they help consists of plundering, murdering and raping the local population.
They enter a village, take everything of value from houses and then blow them up. They rape women
and girls as young as 10 years old. They've been doing this for more than a year, and we've been
telling you that for more than a year. But apparently in the fight against "pro-Russian separatists"
everything is good. These crimes are so widespread, even the Ukrainian "government" is worried
this will eventually becomes impossible to deny. Some battalions such as Shakhtersk and Aidar
have been officially accused of crimes and ompletely or partially reformed.
Examples: http://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/EUR50/040/2014/en/ http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=bfb_1413804655
Ukraine, what a mess. As though it was ever about the people. It was a grab for resources,
19-century style. But with 21st-century stakes. You can see what the West is after when you look
at the US-Ukraine Business Council. It bring NATO, Monsanto and the Heritage Foundation under
one roof:
You'd be surprised, but I like Bandera (controversial as he was) way more than I trust some
people who wrap themselves in his red-and-black Rebel banner. Yarosh included. Banderite rebellion
ended 60 years ago. Its major goal was establishing a "united, free Ukrainian state"; by contrast,
stated ultimate goals of the Right Sector are way murkier; I'm not sure even most of the movement's
members are clear on what these are.
With present actions, Right Sector has a huge image problem in the West. If it will come to all-out
conflict, no doubt the West will back Poroshenko government over a loose confederation of armed
dudes linked by the thin thread of 30ies ideology (suspect even then). And the West will be right.
Stas Ustymenko Nik2 13 Jul 2015 11:03
Methinks you're way overselling a thug turf war as "major political event. Truth is, the region
has been long in the hands of organized crime. The previous regime incorporated and controlled
almost all organized crime in the country, hence no visible conflict. Now, individual players
try to use temporary uncertainty to their advantage.
Right Sector claims they were trying to fight
the smuggling, but this doesn't sound plausible. The word is, what's behind the events is struggle
for control over lucrative smuggling between two individuals (who are both "businessmen" and "politicians",
members of Parliament). Both are old-school players, formerly affiliated with Yanukovitch party.
One just was savvy enough to buy himself some muscle under Right Sector banner. Right Sector will
either have to straighten out its fighters (which it may not be able to do) or disappear as a
political player. I fail to see how people see anything "neo-Nazi" in this gang shootout.
PaddyCannuck Cavirac 13 Jul 2015 10:21
Nobody here is an apologist for Stalin, who was a brutal and cruel despot, and the deportations
of the Crimean Tatars were quite indefensible. However, a few observations might lend some perspective.
1. Crimea has been invaded and settled by an almost endless succession of peoples over the
millennia. The Crimean Tatars (who are of Turkic origin) were by no means the first, nor indeed
the last, and cannot in any meaningful sense be regarded as the indigenous people of Crimea.
2. The Crimean Tatars scarcely endeared themselves to the Russians, launching numerous raids,
devastating many towns, including the burning of Moscow in 1571, and sending hundreds of thousands,
if not millions of Russians into slavery in the Ottoman Empire.
3. The deportations took place in 1942 - 1943 against the backdrop of World War II, when a lot
of bad stuff happened, including -
4. The American (and also Canadian) citizens of Japanese ethnicity who had their property confiscated
and were likewise shipped off to camps. Their treatment, if anything, was worse.
Sevastopol, Pearl Harbor. What's the difference? What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
Meanwhile last night & this morning, just to distract the people of what is going on in the West,
Kiev launched a massive shelling over Donetsk and other places in Donbass using weapons forbbiden
by the Minsk agreements, including Tor missiles, one of which fell at a railway station but didn't
explode... it was defused by emergency workers but the proof is there if you care to see... it
was thesecond biggest attack since the cease fire...
Nik2 6i9vern 13 Jul 2015 09:53
Not exactly. By now, BBC has made good coverage of these events in Ukrainian and Russian languages,
but not in English. It looks like BBC considers that Western public does not deserve the politically
sad truth about armed clashes between "champions of Maidan Revolution" and "new democratic authorities,
fighting corruption". Western public should not be in doubt about present-day "pro-European" Ukraine.
And "The Guardian" still has only one article on the issue that could be a turning point in Ukrainian
politics. This is propaganda, not informing about or analyzing really serious political events.
VictorWhisky 13 Jul 2015 09:51
This is the IMF hired guns now going after the very people who helped the Wall Street IMF shysters
in the illegitimate coup and the set up of the illegitimate Kiev junta, a mix of half Ukrainian
and non-Ukrainian mongrels.
Furthermore, instead of bringing in the people who helped overthrow Janukovich into the government fold, the IMF is placing it's foreign collaborators in ministerial
positions by making them instant Ukrainian citizens, while keeping the right wing, without whose
help the coup would not have succeeded, out of government and slowly trying to eliminate them
with their private foreign mercenary force.
Madame "F*ck the EU Nuland from the US state department
bordello, a devout Zionist, enticed these supposed Ukrainian NAZIs to help her in her dirty deeds,
no doubt with promises of power sharing.
So madame Nuland was perfectly willing to get in bed
with the Ukrainian NAZI devils (her Jewish friend should be proud) and when the dirty deed was
done, she is now turning against Ukrainian nationalists in the attempt to have outside forces
in control of Ukraine. Madame Nuland is not as intelligent or capable as portrayed, because if
she was, she would have known Ukraine has a very delicate and very complicated political structure
and history with nearly half the country speaking Russian and more loyal to the Russians than
to the US.
An intelligent person familiar with Ukrainian history would know any attempt of placing
a US stooge in Kiev would certainly result in a civil war.
She no doubt got her position not by
intelligence but by connections. More than 6000 Ukrainians, human beings, innocent men women and
children, have died in madame Nuland's engineered coup, putting her in league with her mentor,
Henry Kissinger, aka the butcher of Vietnam. That intelligent idiot's policies resulted in the
death of 3 million Vietnamese and 50,000 young Americans. Does madame Nuland intend to sacrifice
that many Ukrainians to prove her ultimate stupidity?
Jeremn Luminaire 13 Jul 2015 09:51
The conscripts didn't want to shoot their fellow Ukrainians. The nationalists don't believe
the people in the east are their fellow Ukrainians.
Because they were lovely guys, evidently, and their "popularity" has nothing to do with armed
thugs beating you up if you say anything against them (or the state prosecuting you for denying
or questioning their heroism).
Jeremn jezzam 13 Jul 2015 09:35
Ukrainian media, reporting Ukrainian government official:
12 police dead in two days, 180 wounded with gunshot wounds.
Still Kremlin lies?
Jeff1000 13 Jul 2015 09:30
Thank God Ukraine is finally free and democratic. The old autocratic regime actually had the
gall to make running street battles illegal - but those dark days are in the past. In the liberated
Ukraine you are free spend the dollar a day you get paid on a bullet proof vest so the rampant
Nazi street gangs don't kill you.
Jeremn SHappens 13 Jul 2015 09:26
You'd be surprised, there are Bandera-lovers in the UK too. There's a Bandera museum. And there
is this lot, teaching Christian values to children. And telling them that Bandera was a hero.
Future Right Sector supporters being crafted as we type.
6i9vern 13 Jul 2015 09:24
The Ukrainian sub-saharan African minimum wage is now being accompanied by Somali-style politics. Luckily, the Russians have liberated Crimea so piracy on the high seas isn't an option for
the Ukrainians.
6i9vern 13 Jul 2015 09:18
Apparently, UAVs generously supplied to Ukrainians by the Canadian taxpayers are being put
to good use smuggling cigarettes into Slovakia.
6i9vern 13 Jul 2015 09:12
The BBC are bravely sticking to their decision not to report this story. Congratulations are
in order for such dedication.
The graun protected its readership from this confusing information for 24 hours and then caved
to the temptation to report news. Too bad.
aucontraire2 13 Jul 2015 08:36
Can we officially congratulate Nuland for a crappy job and also for providing Putin with
all the tools he needed to bring back Ukraine under his wing.
False flag operations for American private interests must stop now. They are immoral, unethical
and only bring death and destruction to otherwise stable societies. The UN should have a
say.
SomersetApples 13 Jul 2015 08:25
The country is bankrupt; the Kiev putschists are selling off the country's assets to their
New York allies, the oligarchs and Nazis are at war against each other and the illegal putschist
government and now toilet mouth Nuland is back on the scene. Looks like a scene form Dante's Inferno.
todaywefight Polvilho 13 Jul 2015 07:54
Which Russian invasion will this be the of he approximately 987 mentioned by Poroshenko and
our man Yatz...or are you referring to the people of the AUTONOMOUS REPUBLIC OF CRIMEA's (yes
that was what was called after the 1994 referendum) massive wishes to (like Donbass) go against
a government who illegally dismissed an elected president a wish that was reflected on a referendum
which was allowed by their constitution 18(7)
Bosula Scepticbladderballs 13 Jul 2015 07:38
Yes. Most of the protesters are good people who just want a better deal in life.
monteverdi1610 13 Jul 2015 06:54
Remember all those CIF threads when those of us who pointed to the neo-Nazis in Ukraine were
immediately called ' Putinbots ' ?
PS/ Apologies would be the order of the day , perhaps ?
Sturney 13 Jul 2015 06:49
Apparently this conflict is over. Temporarily over. Anyway in ever-contracting economy, in
a Mariana trench between Russia and EU, in the most totalitarian country in history, such conflicts
will continue. Since Nuland tossed yeast in the outhouse nobody can stop fermentation of sh*t.
Help yourself with some beer and shrimps. I am looking forward when these masses splash out to
EU, preferably to Poland. Must be fun to watch. (Lipspalm)
Justin Obisesan 13 Jul 2015 06:33
In the run-up to the Euro 2012 football tournament, jointly hosted by Poland and Ukraine, I
remember how the media in this country worked themselves into a frenzy harping on about the presence
of violent neo-Nazi groups in Ukraine. After the removal of Mr Yanukovych from office, the same
media organisations changed their tune by describing any talk of neo- Nazis in Ukraine as "Russian
propaganda". The Western media coverage of the Ukrainian crises has been so blatantly pro-Kiev
and anti-Donbass that their claims of impartiality and objectivity cannot be taken seriously anymore.
Jeremn jgbg 13 Jul 2015 06:16
It is fine when they are shooting at Donetsk, but not so good when they use the same tactics
in western Ukraine.
Azov are the same, violent neo-Nazi thugs given authority, and this article notes that PrivatBank
is the bank that services requests for donations to the Azov funds, using J P Morgan as intermidiary.
Neither Azov nor Right Sector want peace. On 3 July 4,000 men from these units protested in
Kiev, calling for resumption of the war against the eastern provinces.
They favour ethnic cleansing.
Jeremn William Fraser 13 Jul 2015 06:10
The people who support Bandera are in western Ukraine. They are the ones who say Stalin starved
the Ukrainian people.
Trouble is, in the 1930s, western Ukraine belonged to Poland.
It was the Russians, eastern Ukrainians and other Soviet people who starved, not the western
Ukrainians.
Kefirfan 13 Jul 2015 06:02
Good, good. Let the democracy flow through you...
Pwedropackman SHappens 13 Jul 2015 05:53
It will be interesting to see which side the US and Canada will support. Probably Poroshenko
and the Oligarchs because the Right Sector is not so happy about the ongoing sales of Ukraine
infrastructure to US corporates.
SHappens 13 Jul 2015 05:14
Harpers' babies are out manifesting, supporting the good guys:
"Supporters of Ukraine's Right Sector extremist group rallied in Ottawa Sunday amid the
radicals' ongoing standoff with police in western Ukraine."
The rally outside the Ukrainian embassy was organized by the Right Sector's representative
office in the Canadian capital, 112 Ukraine TV channel reported, citing the Facebook account of
the so-called Ukrainian Volunteer Corps.
careforukraine 13 Jul 2015 05:09
I wonder how long it will be before the us denounces nazi's in ukraine?
Kind of seems like we have seen this all before.
Almost like how ISIS were just freedom fighters that needed our support until ?.....
Well we all know what happened there.
Pwedropackman 13 Jul 2015 05:04
If it was not for the right sector, Ukraine would still be one united nation.
GameOverManGameOver Chris Gilmore 13 Jul 2015 04:41
Yes, I agree, they do wreck the economy. That was my point. Russia want's strong economies
to do business with, not broken economies that only ask for financial aid.
Like I said, no evidence of Russian troops in Donbass and South Ossetia asked for the presence
of Russian troops to deter the Georgian government from trying another invasion.
And organisations like CIS are meant to expand economic ties. Just like the EU I suppose. They
function in pretty much the same way with everyone getting a chance to lead. So I don't know why
that should be a bad thing. Since the EU is not interested in admitting Russia why can't Russia
go to other organisations?
VladimirM Dmitriy Grebenyuk 13 Jul 2015 04:26
It's a poisonous sarcasm, I think. But I've heard that RS accuse the Ukrainian government of
being pro-Putin as the government accuse them of being Russian agents. Surreal a bit.
stewfen FOHP46 13 Jul 2015 04:24
The west would not have dialogue with Russia because it was not what Washington wanted. Washington
wanted to push a wedge between Russia and EU at any cost even 6500 lives and unfortunately they
succeeded
GameOverManGameOver Chris Gilmore 13 Jul 2015 03:54
I'll admit that frozen conflicts could be useful to Russia. But only from a security point
of view. And why not, exactly? NATO is Russia's biggest threat, so it would make sense for the
government to want to avoid it expanding any further. I understand your misgivings since you're
speaking from the position that NATO should expand to deter Russi I mean 'Iran', but surely you
understand that Russia wanting to prevent that makes logical sense? Sure, it's at someone else's
expense but let's not pretend that big countries doing something at someone else's expense is
a new and revolutionary concept reserved only to Russia. And the Georgian conflict dates back
to the very early 90's.
From an economic point of view though, no sense at all. Frozen conflicts usually bring economic
barriers. Believe it or not Russia's priority isn't expansion, but the economy. And trade with
it's neighbours is an important element of the Russian economy. It's very hard to trade with areas
that are in the middle of a frozen conflict. So in that sense the last thing Russia would want
are profitable areas in a frozen conflict around it's borders hampering it's economic growth.
And none of this has anything to do with Marioupol.
Debreceni 13 Jul 2015 03:38
The Right Sector does not exist, or if it does, it has been created by Moscow. The crisis in
Greece is also the work of Russian agents. The ISIS is financed and trained by Putin. Ebola was
cooked up in a laboratory in Saint Petersburg. Look for the Russian!
Kaiama PrinceEdward 13 Jul 2015 02:50
We don't know if PS were also doing it as well or just poking their noses into someone else's
business. Who started it? I doubt the correct answer will ever be known. Two unsavoury groups
arguing about an illegal business. The problem is that the MP is an MP whereas PS is a national
organisation.
It's never the US....it's never the West.....
(you know, to balance things) : )
todaywefight 13 Jul 2015 01:53
If any one on the other side, the dark side, ever thought that these lot will hold hands with
any one, lay down their arms and sing Kumbaya, uou are either utterly naive or willfully ignorant.
Apparently, these lot have 23 battalions, armed to their teeth, the added bonus for the Privy
Sektor is that , due to expedience and cowardice , they have just made legal and incorporated
into the Ukrainian army, Kyiv is in a highway to nowhere.
Incidentally, unlike the maidan demonstrations which essentially were only in Kyiv there are
demonstrations in more than a dozen cities, and have established dozen of check points already
and Yarosh a member of the VT. have clearly instructed them to fight if necessary.
GameOverManGameOver Omniscience 13 Jul 2015 01:35
So? Yes there are nationalists in Russia, just like everywhere else. You get a gold star for
googling. Shall I get some articles with European and American nationalists to parade around to
make a vague point? If you want I can get you an article of Lithuanians dressed up as the Waffen
SS parading around Vilnius. That's Lithuania the EU and Nato member. Funny how EU principles disappear
when it's one of their own violating them.
You seem to be missing the point entirely. While all countries have their nationalists, those
nationalists are a very small minority, have no power, have no popular support, have no seats
in government, usually derided by the majority of the population and they certainly aren't armed
to the teeth roaming around the country killing, torturing and kidnapping people with the blessing
of their government
HollyOldDog Joe way 13 Jul 2015 00:09
The Right Sector were / are Ukrains Storm Troopers who have had more advanced training by the
Americans. If the Right Sector turn on the Kiev Government they will be difficult to defeat, and
who knows if the civilian population of Ukraine may join in the 'fun' by ousting the current unpopular
Ukrainian government.
sorrentina 12 Jul 2015 23:35
this is what happens when you play with fire: you get burned. Using Neo-Nazi's to implement
Nato expansionist policies was always a very bad idea. It's just a shame it is not people like
Victoria 'fuck the EU' Nuland who will have to suffer the blowback consequences- it is the poor
Ukrainian people. This is not that different to what has happened in Libya- where Islamic extremists
were used as a proxy force to oust Gaddafi.
annamarinja jgbg 12 Jul 2015 23:31
The threshold has been guessed impatiently by the US neocons (while the provocateur Higgins/
Bellingcat fed the gullible the fairy tales about Russian army in Ukraine). The US needs desperately
a real civil war in Ukraine, the Ukrainians be damned. Just look what the US-sponsored "democracy
on the march" has produced in the Middle East. Expect the same bloody results in eastern Europe.
annamarinja obscurant 12 Jul 2015 23:25
perhaps you do not realize that your insults are more appropriate towards the poor Ukrainians
that have been left destitute by the cooky-carrying foreigners and their puppets in Kiev. The
Ukrainian gold reserve has disappeared... meanwhile, the US Congress has shamed the US State Dept
for collaborating with Ukrainian neo-nazis. Stay tuned. But do not expect to hear real news from
your beloved Faux News.
annamarinja quorkquork 12 Jul 2015 23:14
the jihadists in Ukraine are the integral part of Iraqization of Ukraine. The lovers of Nuland's
cookies are still in denial that Ukraine was destined by the US plutocrats to become a sacrificial
lamb in a fight to preserve the US dollar hegemony.
Bud Peart 12 Jul 2015 22:59
Well we always knew it would end this way. With a stalemate in the war with the East the Right
wing paramilitaries and private oligarch militias (whom the west funded and trained) have gone
completely feral and are now in fighting directly with whats left of the Ukrainian National Army.
This is pretty much the rode to another breakaway in Galacia which would effectively end the Ukraine
as a functional state.
The government should move as fast as possible to get a decent federal structure (copy switzerland)
in place before the whole of the West goes into revolt as well.
DelOrtoyVerga LostJohnny 12 Jul 2015 22:38
That is what you get when you put fascists in your government.
I rather reword it to
That is what you get when you enable and rely on thugish pseudo-fascist radical para-military
groups to impose order by force and violence against dissident segments of your own population
(which is armed to the teeth probably by Russia)
Bosula Scepticbladderballs 12 Jul 2015 22:37
What do you think it is?
There were several people identified directly or indirectly in this BBC story whose stories should
have been formally pursued by legal authorities in Kiev.
If you lived in the West you would understand that we call these references as possible 'leads'
- you follow these 'leads' and see where they take you. That is what Western police do.
The story says that Kiev didn't want to follow up any of these points. Why? What harm could this
do?
You state that you do not understand the point that this BBC journalist was making. But I have
in a fair way tried to to explain the point that the BBC was making.
This story caused quite a stir went it came out - and the BBC chose to stick with it and support
their British reporter. In an edited and shorter form the story is still on the BBC - the editing
is also acknowledged by the BBC.
Do you think the BBC should have blocked or not published this investigative piece?
If so - why?
And why hasn't Kiev followed up these issues?
Have I addressed your point yet?
HollyOldDog Scepticbladderballs 12 Jul 2015 21:34
I am just watching a program recorded earlier. Hiroshima: The Aftermath. I have got past the
part when the Japanese 'survivors' had to drink from the pools of Black Rain ( highly radioactive)
and watched the part when American Army Tourists visited the city to take a few photos ( no medical
help though) while gawking at the gooks. In fact the Japanese civilians recieved no medical assistance
at all from the Americans. The commentator just said that they were just there to study the effects
of nuclear radiation on a civilian population. These nuclear bombs were just dropped on Japan
to save One Day of the surrender of the Japanese forces.
The next documtary I will watch another day is the sinking of the Tirpitz by the RAF using
Tallboy bombs. At least this had a useful pupose in helping to stop the destruction of the North
Atlantic convoys, sending aid to Russia. That aid along with the rebuilding of the Soviet Armies
helped the Soviet Union to destroy the invading Nazi forces and provided a Second Front to the
Western Allies to invade Normandy. A lot of good can be achieved when the East and West work together
- maybe avoiding the worst effects of Global Warming but the Americans only seem to want to spend
Trillions $ building more powerful nuclear weapons. Is this all that America has now, an Arms
Industry - I can see it now, cooling the planet with a Nuclear Winter.
HollyOldDog Scepticbladderballs 12 Jul 2015 20:33
The USA caused the chaos in Ukraine so they must pay the billions of $ to fix it then leave
Ukraine alone.
6i9vern 12 Jul 2015 20:29
One of the amusing features of the Soviet media was the long silences it maintained on possibly
embarrassing breaking news until it became clear what the Party Line was.
Eventually, a memo would go out from Mikhail Suslov's office to various media outlets and the
silence would be broken.
At least everyone knew exactly how that system worked. What is happening with the British media
is much more murky.
The beeb/graun seem to be the Pravda/Izvestia, whilst the torygraph is a sort of Trybuna Ludu
- ie real news very occasionally appears in it.
6i9vern 12 Jul 2015 20:08
So, after a mere 24 hours the Graun ran a story on Mukachevo. The Torygraph actually had the
nerve to run the AFP wire report more or less straight away.
The BBC are still keeping shtum.
The Beeb/Graun complex have well and truly had the frighteners put on them.
PrinceEdward Kaiama 12 Jul 2015 20:07
There's no doubt. I agree that the MP was probably running cigarettes, but also Right Sektor
was going to muscle in.
If you asked somebody 3 years ago if Ukraine would be rocked by armed bands with RPGs and Light
Machine Guns fighting in towns, they would have thought you were crazy.
This isn't Russia, this is the Ultranats/Neo-Nazis.
PrinceEdward obscurant 12 Jul 2015 20:05
Right, it's the people in Donbass who bury 14th SS Division veterans with full honors, push
for full pensions to surviving Hiwi and SS Collaborators... not those in Lvov. Uh huh.
BMWAlbert 12 Jul 2015 20:04
11 months of investigations by the newKiev regime, attempting to implicate the the prior one
for the murder of about 100 people in Kiev early last year was unsuccessful. There may be better
candidates here.
fragglerokk ploughmanlunch 12 Jul 2015 19:55
It always amazes me that the far right never learn from history. The politicians and oligarchs
always use them as muscle to ensure coup success then murder/assasinate the leaders to make sure
they dont get any ideas about power themselves. Surprised its taken so long in ukraine but then
the govt is barely hanging onto power and the IMF loans have turned to a trickle so trouble will
always be brewing, perhaps theyve left it too long this time. Nobody will be shedding any tears
for the Nazis and Banderistas.
Why, don't you know? They infiltrated Ukraine, the CIA (and NATO and the EU somehow) created
Maidan, their agents killed the protesters, then they overthrew a legitimate government and installed
a neo-nazi one, proceeded to instigate a brutal oppression against Russian speakers, then started
a war against the peaceful Eastern Ukrainians and their innocent friends in the Kremlin, etc etc.
Ignorant question that, by now you should know the narrative!
Kaiama gimmeshoes 12 Jul 2015 19:53
If you think Pryvi Sektor want to "clean up" then yes, but not in the way you imagine - they
just want the business for themselves.
Geordiemartin 12 Jul 2015 19:51
I am reminded of AJP Taylor premise that Eastern Europe has historically had either German
domination or Russian protection.
The way that the Ukrainian government had treated their own Eastern compatriots leaves little
reason to believe they would be welcome back into the fold and gives people of Donbass no reason
to want to rejoin the rest of the country.
If government is making an effort to reign in the likes of Right sector it is a move in the
right direction but much much more will be needed to establish any trust.
Some Guy yataki 12 Jul 2015 19:45
just because they are nazis doesnt mean they are happy about doing any of this... now. look
at greece and the debacle that has unfolded over the past week has been . the west ukraine wanted
to be part of the euro zone and wanted some of that ecb bail out money. now they are not even
sure if they could skip out on the bill and know they are fighting for nothing . russia gave them
14 bil dollars . the west after the coup only gave the 1 bil
Andor2001 Kaiama 12 Jul 2015 19:44
According to the eyewitnesses the RS shot a guard when he refused to summon the commanding
officer. It was the beginning of the fight.
Andor2001 yataki 12 Jul 2015 19:41
Remember Shakespeare "Othello"? Moor has done his job, Moor has to go..
The neo-Nazis have outlived their usefulness.
Bosula caaps02 12 Jul 2015 19:39
The BBC investigative reported earlier this year that a section of Maidan protesters deliberately
started shooting the police. This story was also reported in the Guardian. Google and you will
easily find it.
The BBC also reported that the Prosecutors Office in Kiev was forbidden by Rada officials from
investigating Maiden shooters.
Maybe the BBC is telling us a lie? The BBC investigation is worth a read - then you can make up
your own mind.
Bosula William Fraser 12 Jul 2015 19:29
Kazakhstan had the highest percentage of deaths from Stalin's policies in this period when
he prevented the nomad herders moving from the mountains to the planes to take advantage of the
benefits of seasons and weather.
Stalin forced the nomads to stay in one area and they perished in the cold of the mountains or
the heat of the summer plains (whichever zone they were forced to stay in).
Some of my family is Ukrainian and some recognise that Stalin's policies weren't specifically
aimed at Ukrainians - the people of Kazakhstan suffered the most (as a percentage of population).
Either way, there is no genetic difference between Slavs or Russian or Ukrainian origin in Ukraine
or Russia - they are all genetically the same people.
This information should be better taught in Ukraine.
The problem is that it would undermine the holy grail story of right wing nationalism in Ukraine.
It's been one of the biggest mistakes ( although Ukraine's military started in a desperately
poor condition ) , to allow militia groups to get so powerful. Right sector should not have arms
and guns... The national Ukraine military should, If members of Right sector want to fight , they
should leave Right sector and join the army.
This was and will happen if they don't disband such armed groups.
annamarinja silvaback 12 Jul 2015 18:18
have you ever studied geography? If yes, you should remember the proximity of Ukraine to Russia
(next door) and the proximity of Ukraine to the US (thousands miles away). Also, have you heard
about the CIA Director Brennan and his covert visit to Kiev on the eve of the beginning of the
civil war in Ukraine? This could give you an informed hint about the causes of the war. Plus you
may be interested to learn about Mrs. Nuland-Kagan (Ms. Nudelman), her cookies, and her foul language.
She is, by the way, a student of Dick Cheney. If you were born before 2000, you might know his
name and his role in the Iraq catastrophe. Mrs. Nuland-Kagan (and the family of Kagans she belongs
to) finds particular pleasure in creating military conflicts around the globe. It is not for nothing
that the current situation in Ukraine is called Iraqization of Eastern Europe.
Bev Linington JJRichardson 12 Jul 2015 18:10
Ukrainians shot down the plane. East, West does not matter as they were all Ukrainians before
the government overthrow. Leaders of the new government could not look past some Ukrainian citizens
ethnicity, instead of standing together united, they decided to oppress which lead to the referendum
in Crimea and the rise of separatists in the East.
jgbg Chirographer 12 Jul 2015 17:53
And for the Pro-Russian posters the newsflash is that could also describe the situation
inside the Donbass.
It certainly describes the situation in Donbass where Right Sector or the volunteer battalions
are in charge. In Dnepropetrovsk, Right Sector would simply turn up at some factory or other business
and order the owner to sign document transferring the enterprise to them. In other cases, they
have kidnapped businessmen for ransom. Some people have simply disappeared under such circumstances.
The Ukrainian National Guard simply break into homes left empty by people fleeing the war and
steal the contents. Such was the scale of looting, the Ukrainian postal service have now refused
to ship electrical goods out of the ATO area unless the senders have the original boxes and receipts.
jgbg AlfredHerring 12 Jul 2015 17:45
Maybe Kiev just needs to bomb them some more.
Putin promised to protect the Russian speaking people in Ukraine - but he hasn't really done
that. His government has indicated that they would not allow Kiev to simply overrun or obliterate
the people of Donbass. Quite where their threshold of actual intervention lies is anyone's guess.
The "pro-Russian" government that you refer to was only elected because it promised to sign
the EU trade agreement. It then reneged on that promise...
Yanukovych's government was elected the previous one was useless and corrupt.
Yanukovych wanted to postpone the decision to sign for six months, while he attempted to extract
more from both the EU and Russia. Under Poroshenko, the implementation of the EU Association Agreement
has been delayed for 15 months, as the governments of Ukraine, the EU and Russia all recognised
that Russian trade (with the favourable terms which Ukraine enjoys) are vitail to Ukraine's economic
recovery. Expect that postponement to be extended.
.... severely and brutally curtailing freedom of speech and concentrating all power in the
hands of Yanukovich's little clan...
As opposed to sending the military to shell the crap out of those who objected to an elected
government being removed by a few thousand nationalists in Kiev.
There was no "coup".
An agreement had been signed at the end of February 2014, which would see elections in September
2014. The far right immediately moved to remove the government (as Right Sector had promised on
camera in December 2013). None of the few mechanisms for replacing the president listed in the
Ukrainian constitution have been followed - that makes it a coup.
The Maidan protesters were not armed
This newspaper and other western media documented the armed members of far right groups on
Maidan. One BBC journalist was actually shot at by a Svoboda sniper, operating from Hotel Ukraina
- the video is still on the BBC website.
....the interim government that was put in place by the parliament in late February and
the government that was elected in May and Oct. of 2014 were and are not fascist.
The interim government included several ministers from Svoboda, formerly the Socialist Nationalist
Party of Ukraine. These were the first Nazi ministers in a European government since Franco's
Spanish government that ended in the 1970's. In a 2013 resolution, the EU parliament had indicated
that no Ukrainian government should include members of Svoboda or other far right parties.
pushkinsideburn vr13vr 12 Jul 2015 16:45
There has been a marked change in rhetoric over the last few weeks. Even CiF on Ukraine articles
seems to attract less trolls (with a few notable exceptions on this article - though they feel
more like squad trolls than the first team). Hopefully a sign of deescalation or perhaps just
a temporary lull before the MH17 anniversary this week?
pushkinsideburn calum1 12 Jul 2015 16:38
His other comments should have been the clue that arithmetic, like independent critical thinking,
is beyond him.
normankirk 12 Jul 2015 16:19
Right sector were the first to declare they wouldn't abide by the Minsk 2 peace agreement.Nevertheless,
Dmitry Yarosh, their leader is adviser to Ukraine's Chief of staff. Given that he only received
about 130,000 votes in the last election, he has a disproportionate amount of power.
As predicted the real civil war in Ukraine is still to happen. The split between the east and
the ordinary Ukrainian was largely manufactured . In the long term no body would be able to live
with the right sector or more precisely the right sector cant share a bed with anyone else.
sashasmirnoff RicardoJ 12 Jul 2015 15:44
"When the Guardian claims to be a fearless champion of investigative journalism - as
it is, in some areas - why did it obey the dictats of the US neocon media machine which rules
all Western mainstream media over the Ukrainian land grab, instead of telling the truth, at
that time?"
This may be why:
"The CIA owns everyone of any significance in the major media." - former CIA Director William
Colby
Alexander_the_Great 12 Jul 2015 15:43
This was so, so predictable. The Right Sector were the main violent group during the coup in
2014 - in fact they were the ones to bring the first guns to the square following their storming
of a military warehouse in west Ukraine a few days before the coup. It was this factor that forced
the Police to arm themselves in preparation.
Being the vanguard of the illegal coup, they then provided a useful tool of manipulation for
the illegal Kiev government to oppress any opposition, intimidate journalists who spoke the truth
and lead the war against the legally-elected ELECTED governments of Donetsk and Lugansk.
Having failed in the war against the east, western leaders have signalled the right sector
has now outlived its usefulness and has become an embarrassment to Kiev and their western backers.
The Right Sector meanwhile, feel betrayed by the establishment in Kiev. They have 19 battalions
of fighters and they wont go away thats for sure. I think one can expect this getting more violent
in the coming months.
SHappens jezzam 12 Jul 2015 15:40
Putin is a Fascist dictator.
Putin is not a dictator. He is a statist, authoritarian-inclined hybrid regime ruler that possesses
some democratic elements and space for opposition groups.
He has moderate nationalist tendencies in foreign affairs; his goal is a secure a strong Russia.
He is a patriot and has a charismatic authority. Russians stay behind him.
ploughmanlunch samuel glover 12 Jul 2015 15:31
'this notion that absolutely everything Kiev does follows some master script drawn up
in DC and Brussels is simplistic and tiresome'
Agreed.
As is everything is Russia's fault.
ConradLodziak 12 Jul 2015 15:26
This is just the latest in a string of conflicts involving the right sector, as reported by
RT, Russian media and until recently many Ukrainian outlets. The problem, of course, is that Porostinko
has given 'official' status to the right sector. Blow back time for him.
CIAbot007 William Fraser 12 Jul 2015 15:06
Yes, Russia (USSR) from the USSR foundation had been forcing people of the then territory of
Ukraine to identify themselves as Ukrainians under the process of rootisation - Ukrainization,
then gave to Ukraine Donbass and left side Dniepr and Odessa, Herson and Nikolaev, and then decided
to ethnically cleane them.. It doesn't make sense, does it? Oh, wait, sense is not your domain.
annamarinja William Fraser 12 Jul 2015 15:05
let me help you with arithmetics: 72 years ago Europe was inflamed with the WWII.
There was a considerable number of Ukrainians that collaborated with Hitler' nazis:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/14th_Waffen_Grenadier_Division_of_the_SS_(1st_Galician)
In short, your government finds it is OK to glorify the perpetrators of genocide in Europe during
the WWII.
Nik2 12 Jul 2015 15:04
These tragic events, when YESTERDAY, on Saturday afternoon, several civilians were unintentionally
wounded in gun battles in previously peaceful town near the Hungary and Slovakia borders, vividly
exposes Western propaganda. Though mass media in Ukraine and Russia are full of reports about
this from the start, The Guardian managed to give first information exactly 1 day later, and BBC
was still keeping silence a few minutes ago. Since both sides are allies of the West (the Right
Sector fighters were the core of the Maidan protesters at the later stages, and Poroshenko regime
is presumably "democratic"), the Western media preferred to ignore the events that are so politically
uncomfortable. Who are "good guys" to be praised? In fact, this may be the start of nationalists'
revolt against Ukrainian authorities, and politically it is very important moment that can fundamentally
change Ukrainian politics. But the West decides to be silent ...
annamarinja William Fraser 12 Jul 2015 14:59
Do your history book tell you that the Holodomor was a multiethnic endeavor? That the Ukrainians
were among the victims and perpetrators and that the whole huge country had suffered the insanely
cruel policies of multiethnic bolsheviks? The Holodomor was almost a century ago, whereas the
Odessa massacre and the bombardments of civilian population in east Ukraine by the neo-nazi thugs
(sent by Kiev), has been going during last year and half. Perhaps you have followed Mr. Brennan
and Mrs. Nuland-Kagan too obediently.
foolisholdman zonzonel 12 Jul 2015 14:58
zonzonel
Oops, the presumably fascist govt. is fighting a fascist group.
What is a poor troll to do these days??
Antiukrainian copywriting just got more difficult, perhaps a raise is needed? Just sayin.
What's your problem? Never heard of Fascist groups fighting each other? Never heard of the
"Night of the Long Knives"? Fascists have no principles to unite them. They believe in Uebermenschen
and of course they all think that either they themselves or their leader is The Ueberuebermensch.
Anyone who disagrees is an enemy no matter how Fascist he may be.
samuel glover ploughmanlunch 12 Jul 2015 14:55
Y'know, I'm no fan of the Russophobic hysteria that dominates English-language media. I've
been to Ukraine several times over the last 15 years or so, and I'm sorry to say that I think
that in time Ukrainians will regard Maidan's aftermath as most of them view the Orange Revolution
-- with regret and cynicism.
That said, this notion that everything, absolutely everything Kiev does follows some master
script drawn up in DC and Brussels is simplistic and tiresome. Most post-revolution regimes purge
one end or the other of the current ideological wings. Kiev has already tangled with the oligarch
and militia patron Igor Kolomoisky. So perhaps this is another predictable factional struggle.
Or maybe, as another comment speculates, this is a feud over cigarette tax revenue.
In any case, Ukraine is a complex place going through an **extremely** complex time. it's too
soon to tell what the Lviv skirmish means, and **far** too soon to lay it all on nefarious puppetmasters.
TheTruthAnytime ADTaylor 12 Jul 2015 14:49
The only thing that makes me reconsider is their service to their country,...
Is the CIA their country? So far they've only seemed to serve the interests of American businesspeople,
not Ukrainian interests. Also, murdering eastern Ukrainians cannot really be considered such a
great service to Ukraine, can it?
annamarinja ID075732 12 Jul 2015 14:44
Maidan was indeed a popular apprising, but it was utilized by the US strategists for their
geopolitical games. The Ukrainians are going to learn hard way that the US have never had any
interest in well-being of the "locals" and that the ongoing civil war was designed in order to
create a festering wound on a border with the Russia. The Iraqization of Ukraine was envisioned
by the neocons as a tool to break both Russia and Ukraine. The sooner Ukrainians come to a peaceful
solution uniting the whole Ukraine (for example, to federalization), the better for the general
population (but not for the thieving oligarchs).
vr13vr 12 Jul 2015 14:38
"Couple of hundred Right Sector supporters demonstrated in Kiev?" Come on! Over the last week,
there have been enough of videos of thousands of people in fatigues trying to block access to
government buildings and shouting rather aggressive demands. The entire battalions of "National
Guard." This is much bigger than just 100 people on a peaceful rally. Ukraine might be heading
towards Maidan 3.0.
ID075732 12 Jul 2015 14:26
The situation in Ukraine has been unravelling for months and this news broke on Friday evening.
The Minsk II cease fire has not been honoured by Poroshenko, who has not managed to effect
any of the pledges he signed up to. The right sector who rejected the cease-fire from the start
are now refusing the rule of their post coup president in Kiev.
Time for Victoria Nuland to break out the cookies? Or maybe it's too late for that now. The
country formerly know as Ukraine is turning out to be another outstanding success of American
post -imperial foreign policy.
Meanwhile in UFA the BRIC's economic forum is drawing to a close, with representatives from
the developing world and no reporting of the aspirations being discussed there of over 60% of
the world's population. It's been a major success, but if you want to learn about it, you will
have to turn to other media sources - those usually reported as Russian propaganda channels or
Putin's apologists.
The same people who have been reporting on the deteriorating situation in Kiev since the February
coup. Or as Washington likes to call it a popular up rising.
'The only thing that makes me reconsider is their service to their country'
Don't get me wrong. I detest the fascist militias and their evil deeds.
However, despite their callousness, brutality and stupidity, they have been the most effective
fighting force for Kiev ( more sensible Ukrainians have been rather more reluctant to kill their
fellow countrymen ).
Deluded ? Yes. Cowardly ? No.
Even more reprehensible, in my opinion are the calculating and unprincipled Kiev Government
that have attempted to bully a region of the Ukraine that had expressed legitimate reservations,
using those far right battalions, but accepting no responsibility for the carnage that they carried
out.
mario n 12 Jul 2015 12:52
I think it's time Europe spoke up about dangers of Ukrainian nationalism. 72 years ago Ukrainian
fascists committed one of the most hideous and brutal acts of genocide in the human history. Details
are so horrifying it is beyond imagination. Sadly not many people remembers that, because it is
not politically correct to say bad things about Ukraine. Today mass murderers are hailed as national
heroes and private battalions and ultranationalist groups armed to the teeth terrorise not only
Donbas but now different parts of the country like Zakarpattia where there is strong Hungarian,
Russian and Romanian minority.
How many massacres and acts of genocide Europe needs before it learns to act firmly?
SHappens 12 Jul 2015 12:49
Kiev has allowed nationalist groups including Right Sector to operate despite allegations
by groups like Amnesty International, that Right Sector has tortured civilian prisoners.
You know what, you dont play with fire or you will get burnt. It was written on the wall that
these Bandera apologists would eventually turn to the hand that fed them. I wonder how Kiev will
manage to blame the russians now.
RicardoJ 12 Jul 2015 12:33
Of course the Guardian doesn't like to explain that 'Right Sector' are genuine fascists - by
their own admission! These fascists, who wear Nazi insignia, were the people who overthrew the elected government
of Ukraine in the US / EU-supported coup - which the Guardianistas and other PC-brainwashed duly
cheered on as a supposed triumph of democracy. Since that glorious US-financed and EU-backed coup, wholly illegal under international law,
Ukraine's economy has collapsed, as has Ukrainians' living standards.
The US neocons are losing interest in their attempted land grab of Ukraine - and the EU cretins
who backed the coup, thinking it would be a nice juicy further territorial acquisition for the
EU, are desperately looking the other way, now that both the US and EU realize that Ukraine is
a financial black hole.
When the Guardian claims to be a fearless champion of investigative journalism - as it is,
in some areas - why did it obey the dictats of the US neocon media machine which rules all Western
mainstream media over the Ukrainian land grab, instead of telling the truth, at that time?
jgbg 12 Jul 2015 12:15
The move came after a gunfight broke out on Saturday, when about 20 Right Sector gunmen
arrived at a sports complex controlled by MP Mikhail Lano. They had been trying to stop the
traffic of cigarettes and other contraband, a spokesman for the group said.
Put another way, one group of gangsters tried to muscle in on the cigarette smuggling operation
of another group of gangsters. Smuggling cigarettes into nearby EU countries is extremely lucrative. Here's some video of some of the events:
Note the registration plates driven by both Right Sector and the other gangsters i.e. not Ukrainian.
In all likelihood, these cars are all stolen. Right Sector and fighters from "volunteer battalions" have become accustomed to muscling in
on other people's activities (legal or not) in Donbass. This sort of thuggery is routine when
these folk come to town. It is only when since they have continued such activities on their home
turf in west and central Ukraine that the authorities have taken any notice.
This is true but the USSR collapsed by and large due to degeneration of Bolshevik's elite
(who later became turncoats and were bribed to accept neoliberalism) and mismanagement of the
economy. So if Maduro mismanaged the economy he is doomed, no matter how well his regime tried to
support the bottom 80% of population. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
The United States has for more than a hundred years, two reasons to interfere in the
Soviet Union/Russia. One was ideological with the United States wanting to focus its wealth
in the hands of the one percent it could not allow communism to succeed as it was too great a
threat to capitalism. The other is that it wants unobstructed access to the Soviet
Union/Russian mineral wealth in the east, i.e., it wants to "own" Siberia.
With a successful Soviet Union/Russia, it was possible that revolution would spread through
Europe and even to the United States. End of capitalism. Prior to the Second World War, the
Soviet economy was doing well Then the Second World War came along and although militarily
the Soviet Union was the victor it was at the price of its industrial base being severely
damaged, so to make capitalism more attractive the United States poured wealth into Western
Europe in the Marshall Plan and allowed European parties such as the British Labour Party, a
nominally socialist party but a supporter of capitalism, to introduce the Welfare State to
calm down the restless natives. With the ossification of the Soviet leadership and the
eventual collapse of the USSR, the United States saw that there was no effective competition
with capitalism so it pushed the world away from the Welfare State and towards neo-liberalism
and austerity. The only problem is that the natives are getting restless again but with
largely right-wing politicians in charge. Since most of those right-wing politicians are
ardent capitalist, they're not prepared to make the jump to socialism of any type. When the
right-wing politicians fail, then perhaps you'll see a massive shift to the left as people
start to understand that capitalism, particularly the unregulated kind so beloved in the
United States can't meet their needs.
BTW, it's not difficult to imagine what the MSM would make of a country that was socialist
and nationalist, just look at the hatred directed at the SSNP.
I stopped by to thank you for the link to Greg Grandin you offered in the last thread. I
just finished reading it, and it's a gem of historical storytelling, weaving great themes of
law in a superbly easy read. The concept of national sovereignty originated for the world in
the Latin American colonies, and over time the US embraced it as international law, only to
discard it later, from about the Nixon era on.
So Bolton and the like are actually acting within a current Washington school of thought.
And how well the concept of interventionism has been captured by neoliberalism. The concept
of individual sovereignty was used to dissolve the borders of national sovereignty, but it
wasn't the individual who won. As Grandin states towards the end:
"Economic globalisation promised a prosperous, borderless world, even as its promoters
signed a raft of treaties that freed capital but effectively criminalised labour mobility."
This matter of the mobility of capital and the demise of the individual is something shown
clearly in that other excellent piece you linked a couple of weeks back:
I've wanted to come here to comment on it but the task seemed daunting. Foster's
magisterial article traces the history of neoliberalism - almost 100 years old - and shows
how the mobility of capital was always what it aimed towards. And this financially
borderless world is what we live in now - how ironic that the US can enforce imperial borders
through financial sanctions.
~~
So the stories told by Grandin and Foster seem to intertwine. The rich desire a borderless
world to move capital freely. This has killed the prosperity of the working classes because
of the ease of offshoring industry - the ultimate threat against the worker. And you can no
longer restore equity to a society simply by taxing wealth, because it's too easy for wealth
to flee to other havens. The only thing you can do is nationalize it, to force it to stay
in-country.
Indeed, Venezuela is the enemy of the US on both of these crucial fronts: it insists on
the national sovereignty of its resources and it insists on sharing that wealth with its
workers. It becomes ever more clear that the struggle for true national sovereignty can only
come with the empowerment of the sovereign people, through fair law and fair distribution of
national wealth.
But to do all this, in an era of borderless capitalism, takes socialism.
And this is the crucial aspect of the time we live in. Justice Holmes I think said that he
paid taxes as the price for civilization. But moving forward the only way we can pay for
civilization now is through socialism. This is the dynamic that all the roads lead to,
inexorably.
You see what trouble you stir up when you share links?
This is true but the USSR collapsed by and large due to degeneration of Bolshevik's elite
(who later became turncoats and were bribed to accept neoliberlaim) and mismanagement of the
economy.
The United States has for more than a hundred years, two reasons to interfere in the
Soviet Union/Russia. One was ideological with the United States wanting to focus its wealth
in the hands of the one percent it could not allow communism to succeed as it was too great a
threat to capitalism. The other is that it wants unobstructed access to the Soviet
Union/Russian mineral wealth in the east, i.e., it wants to "own" Siberia.
With a successful Soviet Union/Russia, it was possible that revolution would spread through
Europe and even to the United States. End of capitalism. Prior to the Second World War, the
Soviet economy was doing well Then the Second World War came along and although militarily
the Soviet Union was the victor it was at the price of its industrial base being severely
damaged, so to make capitalism more attractive the United States poured wealth into Western
Europe in the Marshall Plan and allowed European parties such as the British Labour Party, a
nominally socialist party but a supporter of capitalism, to introduce the Welfare State to
calm down the restless natives. With the ossification of the Soviet leadership and the
eventual collapse of the USSR, the United States saw that there was no effective competition
with capitalism so it pushed the world away from the Welfare State and towards neo-liberalism
and austerity. The only problem is that the natives are getting restless again but with
largely right-wing politicians in charge. Since most of those right-wing politicians are
ardent capitalist, they're not prepared to make the jump to socialism of any type. When the
right-wing politicians fail, then perhaps you'll see a massive shift to the left as people
start to understand that capitalism, particularly the unregulated kind so beloved in the
United States can't meet their needs.
BTW, it's not difficult to imagine what the MSM would make of a country that was socialist
and nationalist, just look at the hatred directed at the SSNP.
The supposed Western aid convoy seeking to enter Venezuela from Columbia was obviously a
set-up for false flags designed to trigger an escalation of Trump's war on Maduro's
democratically-elected, constitutionally-legitimate government.
There are multiple analogies between Venezuela color revolution and EuroMaydan... This
article is from April 17 2017 or one month after Ukraine far right came to power via armed
uprising, deposing sitting President (which paradoxically was subservant to Washington
neoliberal, with Biden as his best friend) which barely managed to escape alive.
Looks like closing the US embassy was a good move but "too little too late" on the part of
Maduro government, if we are thinking about the typical mechanics of the color revolution, as was
displayed during EuroMaydan. But functions of the US embassy probably were probably quickly re-
distributed to UK and other NATO countries embassies, so this is a half-measure. In any case as
this article suggests the defense against color revolution is a difficult art, as forces that try
to unleash the color revolution are very powerful indeed and are very skillful in exploiting
economic difficulties created with their own participation via sanction to topple the
government.
They can also allow themselves huge injection of money into the country to feed the
opposition, as well as performing coordination and planning role. Because the next stage is the
economic rape of the country and in this sense those are money well spend.
In case of Venezuela the confiscation of CITCO is an ominous sign as it allows confiscated
from the Maduro government funds to be used against him.
As Trump entered the Presidential race for 2020 election, the question of Venezuela color
revolution success became the question of his prestige. that's probably why stanch neocon Elliott
Abrams, who is the expert in regime change and covert operations for undermining the government,
that US government want to topple, was dusted off and put in charge.
The Director of Fund of research of problems of democracy Maxim Grigoriev -- technology coup
in Ukraine
The political conflict between the authorities and the population in Ukraine is rapidly
growing into a large-scale civil war, which leads to the split of the country. After Crimea,
several other southeastern regions declared their desire to join Russia. The head of the
"Foundation for the Research of the Problems of Democracy" , member of the Public Chamber and
author of the book "the Regime of Saakashvili: how it was accomplished" Maxim Grigoriev told
the correspondent of "Izvestia" Natalia Bashlykova why the new government can not agree with
its own people, as well as which political force is interested in new Presidential Elections in
the current conditions.
Q: Are there any facts that Ukraine really had a prepared project of the "orange
revolution"?
- There are many such facts. To begin with, shortly before the activation of the Maidan in
Ukraine, as if by a click of the switch, a number of oppoosition TV channels were created,
which simultaneously began broadcasting on the Internet. Their main theme, of course, was the
translation of opposition's speeches and protests. Actually propaganda of any activities of the
opposition. On the Maidan they created for this purpose the whole military style system of
uninterrupted provision of Internet. Which did have any interruption since it was created.
There were temporary blackouts, but 99% of the time the Internet was availble. A large number
of television cameras were purchased for the protesters. We know the facts when they went with
cameras on lashes with the law enforcement, on occupation of government institutions... There
were live broadcasts from everywhere.
In addition, Ukraine has a whole network of human rights organizations, all activists of
which in the hour of the ICS were in the ranks of the opposition.
There is a very well-known statement of the presidential candidate of Ukraine Oleg Tsarev,
made almost one day before the Maidan. November 20 in the Verkhovna Rada, he said that with the
active support of the US Embassy the preparation is under way toward unleashing the civil war.
The American instructors are actively training specialists trained in discrediting state
institutions. He talked about the project" Techcamp", which was carried out under the patronage
of the US Ambassador to Ukraine.
That is, there is a strong evidence from multiple sources, indicating that the EuroMaidan in
terms of resources, mobilization of people was prepared at a very high level. If the choice of
the date of uprising was not fixed and probably occurred somewhat spontaneously, but the script
itself was prepared well in advance.
Q: Who and how implemented this scenario? Is the technology known?
- The main force that actually implemented the coup, were trained in Ukraine and hired
fighters who were part of the"Right sector". They played a major role in the overthrow of
power: attacked law enforcement agencies, carried out seizures of state institutions. The "
Right sector "includes a number of organizations, but most of it, up to 70-80%, is a detachment
of" Trident " named after Stepan Bandera under the leadership of Dmitry Yarosh. These are
people who directly consider themselves the heirs of Bandera and talk about it with pride. They
exist with the support of various state authorities of Ukraine. They have been training their
people for almost 20 years. There is evidence that they worked closely with the security
services of Ukraine. For example, with Valentin Nalivaychenko, who was and is now the head of
the security Service of Ukraine. Yarosh was his assistant in his stay as the Deputy of the
Verkhovna Rada. To the Yarosh book "Nation and state" Nalyvaychenko, wrote the Preface, which
calls "the Right sector" partnership structure and looks forward to continued cooperation with
him.
That is, the training was quite large-scale, it was attended by such elements as the removal
of sentries, the attack of a subversive group, separation from prosecution, sniper shooting and
others.
Q: Why neither the authorities, nor security officers didn't react to it?
Because the Ukrainian government itself supported the "Right sector", helped with funding
and training. As I said, the security service of Ukraine participated in this work. Of course,
there were those who perceived the "Right sector" as a force that can instll itself at power at
any time, but there were also a number of politicians who saw it as a support for their
interests, including for the maintaining of the power or neoliberal oligarchs.
Q: Why these forces came the population, after all, the Maidan was and ordinary people?
They didn't know what was going on?
-- Here it is necessary to understand accurately what groups of the population came to the
Maidan. First, the part of the population that supported the European Union and European
integration. We can say that these are those who in Moscow call themselves the creative class,
and I would rather call it the serving class. These are people who were sincerely sure that
after signing the Association agreement with the European Union, their lives will change:
Europe will begin to Finance the country, all problems with corruption will disappear,
high-paying jobs will appear.
Secondly, the students, most of whom came out -- it is important to pay attention to this
-- to these actions on the direct instructions of the rectors. They were exempted from
attending lectures, supplied with food.
The most significant part on protesters were specially brought from the Western Ukraine, at
some point they became the dominat force for EuroMaidan.
There were at meeting representatives of political parties to which it is possible to carry
supporters Vitaly Klitschko and Arseniy Yatsenyuk, but at some point this political management
ceased to control a situation. As a result, the Maidan passed into the hands of the "Right
sector" and self-defense units of Andrei Parubiy. It is on the militants of these groups all
kept. These are those people who sincerely consider themselves successors of Stepan Bandera's
business. They consider that the present situation in Ukraine-continuation of that situation in
1941 when their ancestors willingly cooperated with fascist Germany.
Q: How true that part of the people who went to the Maidan, received money for
it?
-- Part of the insurgents, but I find it difficult to talk about any specific amounts,
because the payment was differentiated. In addition, everyone had different sources of funding.
But as a clear example of who was paid well -- Parubiy, which the media accused that during the
Maidan he bought three apartments in Kiev.
Q: Was the removal of Yanukovych pre-planned?
- It was impossible to predict that Viktor Yanukovich would act in such a strange, cowardice
way. There is an interesting comment of the Minister of internal Affairs of Ukraine Arsen
Avakov who says that it isn't clear to him how actually Yanukovych in the first days treated
the Maidan: supported it or not, or was for European integration or against. At the end
Yanukovich tried to avoid bloodshed and barely managed to escape the country alive. But, as we
see now, this has led to even more bloodshed. Therefore, to predict this kind of situation was
quite difficult.
Q: What was the final result expected by the authors of "project Ukraine"?
- The difficulty is that the Maidan was not one single project. It was a series of such
interrelated projects. Because, for example, Europeans initially would like to see the
President of Ukraine Vitali Klitschko. Americans on the contrary put on Yatsenyuk.
The main task of all external forces, of course, was to continue the policy of containment
of Russia, as once the USSR. If Ukraine was not connected with Russia, it would not be of any
interest except as another market for the sale of products and the market for cheap labor,
perhaps even a transit route.
In addition, a number of internal interests of political players of Ukraine, primarily
oligarchs, worked on the euromaidan. Therefore, the goal was not only the signing of the
agreement on Ukraine's accession to the European Union and the imposition of Pro-American
power, this is only part of the plan, which, perhaps, we do not fully know.
Q: How similar is this situation to the revolution in Georgia?
- There are similarities and differences. I studied Georgia a lot and studied in detail how
Mikhail Saakashvili came to power, how he built his regime of retaining power and actually
built a totalitarian regime. But nevertheless I can say that Saakashvili came to power with
substantial support of the population. At first, Georgians lived with great expectations of
positive changes. In Ukraine, the situation is fundamentally different: half of the country
practically does not support the authorities from the Maidan. Most Ukrainians understand that
it is focused on the interests of the Western regions, the Bandera region. While the other part
of the country adheres to completely opposite views.
Therefore, the situation in Ukraine, unlike Georgia, is more serious, and it is difficult to
say how it will develop. So far, what I see in Ukraine, I can evaluate as a negative
scenario.
Actions for which the former oppostions, while Maylan was active, criticized Yanukovych, are
now widelyly deployed to crahs the protests. But Yanukovich, in contrast, refused to use the
armed forces in the fight against those who went to the Maidan. A new Ukrainian government can
not exist without the support of the military and in accelerated pace leads the country to the
civil war.
Although, as in the elections of the President of Georgia, in Ukraine today began with the
support of US NGO such as the McCain Institute, which was conducting opinion polls,
overestimating the ratings of the most convenient for the USA candidates, as well as engaged in
the organization of election.
According to my information, the money allocated to Ukraine is 10 times more than to
Georgia.
I've just been reviewing the 2011 UK doco How To Start A Revolution starring Nobel Peace
Prize nominee Gene Sharp, his cute and sincere female sidekick Jamil Raqib, and a retired
Military type Robert Helvey in the Pat Lang mould (swashbuckling).
It's 52 mins and is an Advertorial for Sharp's book 'From Dictatorship To Democracy' which
lists 198 non-violent tactics, stunts and ploys intended to 'unsettle' a ruling Regime, the
most unsurprising of which is to have the Protest Placards printed in English (for the
benefit of NYT readers?).
It was made when the Syria 'uprising' was beginning. It covers EVERY color revolution and
uprising with AmeriKKKa's fingerprints on them including the Gene Sharp fan who attempted to
'help' the Tienanmen Square protestors.
It devotes some time to Venezuela with a drive-by smearing of Maduro. But there's
something quite fruitcake-ish about Sharp. Near the end of the doco he reels off a list of
countries which have benefited from Gene's wisdom - one of which was AUSTRALIA (FFS)!
Well worth a look with Venezuela Showdown 1.1 imminent.
(There are numerous links on the www)
"... the False flag has arrived, the Washington post is now spreading the lie that Venezuelan soldiers shot civilians - now to see if the lie takes hold ..."
Special Representative for Venezuela Elliott Abrams will travel to Homestead Air Reserve
Base, Florida and Cucuta, Colombia February 21-22 to support the delivery of humanitarian
aid to some of the most vulnerable people in Venezuela in response to Interim President
Guaido's request.
Special Representative Abrams will lead a U.S. government delegation to accompany
humanitarian supplies to be transported from Florida to Colombia by military aircraft.
While in Colombia Special Representative Abrams will meet Colombian President Duque and
visiting delegations from Central and South America.
Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams has defended his role in authorizing the
shipment of weapons on a humanitarian aid flight to Nicaraguan rebels, saying the operation
was "strictly by the book."
Mr. Abrams spoke at a news conference Saturday in response to statements by Robert
Duemling, former head of the State Department's Nicaraguan humanitarian assistance office,
who said he had twice ordered planes to shuttle weapons for the contras on aid planes at
Mr. Abrams's direction in early 1986.
According to Strategic Culture Abrams is not the slickest of operators, for
example, while leading the crusade against Nicaragua:
"Abrams solicited an illegal $10 million contribution to the Contras from the Sultan of
Brunei. When North later gave Abrams the Swiss bank account number for Lake Resources, a CIA
front in Geneva, he gave Abrams the wrong prefix of 368 instead of the actual number 386.
Abrams then passed the account number to Brunei. In Brunei, Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah wired $10
million from the Citibank branch in Brunei to the wrong account at Credit Suisse in Geneva.
Due to North's and Abram's error, a Swiss shipping magnate was suddenly $10 million
wealthier. .."
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/02/22/trump-contra-war-redux-in-latin-america.html
A fatality at the Brazilian border apparently but the situation is confusing. It's unclear
where the empty truck incident took place but it wasn't at the actual Venezuela/Colombia
border. Mariara is a town between Caracas and Cucuta.
"One person has been killed and 12 are injured after Venezuelan troops opened fire on
civilians trying to keep a border checkpoint open for aid deliveries, it has been
claimed.
Troops arrived at a checkpoint set up by an indigenous community in Kumarakapai, on
Venezuela's southern border with Brazil early this morning.
But when civilians tried to block military vehicles, soldiers opened fire shooting 12 and
killing a woman named as Zorayda Rodriguez, 42, according to the Washington Post. "
Don't have the link, but I urge you to take a look at www.mintpressnews.com for an update on
the "take over" of the
Venezuelan embassy in Costa Rica. The person in charge (!?) is Maria Faria whose father is in
jail for his part in an
assasination attempt on Chavez. The gov of Costa Rica is not amused. These are the people who
will "bring democracy to Venezuela" Right. BTW, she bribed her way into the building.
Meanwhile, the false flag may be occurring. Zero hedge has a report of a civilian at the
brazilian border.
Strictly by the "CIA book", that is. The one that allows Americans to cheat, lie and murder
as much as they like, and then say it's all for the good of those who are cheated, lied to
and murdered.
Hopefully someone can explain. Current inflation rate in Venezuela is 2.6 million %! Is this
correct? If so how did this happen and how is country surviving? And how is Maduro
maintaining his support?
Venezuela have acted naive the whole time, they know US will provoke for weeks and haven't
done anything. Even the ambassadors from US, EU are still in Venezuela!
China, Russia haven't done anything for all these months, they are also to blame for not
stopping this aggression.
The just-published new episode of Empire Files is a gift to all infowarriors
containing most relevant topical information. Share widely and kudos to Abby Martin and Mike
Prysner:
@ 11
"The one that allows Americans to cheat, lie and murder as much as they like, and then say
it's all for the good of those who are cheated, lied to and murdered." I have come to the belief that that is what they mean by the word "FREEDOM".
Interesting facts about the economy in Venezuela. There isn`t enough currency in the hands of
the population but inflation keeps rising and stores are "empty". Some unions are asking for
pay increases at the same time saying that their currency is worthless. The value of the
dollar is fixed in Miami by DollarToDay or some crap like that but the government doesn't do
anything about it.
Is this Econ101 or the Twightlight Zone School of Economics.
Your post is terrifying to me, and hopefully B will approve of my reposting it in case
anyone misses it the first time.
"It seems they are a pleasant family the Abrams. On her blog, Rachel Adams, wife of
Elliott wrote about the Palestinians:
"Transformer-doodling, homework-losing children of Others -- and their offspring -- those
who haven't already been pimped out by their mothers to the murder god -- as shields, hiding
behind their burkas and cradles like the unmanned animals they are, and throw them not into
your prisons, where they can bide until they're traded by the thousands for another child of
Israel, but into the sea, to float there, food for sharks, stargazers, and whatever other
oceanic carnivores God has put there for the purpose.""
re the Daily Mail and ZeroHedge article(s) on the "shooting." Not sure that the shooting
story is legit.
There are no photos of the troops shooting, there is video of the troops NOT shooting when
attacked by various people, there are photos of people on gurneys with possible wounds, but
we all have been down THAT road before...(White Helmets....)I will wait for the govt's take
on the event.
IMO all of this is setting us up for the idiotic concert, my guess is we will see a Maidan
set to music or possibly a rerun of the Vegas shooting.
BTW, I have posted the NY Times 1987 article above in reply to several Daily Mail and Sputnik
posts. Thank you B for enabling me to do so.
ah, shoulda known they wouldn't give up this easily. mueller doesn't have any evidence, so
there will probably be a few weeks of handwringing about the report being doctored, followed
by entreaties to vote for a centrist democrat to beat trump, and for god's sake don't vote
for sanders, cause he can't protect us against putin or something.
@ Posted by: Victor J. | Feb 22, 2019 12:55:57 PM | 20
Hyperinflation can be easily explained by the fact the Venezuelan right-wing is the
bourgeoisie, thus they control the circulation of goods. Without the stores (lock-out), there
is not goods in a monetized society.
But that doesn't stop there: lack of circulation fuels black market. The stronger the
black market, the higher the prices, the higher the inflation. To top it off, it is
embargoed, so imports are not an option. In this scenario (siege + lockout), bandits
thrive.
However, the situation is artificial. Where the shops are open, there is no
shortage of essential goods . There is no hunger in Venezuela -- at least nothing out of
the extraordinaire for capitalist standards (and specially, Latin American standards, where
extreme poverty is ubiquitous). The defficiency is with the more manufactured goods
(specially medicine, but alos hygiene products etc). Since Venezuela also has a very weak
milk production, they also suffer with its supply and of its derivatives.
Venezuela is a textbook Dutch Disease country. It is astonishing Chávez didn't
redirect the resources of the oil boom towards industrialization. Lenin and Stalin did it
under a much more severe situation, so there is no excuse for Chávez putting the cart
in front of the oxen.
From Reuters: on Indigenous person was allegedly killed by Venezuelan solidiers in the
city of Kumarakapay. The rumor also claims there are many wounded.
Have you forgotten? 1975: CIA + MI5/6 coup against Australian Prime Minister Gough
Whitlam
re: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nugan_Hand_Bank
Poor Gough got too curious about Nugan Hand and that simply won't do. Next up, Malcolm Fraser
who immediately flew off to DC and a meeting with Ronnie RayGun. Good ole Malcolm reportedly
made time in his busy schedule for a meeting with David Rockefeller also.
D's run around wanting all these nice things for Americans while they continue to support
"regime change" wars that kill, maim and destroy the infrastructure of countries all over the
world so our corporations can steal their resources and we keep our military/intelligence and
congressional community fat and happy. When all that money we use on destruction could be
used here at home on something constructive. What a bunch of hypocrites. Sanders among
them.
The house even passed a bill unanimously that allows us to sanction anyone aiding in the
reconstruction of any Syrian land held by the Syrian government. The demise of this country
can't happen soon enough.
"The house even passed a bill unanimously that allows us to sanction anyone aiding in the
reconstruction of any Syrian land held by the Syrian government."
Sadly the US is among the sorest losers of all time. Salting the earth where ever it
goes. Although, I recall Assad said that no country that participated in the country's attempted
destruction could ever have a role in the rebuild, so we may be just seeing sour grapes:)
Thanks so much for posting this link to Abby Martin's new piece. The interview with the UN
Human Rights Investigator Alfred de Zayas is extermely revealing, I strongly recommend
viewing it to really understand the situation and the machinations of the power interests
that want to control Venezuela. As well as what he calls "the ocean of lies". He says so
much, a very knowledgeable and truthful person, an expert in fact.
The revolution of the bourgeois/grand children of ex cololianlists who simply cannot accept
that their grandparents' loot have been taken over by the brown people.ie, Native Indians and
black Africans.
What's happeing in Venezuela is a small part of a wider trend sweeping across Latin
America.ie: the old colonialists want their possisions back and they have a willing partner
in the US to help them achieve this dream. Thet've succeeded in Brazil, Argentina etc and
won't stop until the make Latin America great again.
Funny thing about this coup is that, the execution was so sloppy that it's almost comical.
Essentially some wimpy guy with very powerful connections suddenly appoints himself as leader
of the country and is almost immediately legitimaized by ex-colonial powers - how
democratic!
It's even got to a point where some US officials are now issueing personal death threats
against members of the Venezuelan government if they don't defect. I guess one has to do
whatever it takes.
As things currently stand, it's a satlemate which might end up with the bourgeois moving on
to Miami to join their Cuban cousins who're still wating for the US to install them leaders
of Cuba again someday.....soon(whatever that means).
PS: I heard Richard Branson is throwing a rave for the revolition this weekend. Goes to
show how much vested interest are involved in this coup. It's like Cuba all over again.
Has anyone watched any of the Branson concert? It's dire.
There are only about 22,000 viewers on Youtube and the shots of the very large
crowd have a completely different colour balance to the rest suggesting that they were filmed
somewhere else, and occasionally they pan from the performers out towards the audience but
the numbers don't come close to the 250,000 claimed.
Posted by: Victor J. | Feb 22, 2019 12:55:57 PM | 20
I understand that people in Venezuela use plastic cards for day to day transactions, as
the paper currency is scarce. I suspect those millions of percent inflation figures relate
the the convertible value of the currency into foreign currency, not day to day purchases of
staple foods grown in the country.
I've watched a lot of video reports from the streets recently from Telesur and similar and
most people look well fed to me. You can see the contrast with Haiti - many of those oeople
really do look hungry and desperate.
Notice in the real images the stage is located on the curved portion of the bridge and is
positioned in a -45 degree angle (to face the crowd) relative to the flow of traffic, whereas
the fake images the stage is in the middle of the bridge on a straight portion of the bridge
and is faced at 180 degrees relative to the flow of traffic. Two completely different
scenes!
The attack on Venezuela is a flop and it isn't going anywhere. The US military has to already
be extremely aware they can't possibly win (see my comment 114 in "Trump Likes 'Beautiful'
Border Walls" and then Juliana mentioned/added the Darién Gap which means the US has
even less options for logistics).
Venezuela already has anti-aircraft and anti-ship systems that can reach well outside its
borders and of its supporters have systems that reach much further (anywhere).
- Billionaire Bernie is just another fake, as is anyone at all who's running for POTUS no
matter how small their party is.
- Washington Post has no journalists at all and thus no one either outside or inside
Venezuela. Ignore their noise.
- The zombie slaves of the US inside the US and elsewhere aren't going to make any
difference.
- The public propaganda is not actually for public consumption, it is only for the purpose of
continued delirium by the "elites" continuously telling themselves they're not addicts to
evil and that they're getting away with it all even though the year is 2019 and it's
incredibly difficult to figure out what they're supposedly not failing at or how they're not
making everything worse for everybody including themselves (privately hoarding green waste
paper is not a victory only a mental deficiency born of insecurity).
- There's no hyperinflation when it comes to oil and gold which are the de facto
international currencies of Venezuela and considering a full tank of gas in Venezuela costs
something like 1 Bolivar (let's call that 1 millionth of a US dollar according to the
bullshit about hyperinflation) the local economy is completely unaffected. It is interesting
that US dollars are practically unusable in Venezuela (as they should be because they're
worthless).
- Venezuela is incredibly far off from reaching the 20 Trillion USD debt level of the US.
I'm starting to think the whole attack against Venezuela is simply noisy misdirection away
from something else more significant. Either way it's going to cost the US dearly (what made
them think it was a good idea to antagonize Venezuela further? If there's no war they
continue to lose influence and if there's a war they lose much more).
Seeing Elliot ( I only spread democracy and freedom ) Abrams digress into a lisping,indignant
mess while being grilled by a very brave Ihan Omar was priceless. Such a display of courage
is almost non existent by the invertebrates in today's political parties. Unfortunately
getting your feathers ruffled is a weak punishment for genocide. As Alan Nairn pointed out
years ago if all was fair Elliot Abrams would be a perfect fit in the dock.
Venezuelas debt is 3 times GDP, and much of it in a currency they dont control. US debt equals its GDP, and all if it in its own currency. I am pretty sure dollars on the black market are in great demand.
Addendum to my previous post. Finally figured out where the fake concert photos are from.
They are from the 'Peace Without Borders concert of March 16 2008' . Moreover, the
300K number that has been pushed by Branson and by the MSM is no coincedence at all either.
That number is the estimated number of attendees from the
actual 2008 concert .
Trump is accusing Cuba of having troops in Venezuela. Could Trump be wanting to do Cuba too?
Trump scraps the INF and wants to give Saudis nuclear technology, and representing the
party of the Christian Right wants to force all countries to legalize homosexuality. LOL.
World gets crazier every day
Recent WSJ item said Trump's plan included Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua. According to
Pepe Escobar, Cuba has 15,000 troops in Venezuela. Any transfer of nuclear tech to Saudi
violates numerous US laws and NPT as well. Trump's move on gay rights is supposed to pressure
Iran.
This is also from Saker - I will put the heading in without that attribution, sorry I am not
good at appropriate links but scrolling down on the front page at that site will get you to
this important message:
There are 9 purported aid trucks in Cucuta vs. what the vice president is saying are 149
being already mobilized by the Venezuelan government. She begins by thanking the Holland
government for their support, remarks that there are 'no attention or programs directed to
vulnerable sectors of our sister republic of Columbia' and ends by saying the Venezuelan
government has apprised the governments of Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic of concern
about special forces arriving there.
Did anyone else notice the news story yesterday of eight heavily armed American special
forces types detained in Haiti, then taken to the airport and flown back to USA? National
Post & CTV in Canada ran story, but no follow up.
"
Curacao government communications officer Corinne Leysner told AFP the island's parliament
had agreed to act as a hub for aid "but that goods cannot leave for Venezuela until there is
a safe environment to receive them."
She said the government could not permit the boat to leave with the shipment for security
reasons after Maduro's government ordered the closure of Venezuela's sea and air borders with
Curacao.
"It is a safety issue. Of course we want to help the people of Venezuela but we are not
going to be choosing fights," Leysner said.
Thanks for the info. I had no idea Cuba had so many troops in Venezuela.
Not entirely sure how Trump can pressure Iran into legalizing Homosexuality. Interested in
seeing how his supporters take it. Of course his mentor Roy Cohn was a homosexual who died of
AIDS. Trumps also recently come out saying he wants to focus on eliminating AIDS. A tribute
to his late mentor (partner?)
Trump's aim is based on his assumption that Iran will never allow equal rights for
homosexuals, wants it to become the only nation denying them, then use the R2P concept to
attack Iran.
RE Venezuela, the entire aid charade is also being utilized to promote the R2P concept as
basis for invasion.
Colombian military bases leased by Outlaw US Empire can be seen
on this map .
Interesting. That would be a way to get the LGBT crowd to go along with a war against
Iran, at least that portion that is not owned by the Israeli lobby
The Cuban connection adds another group that will support war on Venezuela in the hopes it
could topple Cubas government, although he frankly has the support of both parties for
Venezuela regime change, short of all out war
All thats needed now is Iran to be found supporting Venezuela and Venezuela and Cuba added
to the list of countries supporting Terrorists. Maybe thats what the next FF brings us. After
that he can get support to take on Venezuela , Iran and Cuba together and get NATO to support
this. Hope not .
He plays by the book, alright, it's called The Book of High Crimes and Misdemeanors. and those are impeachable and Go to Jail offenses. he's a monster.... But he's our monster, sayeth the spooks and Trumpster
Over at the Open Comments thread (thanks to M @ 64 who posted the link), a commenter (GF)
there has said that 2 days after the Brumadinho dam disaster in Minas Gerais (occurred 25
January 2019), the Brazilian government allowed an Israeli plane with 136 personnel and 16
tonnes of equipment to land in the area to assist in emergency aid efforts. The Brazilian
Congress had given no approval for the Israeli plane to fly in and there was no audit or
control over the movements of the people and equipment on the plane. The plane stayed for 2
days and then left.
Google suggests that driving from Brumadinho to Santa Elena de Uairen at the sole
Brazil-Venezuela crossover point would take 64 hours (nearly 3 days) via the BR-174
highway.
As we enter the "silly season"(election fever), the disinformation will fly fast and
furiously. Be careful who and what you believe. One thing you can be sure of, the empire and
it's minions, have limitless amounts of $ to convince anyone that water isn't wet.
I for one, will be shocked if the Mueller investigation produces anything concrete. DJT is
the perfect rep for the people he represents, and it's NOT the working classes.
Wishing the Venezuelan people all the best, as they struggle against another onslaught
from the evil empire.
QUESTION: If you're moving against these regimes that are not democratic, many Nicaraguan
people, Cuban people are saying, "Are you going to help us next?"
SECRETARY POMPEO: Yes, President Trump's administration has done so and will continue
to do so not just in Venezuela but certainly Nicaragua and Cuba as well .
<...>
It is astonishing Chávez didn't redirect the resources of the oil boom towards
industrialization.
Industrialization requires the cooperation of the educated middle and upper classes -- but
these classes were precisely the people opposing Chávez. So he needed to educate his
people, and that needed time (a generation or two). Chávez died too soon.
Lenin and Stalin did it under a much more severe situation, so there is no excuse for
Chávez putting the cart in front of the oxen.
The USSR had a civil war and defeated the White Army, much as China defeated its
Nationalists (also in a civil war). Note that these countries were able to industrialize.
Venezuela could not, probably because its elites were undefeated and were fighting
Chávez hard, and are fighting Maduro even harder.
"Soon the music is going to stop with us Americans being blamed and not those who own
private finance and everything else."
Exactly. The script is already written. After all this support will be there for a Global
Government that will issue the Carbon Dollar/Credits and monitor/control energy consumption
and be run by those who today run international private finance and the major Central Banks.
They will demand reparations from American Citizens in the form of a higher carbon tax and
asset forfeiture ( resources, military,etc) which is why they will be supported by 95% of the
worlds population. The US elite will support this after being assured of global citizenship
and protection of their assets. Global citizenship entitles you to reside in any country
.
They might even split us up into 10-12 pieces with each piece as a separate government
along FEMA/COGS lines.
Trump will get an Oscar for his role in finishing off what Sir Bush Sr and those who
knocked off JFK started. He might even get ownership of Cuba and run the country as the
worlds biggest Casino
Putin probably gets to be Global President and Xi can be Minister of Security and Israel's
Sanhedrin will head the Global Justice Department, Google and Twitter will merge as the
Ministry of Truth and Bibi will handle the Population Control Department aka Extermination
Department. Bibi will appoint MBS as Chief Shiah Exterminator, use your imagination for the
rest.
To those who say Chavez didn't do enough, I say You'd have surrendered in 2002 and the
Revolution would've died with you.
I closely watched Chavez and Venezuela. The most important accomplishment was getting the
Bolivarian Constitution composed and passed into existence. The 2nd most important feat was
constructing TeleSur as before it and the myriad low-power radio stations also devised there
was only the elite-owned BigLie Media, Venezuelan edition. Those two stellar accomplishments
allowed Venezuelans to participate in and defend their democracy . Contemporaneous
with those developments was the rapid drive to improve literacy, for participatory democracy
demands a literate citizenry. IIRC, literacy went from @40% to 90+% in time for the vote on
the Constitution. And those are just the basic fundamentals. Land reform and redistribution
was attempted as was reorganizing the petroleum industry. Could Chavez have instituted more
radical reform? Yes, but at substantial risk. The recent developments prompted me to suggest
that Maduro go all the way and nationalize all important businesses since he really has
nothing to lose. But I'm not there observing everything, so my suggestion isn't totally
credible. It's hard not to want vengeance on the reactionary forces and their stooges; but as
the Russian and Chinese Civil Wars proved, it's probably better to eject those forces and
most of its stooges and struggle without whatever expertise they provided.
Have you forgotten? 1975: CIA + MI5/6 coup against Australian Prime Minister Gough
Whitlam.
...
Same as it ever was
Posted by: Desolation Row | Feb 22, 2019 2:03:24 PM | 34
No, I haven't forgotten.
What makes Gene Sharp's AUSTRALIA claim so bizarre is that the entire purpose of his various
Regime Change Bibles is to provide cherry-picked seeds for large anti-govt protests in order
to create the illusion of a Citizen's Popular Uprising as a prelude to "Step Down"
demands.
But that's not what happened to Whitlam. There were no pre-Step Down public protests. He
was the victim of a Palace Coup contrived by politicians who ignored the Will of The People
when making their moves.
It's 'interesting' because...
1. Gene Sharp claims Whitlam's demise as a victory for his teachings.
2. It bore no resemblance whatsoever to his recommended template.
3. Sharp was often accused of being funded by the CIA, which he tries to laugh off in the
doco.
4. But he's claimed a behind-the-scenes manipulation victory, with CIA and British Empire
fingerprints all over it, as a Gene Sharp victory.
To those who say Chavez didn't do enough, I say You'd have surrendered in 2002 and the
Revolution would've died with you.
Agreed.
I closely watched Chavez and Venezuela. The most important accomplishment was getting the
Bolivarian Constitution composed and passed into existence. The 2nd most important feat was
constructing TeleSur as before it and the myriad low-power radio stations also devised there
was only the elite-owned BigLie Media, Venezuelan edition. Those two stellar accomplishments
allowed Venezuelans to participate in and defend their democracy . Contemporaneous
with those developments was the rapid drive to improve literacy, for participatory democracy
demands a literate citizenry. IIRC, literacy went from @40% to 90+% in time for the vote on
the Constitution. And those are just the basic fundamentals. Land reform and redistribution
was attempted as was reorganizing the petroleum industry.
Good summary, thank you. Clearly, Chávez had a monumental task. He died far too
soon.
Could Chavez have instituted more radical reform? Yes, but at substantial risk.
Indeed. Leaving hostile oligarchs in place has the substantial risk that they could stab
the revolution in the back. (Because of this, Putin has to be very careful.)
A democratic change of government has the advantage that the change can be accomplished
with little bloodshed, at least at first, and the disadvantage that the change is unlikely to
last: Brazil will be undoing everything Lula did.
I would like to add another country, besides the USSR and China, that was able to
industrialize after overcoming its elites: the USA.
It's hard not to want vengeance on the reactionary forces and their stooges; but as the
Russian and Chinese Civil Wars proved, it's probably better to eject those forces and most of
its stooges and struggle without whatever expertise they provided.
So the poor people of Venezuela are being attacked by: a) rich and middle-class people of
Venezuela, who withhold food and essential products from them, as well as put them under
extreme stress by creating hyperinflation, b) the United States, reducing Venezuela income
and thus reducing its ability to help its poor. Then these two groups claim to be so worried
about the plight of the poor that they threaten military action against the Venezuelan armed
forces staffed by the same Venezuelan poor, unless the democratically elected, legitimate
President of the poor is removed and an illegitimate usurper, President of the rich, is
installed. Inversion is the hallmark of a sociopath.
One cannot focus exclusively on one border. Since assuming command in November of US
Southern Command, US Admiral Faller has "visited" Brazil and Curaçao, Trinidad &
Tobago and Columbia -- all surrounding Venezuela -- as well as El Salvador, Guatemala and
Honduras.
"Humanitarian hubs" were established during these visits in Colombia, Brazil and
Curacao, with the agreement of NATO bloc member Netherlands which controls the island's
defence and foreign policy.
Naval deployments cannot be ignored either, as the post on the USS Abraham Lincoln
reminds. The HMCS Charlottetown is also in that area, with the ship's transponder turned
off.
The decision of the Maduro government to close the border with Brazil and the maritime
border with Curacao is correct and in defence of his country's sovereignty. It also confirms
there is far more ominous moves afoot than advertised in the psychological war by American
actors such as Sen Marco Rubio grandstanding with US Air Force transport aircraft and cookies
in Cúcata, Colombia or the forthcoming concert on Feb. 23 in that city of the
billionaire Richard Branson of the "white man's burden" type. At the same time, the situation
is very fluid.
Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez, at a press conference for the national and
international media, held at Minrex headquarters, February 19, 2019, pointed out:
The Revolutionary Government statement dated February 13, with full responsibility and
all necessary facts, affirmed, and I reiterate, that U.S. military transport flights are
taking place, originating at U.S. military installations from which operate special forces
units and marine infantry used for undercover actions, including those directed against
leaders or persons considered valuable.
Entirely without the knowledge of governments in the areas involved, and with total
disregard for the sovereignty of these states, the preparation of a military action
continues, using a humanitarian pretext.
Yesterday afternoon, President Donald Trump and other high-ranking functionaries and
spokespeople for the U.S. government repeated and confirmed that the military option is among
those being considered. Yesterday, the President said: All options are open.
According to the media in the U.S. itself, high-ranking U.S. military commands, which
do not, have never, taken charge of humanitarian aid, have held meetings with politicians in
the U.S. and other nations, and have made visits to sites clearly related to the issue we are
addressing.
Rebuttal Speech by Venezuela's Minister of Defense leaves no doubt as to the loyalty of
the military and puts all the Gringo neocons in their place. While not too long, I thought
this verbal pointed stick at the end of his explanation of what it takes to lead in Venezuela
was great:
"You of course have to be elected and get a majority of votes. After you gain the
majority of votes, the people will have freely expressed their voluntary willingness.
Indirect elections occur in the United States. In Venezuela, we have direct elections
according to the procedures of National Electoral Council."
The point being, Trump is NOT a man of the people's choosing and has zero authority to
command anything Venezuelan.
Someone mentioned the Treaty of Rome and the insane idea that Venezuela could be indicted
for a war crime which is totally ludicrous as it's very plain that the Outlaw US Empire's
been in violation of international law over its illegal sanctions and other measures that are
indeed War Crimes and crimes against its own constitution.
IMO, Venezuela should only fear the nuclear assets of the Outlaw US Empire. Yet, employing
them will only serve to contaminate the very resources the Empire wants to steal and in
reality are useless. Neither the Colombian or Brazilian militaries have the proper assets
to secure a victory over Venezuela's military, nor does the Outlaw US Empire unless it
commits all its Naval & Marine assault assets--and even then those won't be enough. One
of the key indicators being ignored by the Empire is that many in the Opposition are against
any invasion of their nation, and that the small 5th Column will quickly evaporate once the
civilian slaughter begins.
Other musings: How many Venezuelan pilots have secretly received combat training in
Syria once this confrontation loomed and are not green as anticipated? What about all those
munitions captured by Syria, particularly all those TOWs, RPGs and enough small arms to
outfit at least one entire division?
Trump's to meet Kim Feb 27-28, but will 23 Feb and follow-on events nullify that? (I
expect there to be a pan-Korean celebration of the 100th anniversary of the March 1st Movement Kim
ought to deem of greater import.)
Then there's the reaction to Putin's challenge to do the math.
Trump Likes 'Beautiful' Border Walls - Venezuela Should Build Him OneHmpf ,
Feb 20, 2019 10:36:09 AM |
link
Aaron Mate, who is currently on the ground in
Venezuela (vid), notes how Trump early on targeted Venezuela:
Aaron Maté @aaronjmate - 20:59 utc - 18 Feb 2019
Page 136 of McCabe's new book, recounting a 2017 Oval Office meeting: "Then the president
talked about Venezuela. That's the country we should be going to war with, he said. They
have all that oil and they're right on our back door."
It is not only Trump's idea to 'regime change' Venezuela. Ever since 1998, when Hugo
Chavez was elected, the U.S. plotted to
'regime change' Venezuela. It was Obama who put sanctions on the country. Right wing
economists have for years thought up detailed plans on
how to rob Venezuela of its national assets .
Plan A for the recent coup attempt
failed when the Venezuelan military did not accept Random Guyido's brazen claim to the
presidency. There was no plan B. The U.S. is now improvising. The delivery of "humanitarian
aid" is a pretext to break the border between Colombia and Venezuela.
U.S. government "aid" is always political. U.S. aid workers are suspects. Consider these
USAID RED teams which
a 2018 study , commissioned by the U.S. foreign aid agency, recommended:
RED Team officers, the report explains, would carry out development activities, but they
would also have training and expertise that are not typically included in USAID job
requirements.
"RED Team personnel would be able to live and work in austere environments for extended
periods of time and actively contribute to their own security and welfare. They would be
deployed farther forward than USAID personnel traditionally deploy and would routinely
operate under the authority of the host agency with whom they deploy, acting in accordance
with their security posture," the report reads.
"RED team members would be trained and authorized to conduct themselves as a
force-multiplier able to contribute a full suite of security skills as needed," it
says.
USAID officers will also be special forces? Special forces will also be USAID workers?
Which is it? How many of these 'Red Teams' are now in Colombia waiting to cross into
Venezuela?
On Saturday February 23 a breach of the Venezuelan border will be attempted with the
intent to provoke an escalation. That escalation will then be used to justify further action
up to military strikes or even an invasion.
How exactly the game will be played out is still not
clear :
Despite the tough language, it remained unclear how the Venezuelan opposition would break
Mr. Maduro's blockade of the border with a delivery of food and medication on Saturday. Mr.
Trump's own national security adviser said the American military -- which has airlifted
tons of supplies to Venezuela's doorstep on the Colombia border -- will not cross into the
country.
The so called "aid" is also supposed to come via sea and through the border with Brazil.
To prevent that Venezuela
closed down the maritime border with the Dutch Caribbean Islands:
The closure blocks movement of boats and aircraft between the western Venezuelan coastal
state of Falcon and the islands of Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao, said Vice Admiral Vladimir
Quintero, who heads a military unit in Falcon. He did not provide a reason.
The Brazil route is for now too remote for the desired media attention.
Everything will concentrate on the border crossing with Colombia near the Colombian city
of Cúcuta:
Leaders of several Latin American nations plan to travel to Colombia's border with
Venezuela on Friday ahead of the delivery of aid, Chilean President Sebastian Pinera said
on Tuesday, adding that he had accepted an invitation from Colombia's president, Ivan
Duque.
It was not immediately clear which leaders would attend. Most Latin American countries
now recognize Guaido as president, though Bolivia, Cuba and Nicaragua still support
Maduro.
Billionaire businessman Richard Branson is backing a "Live Aid"-style concert on Friday
in the Colombian border city of Cucuta with a fundraising target of $100 million to provide
food and medicine for Venezuela. Maduro's government has announced two rival concerts just
across the border.
Pink Floyd musician Roger Waters spoke out (video) against
the Richard Branson's Not-really-for-AID concert and the U.S. 'regime change' attempt in
Venezuela:
Roger Waters @rogerwaters - 22:57 utc - 18 Feb
2019
The Red Cross and the UN, unequivocally agree, don't politicize aid. Leave the Venezuelan
people alone to exercise their legal right to self determination.
On Saturday, when the U.S. proxy crowd will try to cross the border with unneeded "aid"
some sniper shooting is likely to happen while dozens of cameras roll. Any casualties will be
blamed on the Venezuelan military. The incident will be the propaganda pretext for further
U.S. action. Already days ago Russia's Foreign Ministry warned of such 'false flag' attacks:
A provocation, involving victims, is being put together under the guise of a humanitarian
convoy," Zakharova stressed. "They need it just as a pretext to use outside force, and
everyone should understand that."
Trumps National Security Advisor is preparing the field:
John Bolton @AmbJohnBolton - 1:41 utc - 20 Feb
2019
The Venezuelan military must uphold its duty to protect civilians at the Colombian and
Brazilian borders, and allow them to peacefully bring in humanitarian aid without violence
or fear of persecution.
John Bolton @AmbJohnBolton - 2:14 utc - 20 Feb
2019
Any actions by the Venezuelan military to condone or instigate violence against peaceful
civilians at the Colombian and Brazilian borders will not be forgotten. Leaders still have
time to make the right choice.
Venezuela is not in need of U.S. aid. It is need of an end to the economic sanctions that
put it under a medieval siege. There is no current lack of food or medicine like in Yemen
though some products may run short.
The UN, the Red Cross and Caritas already have aid distribution projects within Venezuela.
They reject the U.S. aid delivery as a political stunt. The International Committee of the
Red Cross recently
doubled its budget for Venezuela to $18 million and is ready to provide more. Last week
933 tonnes of medicines from Cuba and China arrived. Another 300 tons from Russia is
supposed to arrive today.
The Venezuelan government has had enough time to game out how best to respond to the
breach attempt of the border. It needs to block the roads AND it needs to prevent
provocations. Trump likes walls on the border. Venezuela should give them to him.
"I don't mind having a big beautiful door in that wall so that people can come into this
country legally. But we need, Jeb, to build a wall, we need to keep illegals out." - Donald
Trump - Aug 6 2015 GOP
debate
My advise to Venezuela is to use high concrete barricades with barbed wire and mines in
front of them across all vehicle border crossings points. The purpose of the mines is to
prevent attempts to remove the wire and the barricades. Large posters should warn of the
deadly danger of the mines. If someone gets hurt by them, it will clearly be their own
fault.
Passage on foot must be allowed as usual. Armed soldiers should be kept out of sight.
Trump said a lot about the national security need for " beautiful walls ." A large banner with a relevant Trump
quote should top each of the barricaded crossings.
Posted by b on February 20, 2019 at 10:12 AM |
Permalink 'The Brazil route is for now too remote for the desired media attention.'
Maybe, maybe not. There's a new airport at St. Helena and by car/bus it's easily
accessible too.
Boa Vista, Brazil isn't that far off and it's a nice little highway stretching all the way up
to Ciudad Bolivar. In the 90s this has been a major route for drug trafficking into Brazil
and across the Atlantic ocean, not sure if this is still the case as I haven't been down
there for a long time but that road certainly could handle some traffic.
Merida, February 18, 2019 (venezuelanalysis.com) – Venezuelan authorities have
expelled six deputies of the European Parliament (EP) this Sunday after denying them
entrance to the country.
The European politicians, who travelled in a personal capacity, had previously been
warned through diplomatic channels that they would not be allowed in the country, but the
group opted to proceed with the trip.
The delegation was made up of MEP Esteban Gonzalez Pons, MEP Jose Ignacio Salafranca,
and MEP Gabriel Mato, all from Spain's hard-right Popular Party.Also present were MEP Juan
Salafranca from Spain's European People's Party; MEP Esther de Lange of the Dutch Christian
Democratic party, and MEP Paulo Rangel from Portugal's Social Democratic Party.
PS: Apparently they've headed for Cucuta in Colombia and now Richard Branson has got into the
act!
Following their denied entry, the deputies accepted an invitation from Colombia's Foreign
Ministry to travel to the Venezuelan-Colombian border city of Cucuta to attend a concert
sponsored by Virgin CEO Richard Branson on Saturday, when Guaido plans to see US-supplied
"humanitarian aid" cross the border, despite orders from Maduro to block it.
Roger Waters versus Richard Branson. The BBC appreciates the entertainment value.
"To say Venezuela is in the middle of a political crisis would be an understatement.
President Nicolás Maduro is locked in a power struggle with Juan Guaidó, an
opposition politician and the self-declared interim leader of the country.
So what better way to make the situation less complicated than to add a spat between one
of the world's richest people and the bass player from Pink Floyd?
"
Yes... it's a pretty weird situation.
They should fill the roads at the borders with trucks. Pointing into Venezuela. Backs of the
trucks wide open, ready for lading the aid that the west is so generously providing.
thanks b... as you note - > "On Saturday February 23 a breach of the Venezuelan border
will be attempted with the intent to provoke an escalation. That escalation will then be used
to justify further action up to military strikes or even an invasion." the intent of the usa
and it's gang of puppets is on full display right here...
Craig
Murray today without any qualification whatsoever stated matter-of-factly:
"... the Saudi backed jihadist group Daesh, originally launched by the CIA as a
counterweight to Shia influence in Iraq ."
We here at MoA have written similarly; but aside from General Flynn, few people having any
"weight" have said so straightforwardly that Daesh is yet another Death Squad CIA construct,
which is what a CIA "counterweight" is always. IMO, the fact that the Outlaw US Empire
created its own adversary for multiple uses hasn't been shouted out nearly enough, just as
al-Qaeda's genesis and usage is similarly glossed over by far too many who know better.
Now that the Hybrid Third World War is opening a new theatre of operations in South
America where the CIA has previously created Death Squads in almost every one of its nations,
we must anticipate the creation of yet another such "auxiliary" force, perhaps consisting of
those specially trained USAID personnel. We know CIA was deeply involved in Colombia's
various drug cartels and the quasi-governmental Death Squads used against Unionists and other
members of the public, and that even corporations like Coca-Cola provided monies for the
"services" of such Squads. IMO, a recap of Outlaw US Empire terrorist operations South of the
Border is demanded by the operation targeting Venezuela.
This travesty gets more and more bizarre.
It seems a classic battle between good and evil and I hope that justice prevails for a
change. Viva Venezuela.
Not mines, but rather tons of manure next to the barrier. Effective, but harmless and
cheap.
Nah, most people can cope with manure as it is usual of vegetarian origin. Pig shit is
better but the one most people have a problem with is human faeces. The Russians should loan
Venezuela a couple of their Il-76 fire fighting aircraft. Dropping 40 tons each of waste
water loaded with human faeces would discourage most people. But a better solution would be
two-three Bunning Lowlander Widebody – 380 HD HBD on each road the "humanitarians"
intend to use. Hell, I'd help crowdfund them if John Bolton and Elliott Abrams were on the
receiving end of a giant pig shit pile.
I can't believe Branson doesn't understand that he's participating in an attempted coup that
could destroy a country. If this border stunt turns into a war he will have blood on his
hands. What a terrible move, all of his companies should be boycotted from here on out.
Amazing this guy wants to get personally involved with the empire's assault on Venezuela,
maybe he was promised some sort of future deal concerning the nation's natural resources?
USAID already has a doubtful reputation, as everything that is supplied by them MUST
be made in the US. One example; even the painted letters on the food sacks must be by
US made paints put on by US personnel on US made sacks . The desired effect seems to
have been to destroy local markets and producers by providing free food that can only be
supplied from the US.(this happened in Africa) Thus making them dependent.
So now as guns are the principal US export, it is not hard to see what the "aid" will
consist of.
The most critical part in deflating the US moves will be ensuring the sniper teams and other
proxies, local or foreign, that will instigate the violence on the 23rd are taken out and
taken out just as the US begins its move.
As a U.S. citizen maybe I should take a little satisfaction that for all the money my govt
spends, at least they are good at something. Granted, it is in all of the wrong things,
information warfare, subversion, causing global chaos and blaming others but we are genius at
doing that if nothing else.
We are the Dr. Smith of the world but wihtout any of his redeeming qualities.
Venezuela
Analysis provides an article that ought to be entitled "Academic War Criminals" or
"Academic Societal Rapists" whose aim is "to bring back the 'wonderful Venezuela of old,' as
in pre-1998 Chavez that requires destroying everything done to improve the lot of the poor
majority:
"The post-coup Venezuelan economy will not be all about mathematically rigorous
experiments in economic growth like Hausmann's academic work. It will be about the
privatization of Venezuela's assets ." [My Emphasis]
This Harvard academic, Hausmann, ought to be known as an academic terrorist, for what he
promotes is terrorism:
"Hausmann's 2004 statistical gambit is actually an established part of the U.S.-coup
playbook. The academic analysis of an election and the finding of flaws, real or imagined,
in an electoral process are the beginning of an ongoing claim against the target's democratic
legitimacy. The created flaw is then repeated and emphasized. Even if it was spurious and
debunked, as was Hausmann's 2004 analysis, it can continue to perform in media campaigns
against the target. After years of such repetition, the target can safely be called a
'dictator' in Western media, even if the 'dictator' has more electoral legitimacy than most
Western politicians." [My Emphasis]
The article discusses a few other similar academic terrorists connected with events in
Haiti and Colombia. The entire Terrorist Network within the Outlaw US Empire is vast and
exists in places some would deem odd. It's also rather lucrative for those willing to abase
themselves as terrorists and clean too since the blood spilt is done at a comfortable, unseen
distance. Such academics must be exposed as the terrorists they are. This article exposes but
a few of the hundreds whose work aims at destroying entire societies; perhaps they ought to
be known as Genocidalists.
The initial step's been taken, but even if a special session of the UNSC is convened,
little of substance will come of it since FUKUS would veto any useful resolution or
declaration. Push back is happening
:
#FromTheSouth | The Venezuelan armed forces have rejected calls by the US president to
turn their backs on President @NicolasMaduro, condemning Trump for promoting terrorism
." [My Empasis]
Yes, it's indeed terrorism to do what Trump's now doing and what every previous US
President has done since 1945. The Outlaw US Empire is modern Terrorism's Mother &
Father.
Ultimately Suicidal. A country ruled by a dynasty of Gollums.
It's not like the US has a chance no matter what because they don't want to nuke the oil.
Venezuela will be harder than Viet Nam and the US didn't do too well there, didn't learn
anything from it and forgot more.
Both Russia and China will involve themselves more if needed, zero doubt about it. If one
compares with the Viet Nam war they already have done what they did then and this is already
in advance of any potential war. "Supplies!" like a certain joke ends :D
In Venezuela there is nothing to compare to South Viet Nam, Brazil will not capoeira
themselves across the border in any meaningful manner, there's only a few neighborhoods of
spoilt rich people inside Venezuela that act as dead weight.
As for US Aid "RED teams" (Red? Naming fail & backronym retardism) it's a big meh in
my opinion. How short is the average lifespan of their (actual) "specials" these days? Three
weeks after first leave as they can't escape constantly reminding themselves of their service
to evil? Poor fuckers thought they were heroes willing to give it all for a just cause and
finally they did at least give something by offing themselves at home thus denying any
further availability to their masters.
Maybe I'm too sympathetic towards them but I lived most of my life believing the same lies
to be true as they did.
Anyway the outcome is clear: given a few years the US will no longer be in any kind of
control of the Caribbean, they are literally giving it away to Russia and China by creating
this situation.
...
No one in the US understands what a carrot is, they think it's some kind of bribe like sex
or drugs, a "kind" threat in advance not to kill you if you roll over, some kind of veiled
stick used in the middle ages (possibly an arcane torture device), or simply an orange
("carrot is orange").
Sir Richard always brings to mind both the vacuous "smiley-face" icon, and Chaucer's image of
"the smiler with the knife under his cloak". He is obviously an overclass Sheriff of
Nottingham who markets himself as a benevolent, contrarian Robin Hood.
The Venezuelan Caper is rotten from top to bottom, and Trump is wholly complicit; unlike
his previous adventures, there's no indication that he's somehow "playing his own game" and
provisionally giving his neocon Hounds of Hell room to run only to abruptly pull back on the
leash when it suits him.
Even so, I personally distrust the odious McCabe's tendentious and utterly self-serving
assertions.
"Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus" is a Latin phrase meaning "false in one thing,
false in everything." It is an ancient common-law principle that a witness who testifies
falsely about one matter is not credible to testify about any matter.
This standard is easily abused, and problematic because even testimony full of lies and
deceit usually contains some truth. But I'm surprised that the best-selling Trump-critical
potboilers, including the dubious Bob Woodward's "Fear: Trump in the White House"* mercenary
exercise in blatant fearmongering, are regarded as reliable and trustworthy.
In this case, Trump may have said exactly what McCabe quoted. But I'm not taking
McCabe's word for it.
___________________________________
* NB (nota Bernhard) : The "U" HTML tag listed under "Allowed HTML Tags" doesn't
work. It's a minor problem, but I hope that it can be enabled.
This opinion piece is from earlier in the month, but gives a pair of photos describing the
bridge near Cucuta, which b's map shows straddling the Pan-American Highway which runs out of
Columbia to the Carribean shore in Venezuela, close to the Tortugas. The photos show the
bridge barricaded at both ends, which would seem to indicate that neither country wanted it.
Who did, I wonder?
So long as Maduro has the backing of the army and the people are fed [here Russia and China
can help out]the US can only huff and puff,in the longer term new sales to sympathetic states
must be a priority. How many of the opposition would be willing to be slaughtered in order to
install Trump's appointee, not that many I'll bet. In my opinion International Law is dead,
we are now entering into the period [thanks to the US] where Mao's doctrine is becoming fact
"Power grows out the barrel of a gun"
Partisan Girl explores an
important topic related to the rights of combatants, not that the Outlaw US Empire
respects them, but it seems the UK and others are tussling with the issue but not for their
announced reasons:
"The @foreignpolicy magazine is hell-bent on pushing the idea that #ISIS wives are
protected by international law. It's because they have to make the same legal argument for
Israeli "settlers" and they don't want there to be a precedent."
The short thread is worth reading.
Blooming Barricade , Feb 20, 2019 3:15:00 PM |
link
If Trump wanted a wall, surely he could use those phoney psyop trucks to block the US-Mexico
border? They seem to have the money and chutzpah to do it?
If I were advising the Venezuelan army I would keep a close look (for a false-flag event or
some other infiltration attempts into Venezuela by easily disguised concert goers) at the
Live Aid Concert that is scheduled to
take place this Friday Feb. 22 near the Venezuelan border in Colombian town of Cucuta.
This venue provides a distraction and a good way to blend into the crowd for any hostile
forces to smuggle weapons, personnel one day ahead of the so-called "humanitarian-aid"
crossings.
Here is a red-flag as to who asked for this Live Aid Concert:
So who asked Richard Branson to do this?
Mr Branson says it was a direct request from Mr Guaidó and opposition leader
Leopoldo López .
It's a simple solution for the Venezuelan government. Friday evening close the Bridge and
then detonate the entire or half of the structure. Then announce the other half is covered
with explosives.
I really wish it was realistic for US citizens to stage protest marches on this, perhaps we
will if the Trump administration decides to provoke a military confrontation.
But the propaganda blitz has probably neutered the ability to do so, with almost everyone
I know fully believing that Maduro is an unelected dictator, murderous thug and that
SOSHULIZMS ruins EVERYTNING!!! Waaaaaaah....
No mentions are made of the draconian sanctions, continual sabotage, theft of the
Venezuelan gov't and people's money/gold, constant coup attempts, and all of it stretching
back decades, across Republican and Democrat Presidential administrations.
But you gotta give 'em credit - the corporate "liberal" MSM (and right-wing media) are
afraid of any change or perceived threat to the crony corporate Wall Street MIC cabal's
control of the gov't and economy and the corresponding hit to their quarterly bonuses and EPS
at the stock market. So they're doing everything they can, and the aforementioned propaganda
blitz (as coined by Media Lens and reprinted by FAIR.org) is actually much more all
encompassing than just Venezuela regime change. This is a concerted war on Democratic
Socialism and any new regulations on the banks and corps that rule the Western countries.
@27 "In this case, Trump may have said exactly what McCabe quoted. But I'm not taking
McCabe's word for it."
Here's another source which highlights Trump's early propensity to get involved in
Venezuela:
Donald Trump repeatedly raised the possibility of invading Venezuela in talks with his
top aides at the White House , according to a new report.
Trump brought up the subject of an invasion in public in August last year,
saying: "We have many options for Venezuela, including a possible military option, if
necessary." But the president's musings about the possibility of a US invasion were more
extensive and persistent than that public declaration , according to the Associated
Press.
The previous day Trump reportedly took his top officials by surprise in an Oval
Office meeting, asking why the US could not intervene to remove the government of
Nicolás Maduro on the grounds that Venezuela's political and economic unraveling
represented a threat to the region.
...
The administration officials are said to have taken turns in trying to talk him out
of the idea , pointing out that any such military action would alienate Latin American
allies who had supported the US policy of punitive sanctions on the Maduro regime.
Their arguments do not seem to have dissuaded the president .
...
In the weeks that followed, Trump remained preoccupied with the idea of an
invasion , according to AP. Shortly after the Bedminister remarks, he raised the issue
with the Colombian president, Juan Manuel Santos, and then brought it up again at that
year's UN general assembly in September, at a private dinner with allied Latin American
states.
At that dinner, Trump made clear he was ignoring the advice of his aides.
"My staff told me not to say this," Trump said and then asked the other leaders at
the table in turn, if they were sure they didn't want a military solution.
McMaster finally succeeding in persuading Trump of the dangers of an invasion ,
the report said, and the president's interest in the notion subsided.
Seems like saturday (the 23rd) could be a busy day.
1/ The "Aid" convoy tries to enter Venezuela.
2/ Gaydo as "interim" president comes to the end of the 30 day period he is allowed. (....in
the case of an incapacitated President), but as Speaker of the Assembly - he has immunity.
BUT can he be both at once, Speaker and President? Will Maduro arrest him at that date?
3/ The destroyer "Donald Cook" is in the Black Sea, and is supposed to participate in
"exercises" with the Ukrainian Navy, In front of Odessa and - the Kersh Strait. (Also on the
23 if my memory serves me correctly, but I may have mistaken the month !). Provocation
planned?
A big wind up for the big event on Saturday. I think the US would want all eyes and media
attention to be there when 'innocent' people delivering 'aid' will be shot or whatever,
rather than distracted by Ukraine.
I posted some of my thoughts about Putin's State of the Nation Address made earlier today
at
previous Russia-related thread , but rather doubt few have bothered to read them or the
speech itself. Putin's speech was mostly directed at Domestic issues with Foreign Policy
saved for the end. What Putin says in that regard impacts every conceivable topic we might
discuss here. I ought to copy/paste the entire portion of Putin's speech devoted to relations
with the Outlaw US Empire, but b discourages overly-long citations; so, click here and scroll down to the
paragraph beginning thusly:
"The unilateral withdrawal of the USA "
However, the following three paragraphs deserve to be highlighted--Russian media certainly
thought so, too--which are toward the speech's closing remarks:
"Let me say outright that this is not true. Russia wants to have sound, equal and friendly
relations with the USA. Russia is not threatening anyone, and all we do in terms of security
is simply a response, which means that our actions are defensive. We are not interested in
confrontation and we do not want it, especially with a global power like the United States of
America. However, it seems that our partners fail to notice the depth and pace of change
around the world and where it is headed. They continue with their destructive and clearly
misguided policy . This hardly meets the interests of the USA itself. But this is not for
us to decide.
"We can see that we are dealing with proactive and talented people, but within the elite,
there are also many people who have excessive faith in their exceptionalism and supremacy
over the rest of the world. Of course, it is their right to think what they want. But can
they count? Probably they can. So let them calculate the range and speed of our future arms
systems. This is all we are asking: just do the maths first and take decisions that create
additional serious threats to our country afterwards . It goes without saying that these
decisions will prompt Russia to respond in order to ensure its security in a reliable and
unconditional manner.
"I have already said this, and I will repeat that we are ready to engage in disarmament
talks, but we will not knock on a locked door anymore. We will wait until our partners are
ready and become aware of the need for dialogue on this matter ." [My Emphasis]
I rather doubt Putin's well meaning message will have its desired impact, for as he said
those in power are essentially deluded by their thoughts. Unfortunately, the only part of the
speech likely to be highlighted is the Italicized portion while the bolded remainder gets
ignored:
" I would like to emphasise again that we need peace for sustainable long-term
development . Our efforts to enhance our defence capability are for only one purpose:
to ensure the security of this country and our citizens so that nobody would even consider
pressuring us, or launching an aggression against us.
Also, I rather doubt Bolton, Pompeo and company can do the math.
BBC pretends that Roger Waters's only role in Pink Floyd was as bass player. Who was
the singer and songwriter then?
Question should be rephrased: Who was the Pink Floyd songwriter who wrote all the lyrics
to the band's best known albums "The Dark Side of the Moon", "Wish You Were Here", "Animals"
and "The Wall" then?
In a two-minute video posted on Twitter, the musician says Mr Branson's "Live-Aid-ish"
concert has "nothing to do with humanitarian aid at all".
The Red Cross and the UN, unequivocally agree, don't politicize aid. Leave the
Venezuelan people alone to exercise their legal right to self determination.
pic.twitter.com/I0yS3u75b6
-- Roger Waters (@rogerwaters) February 18, 2019
Report
"It has to do with Richard Branson, and I'm not surprised by this, having bought the US
saying: 'We have decided to take over Venezuela, for whatever our reasons may be,'" Mr
Waters says.
"But it has nothing to do with the needs of the Venezuelan people, it has nothing to do
with democracy, it has nothing to do with freedom, and it has nothing to do with aid."
He adds that he has "friends that are in Caracas" who claim there is "no civil war, no
mayhem, no murder, no apparent dictatorship, no suppression of the press".
So who asked Richard Branson to do this?
Mr Branson says it was a direct request from Mr Guaidó and opposition leader
Leopoldo López.
Skip Twitter post by @richardbranson
The humanitarian crisis in Venezuela worsens every day. Join Venezuela Aid Live, support
the cause to help the country's suffering people https://t.co/0ARSI1GpBk pic.twitter.com/IIg8sxGlGh
-- Richard Branson (@richardbranson) February 15, 2019
Report
End of Twitter post by @richardbranson
In an earlier social media video, the billionaire says: "Juan Guaidó, who has
been recognised as Venezuela's legitimate president by over 40 nations, and the EU, and
Leopoldo López, an opposition leader currently under house arrest in Caracas, have
asked us to help organise a beautiful concert, to help bring global attention to this
unacceptable, and preventable, crisis."
Mr López has been under house arrest since 2014.
Who is going to perform?
An official line-up hasn't been released yet but a few celebrities have confirmed that
they're taking part.
The concert's organisers have also released a list of 32 people they have invited to
perform, which includes young Latin stars Rudy Mancuso, Juanes and Despacito singer Luis
Fonsi, and Swedish DJ Alesso.
Lele Pons, a Venezuelan-American singer and actress who was the most-looped individual
on Vine before it shut down in 2016, and Venezuelan singer Danny Ocean have both released
videos saying that they will perform.
Thanks for the response, but don't put away the salt just yet.
The Guardian isn't the bastion of dispassionate, objective reporting it pretends to be. So
I read the linked story with particular interest in its sources for the material you
quoted.
I wasn't surprised to find this telling explanation:
Quoting an unnamed senior administration official, the AP report said the suggestion
stunned those present at the meeting, which included the then national security adviser, HR
McMaster, and secretary of state, Rex Tillerson. Both have since left the
administration.
So once again, all of the ominous quotes are allegedly derived from, or
provided by, an uncorroborated anonymous source-- moreover, a "senior administration
official"; such seemingly authoritative sources are notorious for using the "on background"
convention to vent personal pique or ideological dissatisfaction.
And the Associated Press is also notorious for its consent-manufacturing bias.
The entire Russophobia campaign, and other current Big Lie-based stories, have been rife
with multiple uncorroborated sources appearing to validate each other. Unfortunately, this
strategy exploits the rational tendency to assume that a fact is authentic and reliable if it
seems to be corroborated and confirmed by multiple sources.
Usually, confirmation bias blinds targets of this strategy to the possibility that the
confirmation is spurious because some or all of the "multiple sources" are mendacious.
So I'm not impressed or persuaded by The Guardian passing on multiple hearsay from
compromised, or at least dubious sources: "Some unidentified but important insider told AP,
and they told us" just doesn't cut it.
@42 I guess they want to make it difficult for the border guards to stop Venezuelans going to
the concert on Friday. Then the next day they will head back home with their free stuff.
Their bags will need to be searched of course so that will help to get everybody riled up for
the cameras.
A repeat of the Las Vegas Concert Massacre, perhaps. Good to see people commenting at your
provided link about the situation's reality and calling out Branson for his support for
Imperialism and its crimes. I'm sure Branson can get Pussy Riot to appear, but what of any
legitimate musical groups as none are cited. I wonder if Russian satellite tech's progressed
so it can pick out individual humans--like snipers--amidst all else? Indeed, how would one
plan to deter this probable provocation?
The Guardian is a lying sack of imperialist shit, masquerading as a leftwing paper.
Outrageous, the stuff fascism is made of.
El Cartero Atómico , Feb 20, 2019 5:44:58 PM |
link
As a citizen of the US it's interesting that so many of these pro-war/intervention people
like Trump, Abrams and Bolton were draft dodgers during the Vietnam War. Several years ago I
read a History of Rome and one of the few things I remember was that around 80 Roman Senators
were killed in the Battle of Cannae against Hannibal. How many of the pro intervention types
in our government would be be willing to serve on the front lines like the Roman politicians?
I think we would have a lot fewer interventions and wars if they and their families had to
fight in any war they started.
It will be very difficult to prevent a provocation, but even if the US manage to get their
news footage of people delivering so called aid being shot, or whatever is planned for them,
Russia will be stepping in.
I have notice a change in rhetoric from the Russian leadership over the past few weeks. I
suspect Putin's speech you referred to earlier officially marks a turning point in the way
Russia deals with the US and its machinations.
The organizer of the event, British billionaire Richard Branson, said that it is planned
that up to 300,000 people attend the concert on Friday in Cúcuta, on the border of
Colombia with Venezuela
Perhaps Moscow senses something is about to happen?:
To add to my comment @51, Russia moved into Syria when it was on its last legs and has put
most of it back together. I suspect Russia would have liked a few more years to get its own
house in order before moving back into the world to block US moves.
Now I think we may see Russia willing to stop the US in its tracks as far as US moves on
Venezuela, and willing to escalate as far as the US wishes to take it.
I too share your cynicism at unnamed sources, but my point was when these pieces of
information are then coupled with Trump's own behavior and rhetoric, one tends to lean
towards this overall aggressive posture against Venezuela as more credulous.
Thanks for that. The concert will be at one of the bridges apparently. Ill bet my balls
they are going to use to concert goers for the planned provocation.
Push the fools into delivering so called aid across the border.
I was wondering who would volunteer to be the sacrificial goats.
deja vu of ukraine 2014, but i don't know that the middle class guaido crew are up for it...
i am sure the cia is though.. anyone see nuland handing out cookies on the streets of cucata
yet?? or did they replace her with some other hag?? speaking of hags - richard branscum is
really showing his true colours here..
A couple of press releases that I downloaded from one of the Venezuela aid live sites.
Only in pdf so will copy paste them.
MORE THAN 32 ARTISTS HAVE BEEN
INVITED TO CHANGE VENEZUELA's
HISTORY
The team that organizes Venezuela Aid Live -in collaboration with
Richard Branson- has summoned the following artists to join the cause
and be the musicians that change the history of Latin America this
coming February 22nd at a free concert that will take place at the
Tienditas Bridge, with the aim of raising funds to enter the
humanitarian aid into Venezuela:
THE VENEZUELA AID LIVE
CONCERT WILL TAKE PLACE
AT THE BORDER
VENEZUELA AID LIVE, THE FREE CONCERT that
will take place this Friday, February 22nd, is moving
to Puente Tienditas.
We'll live more than just a concert at this place, we'll
see how Venezuela's freedom doors are opened....
Concert at the Tienditas Bridge and concert goers will also get to see how "Venezuela's
freedom doors are opened". I think that may be a painful experience for many.
@57 dh.. if they are anything like us custom officers, you may as well as stay at home, lol..
iv> What happened to "The Resistance" that was supposed to oppose Trump at
every turn? Why is mainstream media and politics going along with Trump in this coup when they
are against him in everything else?
Posted by: QuietRebel , Feb 20, 2019 6:30:03 PM |
link
What happened to "The Resistance" that was supposed to oppose Trump at every turn? Why is
mainstream media and politics going along with Trump in this coup when they are against him
in everything else?
Posted by: QuietRebel | Feb 20, 2019 6:30:03 PM |
link
Seems to me the only force that can stand up to this US government belligerence are the
citizens of US. A bit of wishful thinking but if they don't want to see their sons and
daughters, not to mention their tax dollars, spent on yet another war of hegemony, they
should be in front of congress, a million man march style, and demand the end of hostilities
and resignation of fuckos like Bolton and Pompeo.
"I repeat for the 1000th time: US 'aid' in Venezuela or any other country has nothing to
do with actually helping people. It is about expanding US power and domination.
"USAID is a regime-change arm. Trump is maki0ng a decades-old US covert strategy
explicit."
Norton provides lots of evidence in the thread to indict ASAID as a supporter of terrorism
over many decades.
Alpi57@62:
"Seems to me the only force that can stand up to this US government belligerence are the
citizens of US."
We would be in deep trouble of that were the case. But it isn't. Syria, half torn apart stood
up to them. So did Iraq, after it had been invaded by the US and a plague of poodles. If
Venezuelans stand their ground they will not just keep invasion at bay but spark a conflict
in the region that will end up with the last friends of America leaving in helicopters from
the roofs of the burning embassies.
Urban warfare requires the kind of practice that our military has been missing, what with
too many drones, bombings, and village firefights. Maybe the Pentagon's reluctance to invade
was simply borne out of lack of training. Now that they have mad skills, they can make Mr.
Bolton proud.
Venezuela's a bi-partisan target which is why the so-called Resistance evaporated just as
Trump knew it would.
Peter AU 1 @53--
Thanks for your reply. I know Russia's providing intel, logistical and material support.
Could there be a Russian sub or two outside Maracaibo? I read somewhere a few days ago that
Venezuelan Air Force was practicing flying Mig-31s armed with the Kinzal hypersonic anti-ship
killer but was unable later to find the link. There's no way an R2P type of UNSCR being
passed. Somehow it must be shown that Venezuelan forces invaded Colombia such that Colombia
calls to the Outlaw US Empire for help in defending itself for any such intervention to be
remotely legal. Refutation of any invasion evidence is paramount, but that's far easier said
than done. Fortunately, Brazilians seem incapacitated by domestic issues, so It's up to
Colombia to act in concert with El Gringo Diablo Norte.
Does Mr. Branson carry liability for any person injured at his concert?
If he is the promoter of this gig, then he should have insurance for this.
Scotch Bingeington , Feb 20, 2019 7:18:18 PM |
link
Outstanding piece, b, thank you!
Meanwhile, the
USS Abraham Lincoln's Carrier Strike Group is crossing the Florida Straits , southbound.
They're in the final stages of naval exercises that are meant to be held before the start
of a mission . The exercises take about a month, and they started on 25 Jan. Easy to see
that Guiado's "big moment of truth" scheduled for 23 Feb was timed with respect to US Navy
needs. I also read that the Lincoln's social media feeds have gone silent recently. Spy
planes are surveying the seas close to Venezuelan waters. In Venezuela, there have been
drills involving their S-300 and Buk-M2 systems. Cuba has been calling out on a lot of
flights from military airports in the US to Caribbean destinations.
All of this doesn't bode well.
There is something else scheduled for on or about February 23. The 30 day expulsion
extension given to the American diplomats is set to expire. It will be interesting to see how
that plays out.
Fallujah, Najaf, Ramadi, Mosul and Baghdad all provided some experience with urban warfare
, and the military has been conducting urban warfare training for awhile. Last year Congress
gave the military instructions to increase the amount of training and submit a report on Feb
1 to describe what is needed to improve urban warfare readiness. A single specialized urban
army unit has been suggested as well as a new and consolidated Army urban training center to
replace the Indiana National Guard's Muscatatuck Urban Training Center
Anyways, it looks like the Empire has plans for more urban wars, perhaps even in the US. I
heard soldiers are asked about their feelings on using arms against US civilians if ordered
to as part of their profiling for future deployments
Economic Zionism[EZ] At work? Recall EZ is a system of economics that demands to control,
ownership and management access to everything, EZ focuses its membership and their
corporations and the Armed rule making Nation States[ARMS] they control on destroying all
competition of whatever kind while at the same time keeping populations in the dark and or
misled. EZ destroys the structures that support, the leadership that represents ownership,
control or authority over any type competition (including oil and gold and privatization
booty). The objects of EZ include use of force, rule of law, and propaganda and are often
used to be sure its adherents are the sole possessors of the valuables found anywhere on the
entire earth. Economic Zionism a system that depends on rule by law for its monopoly powers.
Branson's concert @32 Live Aid concert requested by Mr Guaidó and opposition leader
Leopoldo López could be an example https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-47271182
; certainly the event fits the long history of network powers able to bring monetary and
political forces to any spot sufficient to enable EZ elements to take over or to quash
competition or ownership that restricts EZ access or that competes with it. Branson may not
even be aware ..of the possibilities or how it is he might be used?
I could be wrong but it will take a mountain of facts to convince me otherwise.
Several oil and gold companies want the oil, farming , gold interest as well as several
giants want to privatize much of the state owned service infra structure in Venezuela.
Probably the EZ believe they cannot get adequate public support; it takes time to convince
the governed of foreign nations that it is a crime for Venezuelans to own the oil, gold, and
to provide the water, electric power, and cell phone service to Venezuelans? only the EZ can
make it legal.
These kinds of events are money laundering wet dreams (this one may not be?) and these
kinds of events provide platforms that can be used to persuade EZ all over the world
immediate contributions are necessary to help destroy blatant competition and to convert
Venezuela into another EZ owned monopoly.
It will be interesting to see if accounting for all of the funds raised will be made
public, and if a complete, adequate and uncontroversial accounting is given within a few
days, that clearly shows how, when and to whom the funds were collected from and distributed
to.
Invasion, destruction, removal and replacement of those in the way of EZ are common;
promoting fake news, engineering mind directing, population controlling propaganda and
maintaining absolute back room secrecy are tools of the Economic System known as EZ.
Certainly looks suspicious, but then maybe there is a better explanation?
Private fund raising is always problematic because it allows to hide the source and use of
the money from the public? Promoting and marketing a private fund raising event in one nation
to various other countries, in various languages, keeps secret the flow of funds, both in and
out? I know only one network large enough to pull something like this off, on such short
notice?
From another of the pdf press releases...
"Fundación Solidaridad por Colombia is the strategic ally that will
provide support during the donations collection.
PwC will be the auditor that will ensure total transparency during the
handling of the resources.
Fundación Solidaridad por Colombia is an NGO with 44 years of
experience managing resources for vulnerable populations."
I did a little research on this group, did not find a lot in english, but the woman
running the show is a Columbian who spent a number of years working in Miami and New
York.
Vesti
provides a video clip of the latter portion of Putin's speech some of which I provided
via transcript above that Canthama posted to his Twitter. It's about 11 minutes and fitted
with English subtitles. It's far more dramatic to watch than read, and much of what Putin
says isn't in the bit of transcript I provided. Putin can't be accused of being humorless as
he makes a joke at the European's expense, but the subject matter underlying that joke is no
laughing matter.
23 Feb 2019
Action Alert translated and posted by The Saker in preparation of possible False Flag
Event. No one section is worthy of being read out of context, so I encourage everyone to read
the entire document at the link. Thankfully, numerous FFEs have occurred over the past
several years so we know how they're manipulated such that some counters can be provided.
What can't be initially countered will be the violence used and the lives restored to those
murdered by the Outlaw US Empire--for it most certainly will be the guilty party.
I think I said this before but it seemed what saved the Hugo Chvez government after 2002 was
that the US imperialists' attention was distracted towards conquering Iraq. The US simply did
not have enough forces freely available to finish off Chavez after their failed coup in 2002.
At that time no one predicted that the US was in the process of losing both of the wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq. After those failures the US decided to go to war against Libya and
Syria. Won 1 (at least killed Khadaffi) and lost the other.
In any case the US does have large numbers of troops available for imperial adventures in
other theaters. I fear for the Venezuelans at this time. The US is withdrawing from their
failed ventures in the Mid East while the US threatens and pounds its chest in the Persian
Gulf and the South China Sea -- but no one expects the US military to actually commit itself
to another losing military engagement. Unfortunately, I do fear the US is ready to go to war
in Venezuela -- if they do so decide to do so the Modura government would not last very long.
In the short term that would be considered a victory for the US Neo cons. In the longer term,
say 5 years out, it would likely result in a war on the South American continent that has not
been seen since Bolivar.
Why is Richard Branson putting on a concert for a humanitarian crisis in Venezuela but he
cared squat about the famine in Yemen? Someone get this short-sighted hypocrite a good pair
of bi-focals.
Trump wants Venezuela's oil. I see the shine is finally wearing out on Trump with folks
here. It took Venezuela for everyone to see through the Zionist charlatan. Finally, we're all
on the same page. The best description I've heard yet is calling this humanitarian aid a
Trojan Horse. That's exactly what it is.
So, I have more bad news. Trump is considering Joe Lieberman for U.N. Ambassador. Can you
believe he was considering this Zionist shill to replace Comey at the FBI??? Lieberman thinks
that Howard Shultz entering the 2020 campaign is a positive thing. I believe Schultz will
enter the race to help the chosen one Trump win. It's all fixed.
Finally the road to toppling Tehran turned out not to run through Syria. It runs through
Venezeula.
ToivoS "I do fear the US is ready to go to war in Venezuela"
The good colonel at SST seems quite pleased at the prospect. Shoot some commies, grab some
loot. I guess he is like Trump. Doesn't like endless wars that the US eventually walks away
from without any loot.
According to the link: five (EPP) deputy MEP (European Parliament) persons, Esteban Gonzalez
Pons, Jose Ignacio Salafranca, Gabriel Mato Adrover, Esther de Lange and Paulo Rangel were
invited to Venezuela by Guaido but have had their passports retained, also the link says
Maduro supports the "Montevideo Mechanism," a four-step proposal presented by Mexico,
Uruguay, Bolivia and the Community of Caribbean States (Caricom), a solution mechanism for
domestic crisis. https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2019/02/18/588847/Venezuela-expels-EU-lawmakers
I have to disagree with your assessment. How many more Syrias and Iraqs should happen in
order for the people in US to wake up? How much more innocent blood should be shed for US
citizens to tell their government: live and let live? The days of military might is at an
end. The only force of superiority is an economic one.
Why should we allow this government to muscle in on a little country just on the whim of a
few evil animals like Bolton? They are selling this country to the average citizen on the
illusion of the government of the people, by the people and for the people. Then let the
people exercise that privilege. And that is the only thing that scares this government. The
mob.
I am utterly embarrassed and infuriated by statements of Bolton. He is openly telling
governments is our way or the highway. No country should have that kind of power and/or
mentality. The only force that can eradicate that kind of mentality are the people
themselves. They just need to wake up. I have a feeling they will be forced to soon.
@ all barflies,
In Honduras, the current president receives support from Chump's administration even though
Juan Orlando Hernandez stole millions from the Social Security Institute and other government
ministries to finance his campaign and become very wealthy. Hernandez ran for president
against the honduran constitution, committed electoral fraud and still the business attache
at the US embassy (Heidi Fulton) stood right in front of cameras, where the ballots were
being opened and counted and said that everything was ok with the elections ! She's still
supporting Juan Orlando even though his brother was arrested in the United States on major
drug trafficking charges. Hermano Hernandez was using the army and police to protect his
cocaine shipments to the United States. It seems neo-confederates around Trump need this guy
in power to counter Maduro and keep the honduran masses down. Elites in Honduras violating
their constitution have hosted one of the most strategic US military base in the hemisphere,
the country is also known as USS Honduras... It's known Juan Orlando Hernandez received about
250,000 $ from the Los Cachiros drug cartel and also from other cartels. So there you have
Trump's administration abetting drug cartel related crimes to contain socialist forces in the
americas. I'm pretty sure his base of maggots can't find Honduras on a map. Never mind the
cocaine, let's build that wall to keep Hondurans out. Derp, #MAGA
https://www.counterpunch.org/2015/06/29/honduras-bleeding/?fbclid=IwAR2ieHSD8pRrPykjXgk2fguxZMsIWdspGEHFxrKoPqFlkpQXfcVDwtjv8pU
Thanks b and all the commentators.
#13 Bevin thanks for the link. Very good article with good links embedded in it.
#43 Karlof1 I was reading a transcript from Putin's State of the Nation Address and later
watched a u-tube clip of part of it. The transcript (from the Saker) read as follows, "What
are they doing in reality? First, they violate everything, then they look for excuses and
appoint a guilty party. But they are also mobilising their satellites that are cautious but
still make noises in support of the USA. The video clip went as follows "In addition they
mobilize their satellites. They carefully oink along with the Americans on this matter"
Judging from the loud round of applause and smiles on many in the audience at that point in
the clip, I'd say the "oink" was the correct translation! YouTube clip was from Canthama
twitter page.
Karlof1 #66 Colombia is one of NATO's "Partners across the globe". Sure hope article 5
doesn't apply to this scenario. Sure hope you are right about Venezuela having a few Mig 31
and Kinzal missiles and the YANKS know they do. Currently the USS Lincoln is off the coast of
Florida undergoing "training".
John Bolton has now threatened the families of those remaining loyal to Maduro. It's not like
he hasn't done this before. He threatened the head of OPCW I believe as well.
I doubt that Branson is as careless or stupid as we're being lead to believe. He started a
successful music retailing company and a successful cut-price airline. Both industries are
highly competitive and the pre-launch business plan for each would have required a prodigious
amount of research/ homework in order to accurately evaluate the prospects for success.
I'm far from convinced that he'd consider Random Guyido to be a legitimate replacement for
the elected President of Venezuela without doing some careful research and contemplating the
outcome of any precedents. If he did conduct such research he would have discovered that
History strongly suggests that Random Guyido is almost certainly a fraud.
So imo Branson knows exactly what he's doing, but we'll have to wait until the cash has
been handed over before we find out. I believe he's got a wry sense of humour and will
probably enjoy making Random Guydo (and his backers) look stupid and gullible. You need a
certain amount of courage to take the risks Branson took to get where he is.
Looks like it is critical for US plans to get hold of Venezuela's oil "no matter what" ASP.
https://www.foxnews.com/world/us-says-it-will-deliver-aid-blocked-by-venezuela-setting-up-confrontation-with-maduro-regime
"The U.S. government says it will position 190 metric tons of supplies by Friday, ready to
deploy throughout Venezuela, according to Mark Green, the administrator of the U.S. Agency
for International
Development (USAID).
The problem is figuring out how to get that aid into Venezuela.
"That really is up to Juan Guaido and his people and his team," Green told Fox News. "We are
working with them to try and pre-position that assistance and give them the tools to lead
their people and provide hope."...
...Green said he's coordinating with the Colombian government to ensure that Guaido, the
opposition leader, has the aid his country needs -- though he said the next step is up to
Guaido.
"We know it's not enough that the humanitarian aid enters," Guaido said at a Caracas news
conference. "We must open the humanitarian channel, no matter what."
b writes that "delivery of "humanitarian aid" is a pretext to break the border between
Colombia and Venezuela".
Perhaps, but there may be another purpose in terms of legal framing the Maduro
government.
The Rome Statute, when defining War Crimes, under the section entitled 'other serious
violations of the laws and customs applicable in international armed conflict' there is
"Intentionally using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare by depriving them of
objects indispensible to their survival, including willfully impeding relief supplies "
In other words, the non-acceptance of relief supplies will be framed as a war crime by the
US government.
@85 hoarsewhisperer.. oh brandscum knows exactly what he is doing... promoting his scummy
brand.. that is what he is doing.. everything else is a charade.... but, it is cut throat biz
and that is what he does best... slime ball that he is..
Looks like Branson is in it for some cheap post-coup plane fuel discounts for his Virgin
empire. Too bad I just purchased some Virgin tickets for a short flight in April. But after
that I'll be boycotting them along with the Palestinian Occupation Entity whose products I
avoid as much as possible.
Branson never did it for me. Cool rich 'hippie' PR image always seemed too canned. Somehow
reminds me of Tony Blair for some reason. Perhaps he's looking for some military AID cargo
contracts out of we-know-where.
Yes, this is all very interesting about the ongoing Venezuela crisis. But have you seen the
Tucker Carlson interview of Rutger Bregman? It is a MUST SEE. Bregman, a Dutch historian who
gave the Davos millionaires a most deserved smackdown, did an interview with Carlson. Bregman
totally, completely out debates Carlson until Carlson is left speechless, stumbling his
words–then completely, totally loses his temper. Check it out-
In any case the US does have large numbers of troops available for imperial adventures in
other theaters. I fear for the Venezuelans at this time. The US is withdrawing from their
failed ventures in the Mid East while the US threatens and pounds its chest in the Persian
Gulf and the South China Sea -- but no one expects the US military to actually commit
itself to another losing military engagement. Unfortunately, I do fear the US is ready to
go to war in Venezuela -- if they do so decide to do so the Maduro government would not
last very long. In the short term that would be considered a victory for the US Neo cons.
In the longer term, say 5 years out, it would likely result in a war on the South American
continent that has not been seen since Bolivar.
Posted by: ToivoS | Feb 20, 2019 10:05:13 PM | 76
As always, friend, your contribution
to this forum is very perceptive. ...and how will this all look 50 years out? Even worse!
I have transcribed the interview in full so one can find it through a search engine and so
that fellow MoA commenters can repost it. Here it is:
News Anchor: Well, you know, there's oil sanctions that the Trump White House has put on Venezuela, they're now having
a pretty big impact on the Maduro Administration. We're talking $20b in estimated losses already. And now an increasingly desperate
Nicholas Maduro, he's looking for a financial lifeline from outside. Let's bring in TrendMacro CIO Donald Luskin. Great to
see you, Don!
Donald Luskin: Great to be here!
News Anchor: Okay, $20b losses - what does that mean, first of all, for the Maduro Administration?
Donald Luskin: The problem we've got here is that we're not just dealing with the Maduro Administration. We are dealing
with his partner in crime: Vladimir Putin. And what's going on right now is there's just a game of geopolitical global chess
being played, where we take financial resources away from the regime in order to topple it, and Putin just steps in there and
plugs the hole with money. For instance, one of the most powerful tools we have to isolate Venezuela is to put what the experts
call "secondary sanctions" on financial institutions outside the United States that facilitate economic transactions for Venezuela.
The sanctions we put on say: if we catch you, say, Mr. French Bank, doing a transaction for Venezuela, we will bar you from
ever doing business in the United States, and if you have a branch here in the United States, we'll fine you $10b, right? So,
the Russians, we learned this morning, have set up a special-purpose bank that they think is gonna be beyond these sanctions,
'cause this bank they've set up You know, so we sanction them, we say: new Russian bank, you can't do business with United
States. They say: we don't care, you're our enemy anyway! So this is how Russia is in there, propping up the the (chuckle)
the, the war criminal Maduro regime that is resorting to starving its own
News Anchor: Yeah.
Donald Luskin: people by blockading humanitarian aid that the rest of the world is trying to send
News Anchor: I
Donald Luskin: Folks! They do ring a bell, they do give you clues, these people are evil!
News Anchor: I hear what you're saying, I mean Oil worldwide is traded in dollars, Maduro wants dollars, Russia
is facilitating the dollar exchange here for oil. You made the point, too - and it's well taken - that Russia's Rosneft owns
about 49.9% of the shares of Citgo, the PdVSA unit that, basically, is collateralizing, you know, billions of dollars worth
of loans that Russia's given. I mean, now Maduro's worried about a potential oil blockade. Do you think the U.S. Is going to
do that?
Donald Luskin: Well, you know, that's the endgame. If we're serious about this, there's only one place that we can
meet Putin head-on, and that's on the high seas. This is where we have to think about re-enacting the Cuban missile crisis
of 1962, where we're not just talking about penalties for banks, we're talking about an actual, physical blockade, where put
our ships off the coast of Venezuela and say: nothing comes in, nothing goes out. And let's see who blinks on that one. I have
a funny feeling the blinker is the man named Vladimir Putin.
News Anchor: Yeah, and, you know, he hasn't come out publicly in support, but, Don, your points well taken. Cuba's
in there, Hezbollah is in there, Iran is in Venezuela, really bad actors are in there, Don.
Donald Luskin: That's not
News Anchor: Yep.
Donald Luskin: exactly the
News Anchor: Okay.
Donald Luskin: guest list you'd like to have come at
...[Trump] administration is still filled with Hawks ...
1) The administration action in Iran is aggressive and counter-productive to long term peace. The nuclear deal was an effective
way of ensuring Iran controlling behavior for 15 years as the other parties, Europe and China, wanted to trade with Iran. (Additionally
it makes our nation depend more on the Saudia relationship in which Washington should be slowly moving away from.)
2) Like it or not, Venezuela is another mission creep for the Trump Administration. Recommend the administration
stay away from peace keeping troops and suggest this is China's problem. (Venezuela in debt to their eyeballs with China.)
3) Applaud the administration with peace talks with NK but warn them not to overstate their accomplishments. It is ridiculous
that the administration signed big nuclear deals with NK that don't exist.
"... The precedent was established in Italy with assistance to non-Communist candidates from the late 1940s to the 1960s. "We had bags of money that we delivered to selected politicians, to defray their expenses," said F. Mark Wyatt, a former C.I.A. officer, in a 1996 interview . ..."
"... A self-congratulatory declassified report on the C.I.A.'s work in Chile's 1964 election boasts of the "hard work" the agency did supplying "large sums" to its favored candidate and portraying him as a "wise, sincere and high-minded statesman" while painting his leftist opponent as a "calculating schemer." Advertisement ..."
"... C.I.A. officials told Mr. Johnson in the late 1980s that "insertions" of information into foreign news media, mostly accurate but sometimes false, were running at 70 to 80 a day. In the 1990 election in Nicaragua, the C.I.A. planted stories about corruption in the leftist Sandinista government, Mr. Levin said. The opposition won. ..."
"... Over time, more American influence operations have been mounted not secretly by the C.I.A. but openly by the State Department and its affiliates. For the 2000 election in Serbia, the United States funded a successful effort to defeat Slobodan Milosevic, the nationalist leader, providing political consultants and millions of stickers with the opposition's clenched-fist symbol and "He's finished" in Serbian, printed on 80 tons of adhesive paper and delivered by a Washington contractor. ..."
"... Similar efforts were undertaken in elections in wartime Iraq and Afghanistan, not always with success. After Hamid Karzai was re-elected president of Afghanistan in 2009, he complained to Robert Gates, then the secretary of defense, about the United States' blatant attempt to defeat him, which Mr. Gates calls in his memoir "our clumsy and failed putsch." ..."
"... At least once the hand of the United States reached boldly into a Russian election. American fears that Boris Yeltsin would be defeated for re-election as president in 1996 by an old-fashioned Communist led to an overt and covert effort to help him, urged on by President Bill Clinton. It included an American push for a $10 billion International Monetary Fund loan to Russia four months before the voting and a team of American political consultants (though some Russians scoffed when they took credit for the Yeltsin win). ..."
"... In 2016, the endowment gave 108 grants totaling $6.8 million to organizations in Russia for such purposes as "engaging activists" and "fostering civic engagement." The endowment no longer names Russian recipients, who, under Russian laws cracking down on foreign funding, can face harassment or arrest. ..."
"... What the C.I.A. may have done in recent years to steer foreign elections is still secret and may not be known for decades. It may be modest by comparison with the agency's Cold War manipulation. But some old-timers aren't so sure. ..."
"... "I assume they're doing a lot of the old stuff, because, you know, it never changes," said William J. Daugherty, who worked for the C.I.A. from 1979 to 1996 and at one time had the job of reviewing covert operations. "The technology may change, but the objectives don't." ..."
Bags of cash delivered to a Rome hotel for favored Italian candidates. Scandalous stories leaked to foreign newspapers to swing
an election in Nicaragua. Millions of pamphlets, posters and stickers printed to defeat an incumbent in Serbia.
The long arm of Vladimir Putin? No, just a small sample of the United States' history of intervention in foreign elections.
On Tuesday,
American intelligence chiefs warned the Senate Intelligence Committee that Russia appears to be preparing to repeat in the 2018
midterm elections the same full-on chicanery it unleashed in 2016: hacking, leaking, social media manipulation and possibly more.
Then on Friday, Robert Mueller, the special counsel, announced the indictments of 13 Russians and three companies, run by a businessman
with close Kremlin ties, laying out in astonishing detail a three-year scheme to use social media to attack Hillary Clinton, boost
Donald Trump and sow discord.
Most Americans are understandably shocked by what they view as an unprecedented attack on our political system. But intelligence
veterans, and scholars who have studied covert operations, have a different, and quite revealing, view.
"If you ask an intelligence officer, did the Russians break the rules or do something bizarre, the answer is no, not at all,"
said Steven L. Hall, who retired in 2015 after 30 years at the C.I.A., where he was the chief of Russian operations. The United States
"absolutely" has carried out such election influence operations historically, he said, "and I hope we keep doing it."
Loch K. Johnson, the dean of American intelligence
scholars , who began his career in the 1970s investigating the C.I.A. as a staff member of the Senate's Church Committee, says
Russia's 2016 operation was simply the cyber-age version of standard United States practice for decades, whenever American officials
were worried about a foreign vote.
"We've been doing this kind of thing since the C.I.A. was created in 1947," said Mr. Johnson, now at the University of Georgia.
"We've used posters, pamphlets, mailers, banners -- you name it. We've planted false information in foreign newspapers. We've used
what the British call 'King George's cavalry': suitcases of cash."
The United States' departure from democratic ideals sometimes went much further. The C.I.A. helped overthrow elected leaders in
Iran and Guatemala in the 1950s and backed violent coups in several other countries in the 1960s. It plotted assassinations and supported
brutal anti-Communist governments in Latin America, Africa and Asia.
But in recent decades, both Mr. Hall and Mr. Johnson argued, Russian and American interferences in elections have not been morally
equivalent. American interventions have generally been aimed at helping non-authoritarian candidates challenge dictators or otherwise
promoting democracy. Russia has more often intervened to disrupt democracy or promote authoritarian rule, they said.
Equating the two, Mr. Hall says, "is like saying cops and bad guys are the same because they both have guns -- the motivation
matters."
This broader history of election meddling has largely been missing from the flood of reporting on the Russian intervention and
the investigation of whether the Trump campaign was involved. It is a reminder that the Russian campaign in 2016 was fundamentally
old-school espionage, even if it exploited new technologies. And it illuminates the larger currents of history that drove American
electoral interventions during the Cold War and motivate Russia's actions today.
"I'm not in any way justifying what the Russians did in 2016," Mr. Levin said. "It was completely wrong of Vladimir Putin to intervene
in this way. That said, the methods they used in this election were the digital version of methods used both by the United States
and Russia for decades: breaking into party headquarters, recruiting secretaries, placing informants in a party, giving information
or disinformation to newspapers."
His findings underscore how routine election meddling by the United States -- sometimes covert and sometimes quite open -- has
been.
The precedent was established in Italy with assistance to non-Communist candidates from the late 1940s to the 1960s. "We had bags
of money that we delivered to selected politicians, to defray their expenses," said F. Mark Wyatt, a former C.I.A. officer, in
a 1996 interview .
Covert propaganda has also been a mainstay. Richard M. Bissell Jr., who ran the agency's operations in the late 1950s and early
1960s, wrote casually in his autobiography
of "exercising control over a newspaper or broadcasting station, or of securing the desired outcome in an election."
A self-congratulatory
declassified report on the C.I.A.'s
work in Chile's 1964 election boasts of the "hard work" the agency did supplying "large sums" to its favored candidate and portraying
him as a "wise, sincere and high-minded statesman" while painting his leftist opponent as a "calculating schemer."
Advertisement
C.I.A. officials told Mr. Johnson in the late 1980s that "insertions" of information into foreign news media, mostly accurate
but sometimes false, were running at 70 to 80 a day. In the 1990 election in Nicaragua, the C.I.A. planted stories about corruption
in the leftist Sandinista government, Mr. Levin said. The opposition won.
Over time, more American influence operations have been mounted not secretly by the C.I.A. but openly by the State Department
and its affiliates. For the 2000 election in Serbia, the United States funded
a successful effort to defeat Slobodan Milosevic, the nationalist leader, providing political consultants and millions of stickers
with the opposition's clenched-fist symbol and "He's finished" in Serbian, printed on 80 tons of adhesive paper and delivered by
a Washington contractor.
Vince Houghton, who served in the military in the Balkans at the time and worked closely with the intelligence agencies, said
he saw American efforts everywhere. "We made it very clear that we had no intention of letting Milosevic stay in power," said Mr.
Houghton, now the historian at the International Spy Museum.
Similar efforts were undertaken in elections in wartime Iraq and Afghanistan, not always with success. After Hamid Karzai was
re-elected president of Afghanistan in 2009, he complained to Robert Gates, then the secretary of defense, about the United States'
blatant attempt to defeat him, which Mr. Gates
calls in his memoir
"our clumsy and failed putsch."
At least once the hand of the United States reached boldly into a Russian election. American fears that Boris Yeltsin would be
defeated for re-election as president in 1996 by an old-fashioned Communist led to an overt and covert effort to help him, urged
on by President Bill Clinton. It included an American push for a $10 billion International Monetary Fund loan to Russia four months
before the voting and a team of American political consultants (though some Russians scoffed when they took credit for the Yeltsin
win).
That heavy-handed intervention made some Americans uneasy. Thomas Carothers, a scholar at the Carnegie Institute for International
Peace, recalls arguing with a State Department official who told him at the time, "Yeltsin is democracy in Russia," to which
Mr. Carothers said he replied, "That's not what democracy means."
But what does democracy mean? Can it include secretly undermining an authoritarian ruler or helping challengers who embrace democratic
values? How about financing civic organizations?
Advertisement
In recent decades, the most visible American presence in foreign politics has been taxpayer-funded groups like the National Endowment
for Democracy, the National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute, which do not support candidates but
teach basic campaign skills, build democratic institutions and train election monitors.
Most Americans view such efforts as benign -- indeed, charitable. But Mr. Putin sees them as hostile. The National Endowment for
Democracy gave a $23,000 grant in 2006 to an organization that employed Aleksei Navalny, who years later became Mr. Putin's main
political nemesis, a fact the government has used to attack both Mr. Navalny and the endowment.
In 2016,
the endowment
gave 108 grants totaling $6.8 million to organizations in Russia for such purposes as "engaging activists" and "fostering civic
engagement." The endowment no longer names Russian recipients, who, under Russian laws cracking down on foreign funding, can face
harassment or arrest.
It is easy to understand why Mr. Putin sees such American cash as a threat to his rule, which tolerates no real opposition. But
American veterans of democracy promotion find abhorrent Mr. Putin's insinuations that their work is equivalent to what the Russian
government is accused of doing in the United States today.
"It's not just apples and oranges," said Kenneth Wollack, president of the National Democratic Institute. "It's comparing someone
who delivers lifesaving medicine to someone who brings deadly poison."
What the C.I.A. may have done in recent years to steer foreign elections is still secret and may not be known for decades. It
may be modest by comparison with the agency's Cold War manipulation. But some old-timers aren't so sure.
"I assume they're doing a lot of the old stuff, because, you know, it never changes," said William J. Daugherty, who worked for
the C.I.A. from 1979 to 1996 and at one time had the job of reviewing covert operations. "The technology may change, but the objectives
don't."
Correction : Feb. 18, 2018
An earlier version of this article stated incorrectly that Aleksei Navalny, a political opponent of the Russian president,
Vladimir V. Putin, had received grants from the National Endowment for Democracy. In fact, an organization employing him received
one $23,000 grant from the endowment in 2006.
Scott Shane is a national security reporter for The Times and a former Moscow correspondent.
A version of this article appears in print on Feb. 18, 2018 , on Page SR 4 of the New York edition with the headline: America
Meddles in Elections, Too.
"... It's likely that the Brazilian and Colombian governments don't command the loyalty of their armed forces (especially the foot soldiers who would have shoulder the burden of invasion) to the extent that the Venezuelan government under Maduro does of its own. Especially if money allocated to the armed forces in Brazil and Colombia has gone to a few favored individuals in the officer hierarchies while the grunts have seen no increased pay or support, or have even seen their pay levels dwindle as their responsibilities grow. ..."
"... That's a possible scenario in Brazil given that since Dilma Rousseff's impeachment as President in 2016 it has been governed by corrupt neoliberal politicians. ..."
"... In Venezuela's situation, the crux is in how prepared are the Venezuelan officers to defend their own country on an officer's salary and on promises of future rewards by Maduro and his team. Therefore, nationalism and patriotism of the military may be that little straw which tips the balance in favour of keeping Venezuela free. At least we hope ..."
"... The last two places where Gene's revolutions have worked out were Macedonia and Armenia, but there is not much there to steal (rather profitless victories). ..."
Far more likely that Brazil and Colombia refuse to commit any troops or other support for a US-led coalition to invade
Venezuela. These countries have long borders going through thinly populated tropical forest or mountain areas with Venezuela.
They don't want the prospect of fighting continuous border wars with militias that would sap their own military strength
and which could go deep into their own territories. Imagine how unpopular that would make their current governments with
their publics.
It's likely that the Brazilian and Colombian governments don't command the loyalty of their armed forces (especially
the foot soldiers who would have shoulder the burden of invasion) to the extent that the Venezuelan government under Maduro
does of its own. Especially if money allocated to the armed forces in Brazil and Colombia has gone to a few favored
individuals in the officer hierarchies while the grunts have seen no increased pay or support, or have even seen their pay
levels dwindle as their responsibilities grow.
That's a possible scenario in Brazil given that since Dilma Rousseff's impeachment as President in 2016 it has been
governed by corrupt neoliberal politicians.
Thanks for providing further detail into the inner workings of the US appointed Columbian and
Brazilian military. I do not think that those two militaries do not want to get involved in
Venezuela, but they are not volunteering forward to be the thieve's fools on an officer's
salary.
Any military which would leave its border is a mercenary, which means that the
pay/benefits must be more proportional to the loot than even to the risk (i.e. they want a
huge cut).
In Venezuela's situation, the crux is in how prepared are the Venezuelan officers
to defend their own country on an officer's salary and on promises of future rewards by Maduro and his team. Therefore, nationalism and patriotism of the military may be that little
straw which tips the balance in favour of keeping Venezuela free. At least we hope.
The second important factor is that the Gene Sharp's "non-violent action" regime change
system (revolution in a box) has been busted somewhat. The new potential victims are not as
naive and as unprepared as the initial victims of the "branded revolutions" were.
Therefore,
the resistance to thievery is increasing. In case of Venezuela, the "revolutionaries",
including the Random Guy, have been trained by the late Gene's best apostles, organisation
Otpor, but it still has not worked out yet. The last two places where Gene's revolutions have
worked out were Macedonia and Armenia, but there is not much there to steal (rather
profitless victories).
I like to view Gene Sharp as the Lenin of the end of the 20th century. It is just so
sad how much of human history is all about thieving on the back of highbrow principles and
pretend-humanitarian ideologies . I pity people who argue about communism versus
capitalism and any other ideologies. C'est tout la meme chose, someone is always taking
someone else's women and cattle, only packaged in (MSM) verbal bullshit.
"... American imperialists (and many Americans) truly believe that they are superior and that the world would become a better place if nations submitted to their leadership ..."
"... Early promoters of American intervention were zealous patriots. They proclaimed love of country and loyalty to the flag. Yet they could not imagine that people from non-white countries might feel just as patriotic. ..."
"... Americans have been said to be ignorant about the world. ..."
"... Violent intervention in other countries always produces unintended consequences. ..."
"... Generations of American foreign policy makers have made decisions on three assumptions: the US is the indispensable nation that must lead the world; this leadership requires toughness; and toughness is best demonstrated by the threat or use of force. ..."
"... Most American interventions are not soberly conceived, with realistic goals and clear exit strategies. ..."
"... Foreign intervention has weakened the moral authority that was once the foundation of America's political identity. Today many people around the world see it as a bully, recklessly invading foreign lands. ..."
"... Nations lose their virtue when they repeatedly attack other nations. ..."
"... America is the HIGHLY narcissistic, high functioning, psychopathic garden variety neighbor, highly destructive businessman you work hard to avoid. ..."
"... As Taleb nicely put: Our political leaders have no skin in the game and are completely unaccountable. Best preconditions for disaster! ..."
"... They even call the idea of not mass murdering people 'isolationism'. Hey, well guess what? I don't want to murder other people who never bothered me. ..."
As the world watches aghast at another US and allies' attempt to engineer a coup in
Venezuela, I would like to offer a few insights from Stephen Kinzer' provocative chapter, "The
deep hurt," (pp. 227-250) in his book, The True Flag: Theodore
Roosevelt, Mark Twain, and the Birth of the American Empire (2017). This remarkable text
carries some hope and lessons for all of us. It tells the story of the great conflict around
the turn of 20th century about the role that the US might play in either dominating the world
or building a cosmopolitan democracy where all people feel secure that they reside in one
country, the earth.
Indeed, Kinzer states:
"Anti-imperialists decisively influenced American history by helping to ensure that the
first burst of American annexation would be the last" (p. 228).
Even swash-buckling Teddy Roosevelt was influenced, losing his zest for the idea of
conquest. When he charged into the White House he held two views simultaneously, intervene to
help other people, without oppressing them. Kinzer thinks that this dichotomy "torments our
national psyche" (p. 229). In the early parts of the book Kinzer sets out the anti-imperialist
(Mark Twain) and pro-imperialist visions (Henry Cabot Lodge). These speeches are worth
gathering round for reflection.
During the following hundred years much of what the anti-imperialists predicted has come to
pass. The United States has become an "actively interventionist power. It has projected
military or covert power into dozens of countries on every continent except Antarctica"(ibid.).
George Frisbie Hoar was right, Kinzer points out, when he "warned that intervening in other
lands would turn the United States into a 'vulgar, commonplace empire founded upon physical
force"" (ibid.).
Anti-imperialists also predicted that an "aggressive foreign policy would have pernicious
effects at home" (ibid.). Military budgets have soared to heights unimaginable in the days of
fervent expansionism in the 1898 war with the Philippines. The armaments industries wield
extraordinary clout. The wealth-soaked elites dominate politics. The invasion and overthrowing
of distant regimes resides in the hands of a few decision-makers. And militaristic values and
rituals saturate American life and expunge peaceful ones.
To be sure, American intervention brought some material blessings (good schools and orderly
systems of justice, etc) and rising American power was perceived as "good for everyone simply
because it means strengthening the world's most beneficent nation" (p. 230). The expansionists
of 1898 believed that America was "inherently benevolent," and subject nations would rally
around the May pole in celebratory dance. "The opposite happened .Carl Schurz was right when he
warned that dominating foreigners would ultimately force Americans to 'shoot them down because
they stand up for their independence'" (p. 231).
Kinzer states that: " In the face of profound new challenges, Americans are once again
debating the role of the United States in the world. Should it intervene violently in other
countries? This remains what Senator William V. Allen called it in 1899: 'The greatest question
that has ever been presented to the American people'" (p. 231). American culture carries a
current of anti-imperialism and commitment to an international legal order. They played a big
role in the establishment of the UN and nurturing global governance. They remain the world's
only superpower with enormous capacity to move towards building the cosmopolitan world order.
What is evident now in this dark moment of history is that the world as it is, is not the way
it has to be.
It is difficult, I think, for the United States with its inordinate military might and
present delusionary self-understanding to wrench itself free from wanting to intervene for
political and economic reasons. Many in the post-WW I world had placed their bet for a better
world on the Presbyterian professor Woodrow Wilson. Famously, Wilson triggered immense
hopefulness to the disenfranchised in the colonies of European powers. He preached that they
should "choose the sovereignty under which the shall live" (p. 232). In office, American troops
were dispatched to intervene in Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Mexico and Russia .Like
his predecessors -- and successors -- Wilson insisted that he was doing it for the good of the
target countries. Americans would leave them alone, he promised, as soon as they learned 'to
elect good men'" (ibid.). Today scholars speak of the "shattered peace" of the post-WW I world.
Was the desire to begin building, slowly, carefully, a cosmopolitan world order, as Jan Smuts
thought, an "impossible dream"?
Kinzer observes that "this most compassionate of presidents not only invaded countries that
defied the United States, but studiously ignored appeals from colonized people outside Europe,
notably in Egypt, India, Korea, and Indochina. His hypocrisy set the stage for generations of
war and upheaval" (ibid.). Margaret MacMillan's lively and densely detailed book, Paris 1919
(2001) , provides the stories for these outcast colonized countries.
Today, the US has intervened one more time. The difference now may well be that there is
little pretence that the US is engaging in the bully politics of "might is right." They don't
care two hoots about what the world thinks. They do not give a damn about the
self-determination of all countries and peoples. This invasion is stripped of any moral or
legal justification. The US has decided to declare the Speaker of the House, Juan Guaido,
president. This is unheard of! And Canada has forsaken the best of its liberal and social
democratic traditions of adherence to rule of law to hitch its caboose to the US's rampaging
imperialist train.
There are several lessons that Kinzer draws from American history of intervention that our
worth careful reflection.
1) American imperialists (and many Americans) truly believe that they are superior and
that the world would become a better place if nations submitted to their leadership . The
United States would be better off, Kinzer says, if it became a learning nation and not a
teaching one.
2) Early promoters of American intervention were zealous patriots. They proclaimed love of
country and loyalty to the flag. Yet they could not imagine that people from non-white
countries might feel just as patriotic. Love of country was a mark of civilization. Lesser
peoples, therefore, couldn't grasp it.
3) Americans have been said to be ignorant about the world. They are, says Kinzer, but so
are other peoples. The difference is that American leaders, puffed with a sense of mission,
acted on ignorance. American leaders see little reason to bother learning about the nations
whose affairs they intrude.
4) Violent intervention in other countries always produces unintended consequences. Cuba
was turned into a protectorate in 1901. A fine idea? It led ultimately to a bitter
anti-American regime. Intervention in the Philippines sparked waves of nationalism across
East Asia that contributed to the Communist revolution in China in 1949. Later American
interventions also had terrible results planners never anticipated. From Iran and Guatemala
to Iraq and Afghanistan, intervention has devastated societies and produced violent
anti-American passion.
5) Generations of American foreign policy makers have made decisions on three assumptions:
the US is the indispensable nation that must lead the world; this leadership requires
toughness; and toughness is best demonstrated by the threat or use of force. Thus: America is
inherently righteous; its influence on rest of world always benign.
6) Most American interventions are not soberly conceived, with realistic goals and clear
exit strategies. But violent invasions always leave so-called "collateral damage": families
killed, destroyed towns, ruined lives, damaged land.
7) The argument that the United States intervenes to defend "freedom" rarely matches facts
on the ground. Many (most?) interventions prop up predatory regimes. The goal is simply to
increase American power rather than to liberate the suffering.
8) Foreign intervention has weakened the moral authority that was once the foundation of
America's political identity. Today many people around the world see it as a bully,
recklessly invading foreign lands. The current invasion of Venezuela is such an example. The
name "United States" is associated with bombing, invasion, occupation, night raids, covert
action, torture, kidnapping, and secret prisons. Who wants to be saved by America? John
Bolton recently threatened Maduro with prison in Guantanamo if he doesn't get the hell out of
Venezuela.
9) Nations lose their virtue when they repeatedly attack other nations. That loss, as
Washington predicted, has cost the United States its felicity. Kinzer says that the US can
regain it only by understanding its own national interests more clearly. He thinks it is late
for the United States to change its course in the world -- but not too late.
America has not become an interventionist power. What has happened is a Coup d'Etat has
been staged through Congressional rules that give unconstitutional powers to a tiny group on
the basis of their 'seniority' and reconcilliation committee appointment. These few, not the
American people want intervention, war, you name it. They spent $5 trillion in the Middle
East alone. So, let's not blame the American people.
5) Generations of American foreign policy makers have made decisions on three assumptions:
the US is the indispensable nation that must lead the world; this leadership requires
toughness; and toughness is best demonstrated by the threat or use of force. Thus: America is
inherently righteous; its influence on rest of world always benign.
6) Most American interventions are not soberly conceived, with realistic goals and clear
exit strategies. But violent invasions always leave so-called "collateral damage": families
killed, destroyed towns, ruined lives, damaged land.
7) The argument that the United States intervenes to defend "freedom" rarely matches facts
on the ground. Many (most?) interventions prop up predatory regimes. The goal is simply to
increase American power rather than to liberate the suffering.
8) Foreign intervention has weakened the moral authority that was once the foundation of
America's political identity. Today many people around the world see it as a bully,
recklessly invading foreign lands. The current invasion of Venezuela is such an example. The
name "United States" is associated with bombing, invasion, occupation, night raids, covert
action, torture, kidnapping, and secret prisons. Who wants to be saved by America? John
Bolton recently threatened Maduro with prison in Guantanamo if he doesn't get the hell out of
Venezuela."
America is the HIGHLY narcissistic, high functioning, psychopathic garden variety
neighbor, highly destructive businessman you work hard to avoid. How any American can see the US and it's people as exceptional is beyond me. No yellow vests anti WAR protests have evolved to STOP the US genocidal killing
machine.
The US, the white supremacist nation has zero trouble killing maiming and displacing
millions of brown Muslims & Christians in 3 world countries. This WILL come home to roost as what the Zionazi empire of psychopaths does to other
countries they will do to US
9) "Nations lose their virtue when they repeatedly attack other nations. That loss, as
Washington predicted, has cost the United States its felicity. Kinzer says that the US can
regain it only by understanding its own national interests more clearly. He thinks it is late
for the United States to change its course in the world -- but not too late."...
I don't even think Teddy as self righteous and psychopathic as he was at the turn of the
20th Century would have ponied up to cannibalizing his own ( https://wikispooks.com/wiki/9-11/Israel_did_it
) in order to build ever more "pretexts" through the torture and murder of other sovereign
nations simply as a means to "control" resources for the good of his $currency and it's banks
and not a Country and it's peoples under the rule of law to a parasite/cyst that it is
willing to die for (
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-03-19/top-us-general-says-american-troops-should-be-ready-die-israel
) before it's own Nation!...
Another gr8 lesson about American freedom and democracy is in book: The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism. Americans should know that before slaves from Africa white trash from Britain was shipped
as slaves. See: They were white and they were slaves.
" Observe good faith and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all.
... In the execution of such a plan nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate
antipathies against particular nations and passionate attachments for others should be
excluded, and that in place of them just and amicable feelings toward all should be
cultivated....
Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow
citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and
experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican
government. But that jealousy, to be useful, must be impartial, else it becomes the
instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of a defense against it. Excessive
partiality for one foreign nation and excessive dislike of another cause those whom they
actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even second the arts of
influence on the other....
The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is, in extending our
commercial relations to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as
we have already formed engagements let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us
stop. ... GEORGE WASHINGTON
Foreign intervention has weakened the moral authority that was once the foundation of
America's political identity. Today many people around the world see it as a bully,
recklessly invading foreign lands.
Indeed, as that's the nature of the state in any and all its iterations. Reform it? Yes. But only by eradicating it altogether. Why? Because, as the great Albert
Jay Nock said,
"Sending in good people to reform the state is like sending in virgins to
reform the whorehouse."
McCabe, evil whitey on the front line here too? ; chickens coming home to roost
finally? Guess there are two kind of people, those who work for a living, and the barbarians who
appropriate the fruits of other's labor.
Mark Twain wrote savagely and derisively about the Moro Massacre, where the US killed
around a thousand Filipino natives who were hiding in a dormant volcano, they just rimmed it
with artillery and killed everyone.
Because they would not pay tribute. We waterboarded about 200 important people, the
equivalent of mayors and councilmen, ranking officers in militias we had no business
disbanding.
1898 was lies and deceit from the outset. We promised the Philippine General Aguinaldo
that if he fought the Spanish on land, then we would fight them at sea. In exchange for
victory over the Spanish, the Philippines would be freed from colonization.
Except then we took it ourselves and killed anyone who disagreed. Slaughter, rape,
torture, it was never for one moment noble. The USA granted the Philippines its independence
after the Japanese conquered them, lol.
Empires do not give up power, their grip weakens ... Empires do not devolve back into "republics", they crash and burn ... And there are really only two options: a) soft collapse b) hard collapse (there is no [c] option)
Exactly -The article was written by another delusional trying to reconstruct/masquerade
the US criminal empire behind the a new facelift, too little too late. The guy didn't get the
memo from Putin/Xi, telling him tat it is a multipolar world & that the US criminal
empire is death & that it will never come back in any shape, way or form, to violate
international law & carry out war crimes.
American or uk coups are not beneficial. Very sad. Checking USA coups online there is a huge list, after the Allende govt in Chile, comes
Australia, the Whitlam govt, much loved, but ousted in a coup, bloodless by his choice. The
people were waiting for Gough to call them out. Newspaper staff arrived from overseas.
first day in office his govt had let the conscientious objectors out of the 2 years they
were serving in jail. There had been mass demonstrations against Aus participation and
incarceration to no avail with the previous govt. Brought back our Australians from Vietnam,
and twenty or 30 or more major things. Every day.
We have learned nothing. Apparently we are using the taming of the lion method which has
been used for thousands of years to take control of countries on Venezuela. The apparent goal
is to take over several Latin and south American countries. Will this be good or bad? Our
past history indicates it will be a disaster. Have we had any successes?
Craving for respect. This started after the first bite in the apple, history said.
Religion is based on that happening. Americans invented the extra load called fastest. Watch
Hollywood portraying it. Respect shown all over the show for plain murderers. Graveyard
managers and priest making the picture complete. Making that part of the world the right
place for a second coming. Resulting in sending all believers to the place named hell.
The fact that this is not taken for granted is exactly what is wrong with America. If only
we could just learn to leave other people alone unless attacked. They even call the idea of
not mass murdering people 'isolationism'. Hey, well guess what? I don't want to murder
other people who never bothered me. I can't say I'm a Christian, but aren't they supposed to
disagree with this sort of thing? They're also supposed to be like 80% of the population, why
don't we ever hear, 'murder bad' from them?
The leading figures were Vice President Pence, Secretary of State Pompeo and Senator Marco
Rubio as well as hawks in in the National Security Council
Notable quotes:
"... Bolton and Pompeo are both experienced politicians and bureaucrats. They likely knew that their plan was deeply flawed and would require much more than Trump would normally commit to. My hunch is that the soon coming mission creep was build into their plan, but that they did not reveal that. ..."
"... The U.S. said it was paying for the aid but wanted Colombia to find trucks and drivers to move it in. The Colombians said no one would accept the mission because the Venezuelan military would arrest them. The aid remains in warehouses near the border. ..."
"... The little spontaneous support the Random Guyidó had in some parts of the population is already lessening. Yesterday's demonstration he had called for saw less attendance than the one on January 23. ..."
"... f the U.S. does not do more than it has done so far the government under President Maduro can sit this out. The sanctions and the lack of oil revenue will create many immediate problems. But in a few weeks Venezuelan oil will have found new buyers. Fresh money will come in and new sources for imports of medicine and staple food will have been found. ..."
"... Over the same time the Random Guy will lose support. The party he nominally leads only won 20% of the votes. The other opposition parties were never informed of his plan to declare himself president. Their support for the step was lukewarm and will cool further. They may in the end support the mediation talks Maduro has offered and which the UN, Uruguay and Mexico also support. The talks could lead to new parliament and/or presidential elections in a year or two and thereby solve the situation. ..."
"... Waging an open war against that country would be very messy, expensive and difficult to justify. To start and support a guerilla war - Elliott Abrams specialty - takes time also costs a lot of money. The chances to win it are low. Moreover Trump wants to get re-elected but could lose many votes over both scenarios. ..."
"... Venezuela follows the neoliberal doctrine, perhaps not by choice, but they buy what they can't produce. Now they can't buy much and they do not produce much but oil, and they are denied payment by their biggest customer of oil. Ouch. Their gold in London cant be used. Revenues from Citgo are denied. Cant even sell their overseas assets now. ..."
"... People need to eat, once they start going hungry they become more receptive to change. US wont use force unless Venezuela is so beaten down by lack of food and medicines they can be rolled over without much of a fight, perhaps after softening them up with mercenaries or other countries troops ..."
"... Its a process. There is no hurry for the US. Time is on their side. That's the reality. Chinise refineries cant handle too much of their heavy oil and its not about to intervene in any military conflict, and Russia does not need their oil plus Venezuela owes them a lot of money, and they own 49% of Citgo and its US refineries. They will cut a deal that minimizes their losses. ..."
"... I find an interesting parallel between Syria and Venezuela. The US allies who are supposed to sacrifice for the regime change and thieving of the neighbouring country. When US assembled a Thieving Coalition on behalf of Israel to rip apart Syria, Turkey and GCC (Saudis) were the prominent local members, just as Columbia and Brazil in ripping apart Venezuela (also with puppet master Israel on top). ..."
"... We usually think of Israel only as a tormenter of the Palestinians. But Israel is much, much more - it is the Capo Di Tutti i Capi of the global crime. Tormenting Palestinians is only a hobby, a sport, but destroying countries to steal their wealth is the day job. US is a dumb bully, the blunt tool that the Israel Crime Syndicate uses for stealing on a global scale. This is my new perspective after Israel's involvement in the coup in Venezuela. ..."
"... I've been following this story on Telesur and MintPress News for a few days. It confirms the theory that what the US could be doing is igniting -- inadvertently -- civil wars in the Lima Group countries. ..."
"... The Washington Mafia won't admit defeat that easily. Some false flag action somewhere at the border or the u.s. embassy will come. The howling of the Relotius media will be deafening. Maybe a Colombian or a Brazilian military is stupid enough to do what Tronald Dumb would rather avoid in consideration of his electorate. ..."
"... It's likely that the Brazilian and Colombian governments don't command the loyalty of their armed forces (especially the foot soldiers who would have shoulder the burden of invasion) to the extent that the Venezuelan government under Maduro does of its own. Especially if money allocated to the armed forces in Brazil and Colombia has gone to a few favored individuals in the officer hierarchies while the grunts have seen no increased pay or support, or have even seen their pay levels dwindle as their responsibilities grow. ..."
"... That's a possible scenario in Brazil given that since Dilma Rousseff's impeachment as President in 2016 it has been governed by corrupt neoliberal politicians. ..."
"... those are good parallels between syria and venezuala that you draw and to which i agree with.. my thought on trump is basically - it doesn't matter who is in the presidents seat in the usa, as the president seems to have little to say on that matter.. ..."
"... One other thing also to consider is that in addition to conventional armed forces, Venezuela also has popular defense committees and militias among urban and rural communities who would be fighting any invasion forces. ..."
"... If the US nag croaks financially, EU will not be much of a replacement, whilst the potential of parasitising on Russia and China approaches zero. Therefore, I conclude that "strategy of flogging the nag to death" is not really a strategy, it is an urge. That is, it comes from a mix of chutzpah, psychopathy and pig manure in the nature of the parasite. After all, who puts up a sofa on top of a hill of a stolen land to watch the final extinction of the previous owner. Obviously, this goes far beyond just stealing the women and the cattle. ..."
"... These guys are pretty smart. Many like to think otherwise, perhaps it makes them feel better. You can't judge their actions by Hollywood standards of winning and losing. Chaos and denial of resources to anyone opposed to the Empire is enough of a Win , at least temporarily. Its a long game they play, its been played for over a century now, even much longer. ..."
"... The elites, referred to by Plato as Philosopher Kings , want to rule the world as living Gods, or at least their descendants. It's only over the last 150-250 years or so that control of science, finance, military, capitalism and democracy (manipulated via the printing press) gave them the means to realize their goals. It was a long road for them, operating through secret societies and monopoly control of money and government debt, and dealing with factions who were bound by morality (hence the war on religion) . In the battle between Good and Evil tbe good guys have been annihilated or at least silenced, at least in the West and most likely much of the East. ..."
On January 25, two days after Random Guyidó declared himself President of Venezuela,
the lack of planing in the U.S. coup attempt was
already obvious :
My impression is that Trump was scammed. It was long evident that he gives little
attention to details and does not think things through. Most likely Bolton, Pompeo and
Rubio presented him with a three step plan:
Phase 1. Support the self declared president Guaidó; Phase 2: ... (wishful
thinking) ...; Phase 3: Take half of their oil!
... Bolton and Pompeo are both experienced politicians and bureaucrats. They likely knew
that their plan was deeply flawed and would require much more than Trump would normally
commit to. My hunch is that the soon coming mission creep was build into their plan, but
that they did not reveal that.
The U.S. coup planners and their Venezuelan puppets had hoped that the Venezuelan
military would jump to their side. That was wishful thinking and unlikely to happen. They
also thought up some "humanitarian aid" scheme in which pictures of trucks crossing a long
blocked bridge would soon shame the Venezuelan president into stepping down. That was
likewise nonsense.
Unless the U.S. is willing and able to escalate, the coup attempt is destined to
fail.
'Western' media now recognize that phase 2 of the coup plan is in deep trouble. Today
the Guardian , Bloomberg and the New York Times all describe
growing frustration with the lack of success.
[T]hree weeks after Guaidó electrified the previously rudderless opposition
movement by declaring himself interim leader, there are signs his campaign risks losing
steam.
An anticipated mass defection of military chiefs – which opposition leaders
admit is a prerequisite to Maduro's departure – has not materialized, and Maduro's
inner-circle has begun claiming it has weathered the political storm.
Since Juan Guaido declared himself interim president three weeks ago and offered amnesty
to officers who abandon Maduro, more than 30 countries led by the U.S. have hailed the
move, waiting for the military to follow. There hasn't been a rush to his side.
...
In a country with more than 2,000 generals and admirals, only one top officer -- who
commands no troops -- has pledged allegiance to Guaido.
...
This is a major reason why the revolution isn't moving as quickly as some had hoped
when Guaido electrified the world on Jan. 23 with his declaration. This has led to
impatience and finger-pointing. U.S. policy makers and those around Guaido -- as well as
leaders in Brazil and Colombia -- are eyeing one another and worrying about failure.
Officials in each camp have said privately they assumed the others had a more developed
strategy.
[The opposition's] goal was to bring the supplies into Venezuela, forcing a confrontation
with Mr. Maduro, who has refused the help. This would cast Mr. Maduro in a bad light,
opposition leaders said, and display their ability to set up a government-like relief
system in a nation where the crumbling economy has left many starving, sick and without
access to medicine.
Worry about what comes next has intensified . At a meeting in the U.S. embassy in Bogota,
Colombia, last week, military, intelligence and civilian leaders from both countries
discussed ways of moving humanitarian aid into Venezuela. There was a sense of
frustration in the air, according to a participant who agreed to discuss it on condition
of anonymity.
The U.S. said it was paying for the aid but wanted Colombia to find trucks and
drivers to move it in. The Colombians said no one would accept the mission because the
Venezuelan military would arrest them. The aid remains in warehouses near the
border.
At similar meetings in the Colombian border city of Cucuta, a person who attended said
the dynamic was the same -- the U.S. expecting Colombia to find the means to deliver the
aid and the Colombians saying they can't.
The opposition is only now thinking up
its own crazy scheme for delivering the "aid":
In Cúcuta, members of the opposition say they are considering options to
physically force the shipment into Venezuela.
Omar Lares, a former opposition mayor in exile in Cúcuta, said organizers want
people to surround an aid truck on the Colombian side and accompany it to the bridge. A
crowd of thousands would be gathered on the other side to push through a security cordon,
move the containers blocking the bridge, and accompany the aid into Venezuela.
"One group over there, one over here, and we'll make one large human chain," he
said.
And what does he think the battalion of Venezuelan soldiers between the two groups will
do? Just step aside and allow an invasion of their country?
The struggle could make for some marketable TV pictures but it would not achieve
anything. The lack of planning is daunting even to the lobbyists in Washington DC:
" The opposition has created immense expectations, and it's not at all clear they have a
plan for actually fulfilling them ," said David Smilde, a Venezuela analyst at the
Washington Office on Latin America.
The U.S. coup plotters and their Venezuelan proxies seem to recognize that there will be
no imminent change :
Addressing a congressional hearing, the US special envoy on Venezuela, Elliott Abrams,
claimed "Maduro and his band of thieves" were finished. He claimed international pressure
meant "there is a storm brewing inside the Maduro regime that will eventually bring it to
an end".
But while Abrams said Washington was "hopeful and confident" of Maduro's demise he
admitted it was "impossible to predict" when it might come. The US would maintain
pressure "over the next weeks and months", he added, suggesting a quick resolution is no
longer expected.
Opposition leaders have spent recent days trying to dampen expectations that Maduro's
exit is imminent.
Juan Andrés Mejía, an opposition leader and Guaidó ally, admitted
that goal "could take some time".
The little spontaneous support the Random Guyidó had in some parts of the
population is already lessening. Yesterday's demonstration he had called for saw less attendance than the one on
January 23. He now says that he will force the 'aid' crossing on February 23 but he
does not seem to have a real plan to achieve that:
President of the National Assembly Guaido also promised the country that US-delivered
humanitarian aid will "enter the country no matter what" on February 23, issuing an
"order" for the military to allow it to enter. However, military leaders have dismissed
these calls, with the Central Defense Region tweeting in response that the armed forces
would not take any orders from an "imperial lackey."
"One month after the swearing in we have done it. This February 23 the humanitarian
aid will enter the country. The Armed Forces have 11 days to decide if they are on the
side of the Venezuelans and the Constitution or on that of the usurper," he claimed in
reference to President Maduro.
I f the U.S. does not do more than it has done so far the government under President
Maduro can sit this out. The sanctions and the lack of oil revenue will create many
immediate problems. But in a few weeks Venezuelan oil will have found new buyers. Fresh
money will come in and new sources for imports of medicine and staple food will have been
found.
Over the same time the Random Guy will lose support. The party he nominally leads
only won 20% of the votes. The other opposition parties were never informed of his plan to
declare himself president. Their support for the step was lukewarm and will cool further.
They may in the end support the mediation talks Maduro has offered and which the UN,
Uruguay and Mexico also support. The talks could lead to new parliament and/or presidential
elections in a year or two and thereby solve the situation.
The U.S. would not be satisfied by a compromise solution. Trump is now committed to
'regime change' in Venezuela. But how can he do it?
Waging an open war against that country would be very messy, expensive and difficult
to justify. To start and support a guerilla war - Elliott Abrams specialty - takes time
also costs a lot of money. The chances to win it are low. Moreover Trump wants to get
re-elected but could lose many votes over both scenarios.
What else then can he do?
Posted by b on February 14, 2019 at 01:58 PM |
Permalink
Have Russia and/or China taken any steps to provide any medications that may be urgently
required by Venezuelan hospitals or doctors? ...one or two planeloads would seem to get it
done
Given the nation's massive economic potential, America's bankers must be excited about
the prospect of even higher profitability based on increased business opportunities in the
nation that has the world's largest oil reserves.
Simply put, whilst the regime change in Venezuela is faltering the Trump's retreat to Deep
State is escalating. After a couple of months of no movement in Venezuela, he will be
forced to commence his first open war.
Clintons, Bushes and Obama started theirs, how could Trump disappoint? Starting a war
would complete the outcome which is a mirror image (opposite) to what Trump promised and
was elected on.
Some would say that Trump's achievement is zero. Yet, the system which delivered two
worst Presidential candidates ever in history is to blame. Trump was just the worst
candidate for President. If the other, worstest candidate won, there already would have
been no Venezuela and no US, the World would have been a pile of radioactive dust. It is
still not impossible that the worst candidate could achieve the same as the worstest, but
for the other one the outcome was a virtual certainty.
As to 2020 election, expect deja vu - Republican Trump the Worst and some Democratic the
Worstest. Who are you gonna vote for? Who with brains will waste time voting?
Backlash is arriving already. The people of Haiti are toppling their corrupt US puppet
president in naked anger over his betrayal of Venezuela when he voted with the Empire's
dictate in a January OAS event declaring Maduro "illegimite". Must read :
'Between February 6 and 10 of 2019, several military transport aircraft have flown to the
Rafael Miranda Airport in Puerto Rico, the San Isidro Air Base in the Dominican Republic,
and other strategically located Caribbean Islands, most certainly without the knowledge
of the governments of those nations. These flights took off from U.S. military facilities
where Special Operation Troops and U.S. Marine Corps units operate. These units have been
used for covert operations, even against leaders of other countries.'
thanks b... you said this in one of your previous post - they don't have a plan!
@5 kiza - lol! - the way i see it, trump is almost the most successful as he hasn't
engaged in a direct war, and had to work thru other ones started by other presidents... i
like entertaining the idea it is trump against the deep state... it is a fun thought, but i
think it is extremely unrealistic.. trump will do what he is told even if it is in a round
about way.. if the deep state want a war, he will cosign it.. as b also shared - all the
sanctions on russia haven't let up and instead have just increased steadily since he
entered office.. trump may talk a good line - no more wars, why can't we be friends with
russia and etc - but he is missing in action on these same fronts.. now, maybe if he can
hold off on following Netanyahu's war plan for Iran, or hold off on bombing Venezuela or
whatever he is supposed to do here, he might have a chance for a 2nd term... the democrats
have shown real skill in shooting themselves in the foot! anything is possible..
i too enjoyed the congresswomen who was up on anti-Semite charges taking a real strip
out of Elliot Abrams yesterday.. kudos to her for going for it..
Nobody volunteering to be the martyrs as yet, so some will have to be volunteered. The
Trump regime has put a lot of work into gaining Venezuelan oil, so I doubt they will be
stopped by a little hiccup.
I didn't see this posting from Reuters about the next ploy in b's posting
"(Reuters) - President Donald Trump will give a speech on Venezuela in Miami on Monday
and voice support for Venezuela's National Assembly President Juan Guaido, whom the
United States considers the legitimate president of that country, a White House official
said on Wednesday. Trump is to make remarks on Venezuela and "the dangers of socialism"
at Florida International University in Miami, the official said."
We have had this discussion before but there is only top/bottom and not left/right. That
said, the elite are now setting up to cast top/bottom as capitalism/socialism......neither
of which exist in the same way that TOP/BOTTOM does.
Within the definition of TOP/BOTTOM one could suggest that
Capitalism is where (TOP) a historical elite perpetuate the God of Mammon global finance
jackboot without oversight and TBTF on the BOTTOM that acts like powerless zombies, and
Socialism is where the God of Mammon global finance is a set of public utilities as a
managed resource for the public commons and strict restrictions are made on ongoing
ownership of private property
Venezuela follows the neoliberal doctrine, perhaps not by choice, but they buy what
they can't produce. Now they can't buy much and they do not produce much but oil, and they
are denied payment by their biggest customer of oil. Ouch. Their gold in London cant be
used. Revenues from Citgo are denied. Cant even sell their overseas assets now.
People need to eat, once they start going hungry they become more receptive to
change. US wont use force unless Venezuela is so beaten down by lack of food and medicines
they can be rolled over without much of a fight, perhaps after softening them up with
mercenaries or other countries troops
Its a process. There is no hurry for the US. Time is on their side. That's the
reality. Chinise refineries cant handle too much of their heavy oil and its not about to
intervene in any military conflict, and Russia does not need their oil plus Venezuela owes
them a lot of money, and they own 49% of Citgo and its US refineries. They will cut a deal
that minimizes their losses.
Max Blumenthal continues to try and reclaim his former position as a believable journalist.
I provided his observational tweet on the previous Venezuelan thread, and do so
again :
"At Tuesday's opposition march, among the most ferociously anti-Chavista elements
in Venezuela, I struggled to find a single person willing to openly support a direct US
military intervention. Not that Bolton, Rubio, or Abrams would care."
Of course, those sentiments do pose a problem for the Orange Gringo. Down the thread is
a cute cartoon vid that will bring out the wry smile in most.
'"The opposition has created immense expectations, and it's not at all clear they
have a plan for actually fulfilling them," said David Smilde, a Venezuela analyst at the
Washington Office on Latin America'.
No. Actually, the US government and media have created immense expectations. Apparently
Trump's plans as President and Commander-in-Chief are just as half-baked as his business
projects were.
Blooming Barricade , Feb 14, 2019 4:12:34 PM |
link
And Roberto Lovato professor at UCLA on Democracy Now (they're redeeming themselves a
bit IMO with their Venezuela coverage, considering their abysmal coverage of Syria and
"Russiagate"): here
.
@james 9
Thanks for all your previous comments as well as this one. I do not subscribe to the
concept that Trump is a Deep State puppet. Even the horrible Obama was not. All those
sh**bags enter the vice of Presidency and after being squeezed a little by the Deep State
wizards behind the curtain, they start dancing to the tune. The system selects them on the
basis of low resistance, that is on the basis of being worthless, characterless
individuals. Watch the pre-selection/Primaries debates to realise how it comes to the final
match between the worst and the worstest.
But I find an interesting parallel between Syria and Venezuela. The US allies who
are supposed to sacrifice for the regime change and thieving of the neighbouring country.
When US assembled a Thieving Coalition on behalf of Israel to rip apart Syria, Turkey and
GCC (Saudis) were the prominent local members, just as Columbia and Brazil in ripping apart
Venezuela (also with puppet master Israel on top).
The Syria rip off failed because of what I called "the honesty between the thieves". It
appears that the Venezuela rip off is faltering due to the same reason. Perhaps it is an
in-built, systemic weakness of thieving coalitions that all the members want a piece of the
dismembered victim, but are too careful to sacrifice more of their own blood and money than
the next to achieve it.
Israel passes the buck down to US, US passes the buck down to Columbia and Brazil,
Columbian and Brazilian regimes try to pass it down to some internal fool, but those are
hard to find.
The thieving, murdering pyramid falters for the lack of self-sacrificial, extremist
fools (rarer in South America than in Middle East).
We usually think of Israel only as a tormenter of the Palestinians. But Israel is
much, much more - it is the Capo Di Tutti i Capi of the global crime. Tormenting
Palestinians is only a hobby, a sport, but destroying countries to steal their wealth is
the day job. US is a dumb bully, the blunt tool that the Israel Crime Syndicate uses for
stealing on a global scale. This is my new perspective after Israel's involvement in the
coup in Venezuela.
I've been following this story on Telesur and MintPress News for a few days. It
confirms the theory that what the US could be doing is igniting -- inadvertently -- civil
wars in the Lima Group countries.
Talking of which: The Canadian government is looking very weak. There are calls for
Trudeau's resignation after the unveiling of a corruption scandal involving Lavalin which
was heavily involved in the Libyan war in which Canada played a leading and ignominious
role -- Pilots, enforcing the 'no fly' zone, were said afterwards to have been
disillusioned, having been used as Al Qaeda's Air Force.
Canada has been taking the lead as a US surrogate in propagandizing for regime change in
Venezuela, if there is a government crisis it could lead to Freeland taking Trudeau's
place. On the other hand it might lead to a saner person being appointed to Foreign
Affairs.
The Washington Mafia won't admit defeat that easily. Some false flag action somewhere
at the border or the u.s. embassy will come. The howling of the Relotius media will be
deafening. Maybe a Colombian or a Brazilian military is stupid enough to do what Tronald
Dumb would rather avoid in consideration of his electorate.
I'm not sure the plan was ever meant to be a success. Oh sure, Rubio would have loved it if
the military stepped in and took over but he probably felt there was no real downside.
If in 6 months Maduro is still in power Guaido will be able to keep claiming Maduro is
illegitimate.
He can run across the border to Colombia and in the next election claim it is fraudulent
because he is not allowed to run. Meanwhile, sanctions will continue to do their magic and
eventually the people will stop supporting Maduro, not because they want the opposition in
charge, but because they want sanctions lifted.
At that point the military will be easily able to take over and launch elections that
only allow US-backed candidates. No big deal for Trump. What does it cost him? We have
plenty of oil for the time being. This kind of plan has few downsides (other than being
extremely immoral).
Far more likely that Brazil and Colombia refuse to commit any troops or other support
for a US-led coalition to invade Venezuela. These countries have long borders going through
thinly populated tropical forest or mountain areas with Venezuela.
They don't want the prospect of fighting continuous border wars with militias that would
sap their own military strength and which could go deep into their own territories. Imagine
how unpopular that would make their current governments with their publics.
It's likely that the Brazilian and Colombian governments don't command the loyalty
of their armed forces (especially the foot soldiers who would have shoulder the burden of
invasion) to the extent that the Venezuelan government under Maduro does of its own.
Especially if money allocated to the armed forces in Brazil and Colombia has gone to a few
favored individuals in the officer hierarchies while the grunts have seen no increased pay
or support, or have even seen their pay levels dwindle as their responsibilities
grow.
That's a possible scenario in Brazil given that since Dilma Rousseff's impeachment
as President in 2016 it has been governed by corrupt neoliberal politicians.
The problem with your hypothesis is the Venezuelan People support the Bolivarian
Revolution AND its constitution by over 80% as was shown in one of the first threads on
this topic.
Thanks to the People's Media, TeleSur, the People are well informed of the economic war
being waged against them, and they well know what abandoning the Revolution would
mean--they just celebrated a holiday dedicated to a revolt against a previous Yankee-backed
Dictator. Furthermore, the majority of the planet's people through their governments back
Maduro.
Stonewalling the offered dialog by Maduro goes against the Opposition's interest, just
as sitting out elections has every time. And if polls related to BigLie Media believability
within the Outlaw US Empire can be used as a proxy indicator, then it isn't doing a good
job manufacturing consent globally either.
South of the Border, majorities in every nation loathe the Gringo-Yankee Imperialist, so
reactionary governments can only stay in power through force. Bevin notes Lima Group
nations are already experiencing Blowback, and Haiti's already in revolt--again.
thanks... those are good parallels between syria and venezuala that you draw and to
which i agree with.. my thought on trump is basically - it doesn't matter who is in the
presidents seat in the usa, as the president seems to have little to say on that
matter..
they are compliant, or made to be compliant to agenda that seems to override every dream
a normal american might have for some role of harmony on the world stage which always
includes war, or some threat of war, with endless sanctions in prep for more of the same..
all to secure the us$ and yes - i think israel plays a pivotal role in all this as
well.
i like @24 jen's overview on the response that is more likely from the new puppets
surrounding venezuala..
Blooming Barricade , Feb 14, 2019 6:08:37 PM |
link
@20 Yes, Christina Freeland formed the Lima Group with her Ukrianian fascism's ideological
partners: Bolsonaro and his party alongside Columbia and to an extent Argentina. South
America a haven for Nazis once more.
"China will stay committed to pursuing peaceful development, comprehensively
deepening reform and breaking new grounds in opening-up on all fronts, and building a new
type of international relations and a community with a shared future for mankind in order
to create new opportunities for and make fresh contributions to world peace and
development."
"Putin's Lasting
State" or "Modern Russian Governance Explained," by Vladislav Surkov, Tr. Dimitry
Orlov. Excerpt:
"And so the Russian state continues, now as a new type of state that has never
existed here before. It took form mostly in the middle of the 2000s, and so far it has
been little studied, but its uniqueness and its viability are now apparent.
The stress tests which it has passed and is now passing have shown that this
specific, organically arrived at model of political functioning provides an effective
means of survival and ascension of the Russian nation not just for the coming years, but
for decades and, most likely, for the entire next century."
Both provide an amazing counterpoise to what we see the Outlaw US Empire doing. A very
curious proposal from the last article:
"[T]the political system that has been made in Russia is fit to serve not just future
domestic needs but obviously has significant export potential."
The import of what you said is that the people of Venezuela are well informed. The
people of the Evil Empire and its vassals are not. Thirteen weeks of revolt in France and a
week in Haiti -- Evil Empire MSM -- crickets.
"All states can be placed on a continuum which ranges from states whose authority is
based on their power to states whose power is based on their authority." Alexander
Solzhenitsyn
My favorite talking point is how anyone who is interviewed in the U.S. insists that the
'rank and file' are with the new President and only a handful of the most corrupt, upper
echelon Generals still support Maduro.
And I really love it when the Sock Puppets who do the interviews nod their heads as if
this is some great new insight when they should respond, 'how the hell do you know, when
were you in Venezuela?'
Kiza @ 33: Thanks for the compliment but I was really only guessing! Although it's not
difficult to think that any increases in Brazil's military budget that Bolsonaro makes (and
the country is on austerity spending and cutting back on social programs) are likely to go
into buying foreign (ie US) armaments, enriching Bolsonaro's allies in the military and in
Brazil's own armaments production, and not into better pay and conditions for soldiers.
One other thing also to consider is that in addition to conventional armed forces,
Venezuela also has popular defense committees and militias among urban and rural
communities who would be fighting any invasion forces. This is something we MoA
barflies had not considered before as few of us live in countries where militia groups have
been allowed to exist and even receive government support and money for arms and training.
https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/13968
"We usually think of Israel only as a tormenter of the Palestinians. But Israel is
much, much more - it is the Capo Di Tutti i Capi of the global crime. Tormenting
Palestinians is only a hobby, a sport, but destroying countries to steal their wealth is
the day job. US is a dumb bully, the blunt tool that the Israel Crime Syndicate uses for
stealing on a global scale. This is my new perspective after Israel's involvement in the
coup in Venezuela."
This is how I see Israel as well, one difference though; IMO the US is being used to
bully yes, but it is also being destroyed and once dead Israel will move on to its next
victim
That's the gist of the narrative, that "democracy's being restored" instead of usurped.
Fortunately, that narrative is well past its sell date and its rot is all too plain for
many to see. It only works on the blindly indoctrinated, which fortunately are no longer a
majority within the Outlaw US Empire.
@42 It would be interesting to know who got Branson involved. He probably sees Guaido as
young and progressive. Maduro not so much. It shows which side of the fence Branson sits
on.
@ Jen 37
Yes, you are absolutely right, the last line of defence of Venezuela is what is usually
called the "territorial defence". I have never seen a territorial defence act effectively
in a military situation, and I am guessing that this is because of poor leadership, poor
armaments and amateurs against professionals. Having written all this, it is the remnants
of the "defence popular" which would be the bedrock of the guerrilla resistance. Therefore,
do not count on them stopping a professional military invasion, but do count on them
increasing the cost of the Mission Accomplished to the "peace keepers", that is those who
want to have peace just to enjoy their loot.
@ frances 38
Dear Frances, you raise this very interesting point about why a rider would flog his nag
to death. I know that there are two opposite strategies in the biological world - parasites
which maintain their host and parasites which kill their host. I simply do not understand
the strategy of a parasite killing its host. This would be a sensible strategy only in a
situation of plentiful replacement hosts, but both US and EU host are pretty warn out
nags.
If the US nag croaks financially, EU will not be much of a replacement, whilst the
potential of parasitising on Russia and China approaches zero. Therefore, I conclude that
"strategy of flogging the nag to death" is not really a strategy, it is an urge. That is,
it comes from a mix of chutzpah, psychopathy and pig manure in the nature of the parasite.
After all, who puts up a sofa on top of a hill of a stolen land to watch the final
extinction of the previous owner. Obviously, this goes far beyond just stealing the women
and the cattle.
Exxon-Mobil drilling exploration analyses results scheduled announcements at South Eastern
Mediterranean basin (location is situated a small birds flying distance south from Akrotiri
British base in Cyprus which will be obviously harbor HMS Queen Elizabeth aircraft
carrier/s designed from ground up for F-35 deployment) were accidentally cancelled a few
days short before the Venezuela situation was grabbing the international headlines.
Day before yesterday unexpectedly the results were forwarded to the presses. It was
being timed to synch with the Venezuela humanitarian 'crisis' show?
What's the hidden message here? No oil revenues for you Med folks to use for boosting
social programmes political strategies?
" Therefore, I conclude that "strategy of flogging the nag to death" is not really
a strategy, it is an urge. That is, it comes from a mix of chutzpah, psychopathy and pig
manure in the nature of the parasite. After all, who puts up a sofa on top of a hill of a
stolen land to watch the final extinction of the previous owner. Obviously, this goes far
beyond just stealing the women and the cattle."
I agree, given the kill or be killed pathology of Israel's leadership combined with its
death grip on the US govt, all I see is a US collapse.
Israel in its madness assumes that somehow out of all of this it will rule the ME so why
would it have further need of its American dead horse?
To me, Israel has a Circe (Game of Thrones) mentality; lots of schemes, little to show for
it other than the death of others, lots of others.
"1981–1987: Package holiday industries and Virgin Atlantic Airways success
Branson's first successful entry into the airline industry was during a trip to Puerto
Rico. His flight was cancelled, so he decided to charter his own plane the rest of the way
and offer a ride to the rest of the stranded passengers for a small fee in order to cover
the cost.[24]
In 1982, Virgin purchased the gay nightclub Heaven."
To me it suggests that the guy might have been involved in kompromat operations in some
MI-sonething back at the day?
You're right – a war is all but inconceivable. Here are the numbers: The
Venezuelan army numbers 500,000 members. In addition, there are the uniquely Venezuelan
entities known as the national, regional and municipal-level militias numbering two million
more citizens under arms.
Modern military theory posits that an invading force must number at least three times
the numbers of the defensive force. The US military cannot muster even an equivalent number
to those who would be waiting for them "behind every blade of grass."
Even a strictly air attack intended to wreak widespread destruction and leave nothing
but chaos (a US specialty) would suffer significant casualties from the very sophisticated
air defense systems in Venezuela.
Of course, no quantity of dead military would be of slightest concern to the oligarchs
in the US and in Venezuela who would hope to make a killing from all the killing, but some
substantial number of US politicians would worry about the effect on their constituencies,
and the results in their vote counts next year.
A US military assault on Venezuela would be extremely stupid, and would wreak havoc on
the political class in DC.
The popular militias are not Venezuela's last line of defence, but the key to it. Venezuela
is one of those are countries in which the government can distribute arms and munitions to
the populace without fear that they will be used against it. And that is why so far the
allure of invading Venezuela, on behalf of the US and rich people everywhere, is not
sufficient to attract Colombia or Brazil.
As I have said before there is a real possibility that, by provoking the Venezuelan
masses back into active defence of the Bolivarian system, the imperialists risk starting a
war of poor against rich that would find eager partisans from Patagonia to Panama.
It would be instructive to consider the vast amounts of money and military that it took
to bring FARC to the negotiating table. The reason why Colombia has been invited into NATO
is that, for the past three decades NATO, in the form of US, UK and mercenaries, plus the
narcotics industry's paramilitaries, plus Israel have been spending billions to suppress a
guerrilla uprising in the jungle. And FARC fought entirely on its own, without regular
assistance from any outside power.
What Venezuela must do, however, is to do as Cuba did and become self sufficient in
foodstuffs. It has to break away from its dependency on commodity exports/imports. There is
no reason why it cannot achieve this within months. But to do so it has to break from the
bourgeoisie, who have broken decisively with it, and expropriate their 'property.'
Such an example would thrill millions across the continent and around the world,
millions who would rally- as Britain's dockers did in 1919 when they refused to load ships
supplying the anti-Bolshevik forces in Russia- to the support of the people of Venezuela
fighting for the right to govern themselves.
I don't really believe the Regular Guy nor the opposition want 'elections'.... why should
they? they have essentially lost nearly all of the 30 or more elections since 1998 and yet
they keep howling about elections. They just can't accept it - that they only have 20-30%
of the population with them.
They want power - and some/many of them are now willing to call on the USA to intervene
and give them illegitimate power through a coup d'etat and/or military sabotage and
subversion. they want a return of the totally pernicious and anti-democratic Oligarchy
which rules for hundreds of years until Chavez kicked them out..... These guys are so
arrogant that they are talking, among other nefarious things, about seizing/using funds in
the bank accounts of the Venezuelan embassy in DC
really it's time for Maduro to do something a bit more sane and radical because these
guys are out of control, or he'll lose - in other words, use the courts... but he keeps
talking about "sooner or later" , well it looks to me like later is getting pretty late
Venezuela is a proxy battlefield for the Western way/NOT-Western way. I don't want to throw
ism definitions at the sides when I believe it it all about the money....global private
finance versus alternatives like China, Russia, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and Venezuela....I
am missing ???
Anyway, I think this "existential" conflict is being forced now before the alternatives
get more influence on the "slave" Western nations.
I don't like to think about the repressive environment that will exist in the remaining
Western block of nations after this global "divorce".
In the coming "public discussion" about capitalism/socialism will the true power of
those that own global private finance be exposed? I hope so but keep seeing identity
politics, wars, etc. being played against the chances.
"A US military assault on Venezuela would be extremely stupid, and would wreak
havoc on the political class in DC."
It would be stupid. Which is precisely why it wont happen, except as fake humanitarian
intervention after Venezuela is divided and weakened from sanctions and starvation. It
could happen earlier with a FF attack killing a large number of Americans blamed on
Venezuela, but the US has been very cautious about putting troops in harms way since
Vietnam. We engage against enemies we know cant hurt us much.
These guys are pretty smart. Many like to think otherwise, perhaps it makes them feel
better. You can't judge their actions by Hollywood standards of winning and losing. Chaos
and denial of resources to anyone opposed to the Empire is enough of a Win , at least
temporarily. Its a long game they play, its been played for over a century now, even much
longer.
The elites, referred to by Plato as Philosopher Kings , want to rule the world as living
Gods, or at least their descendants. It's only over the last 150-250 years or so that
control of science, finance, military, capitalism and democracy (manipulated via the
printing press) gave them the means to realize their goals. It was a long road for them,
operating through secret societies and monopoly control of money and government debt, and
dealing with factions who were bound by morality (hence the war on religion) . In the
battle between Good and Evil tbe good guys have been annihilated or at least silenced, at
least in the West and most likely much of the East.
"... I have to agree with the false flag suggestions. anyone who saw abrams get reamed by omar yesterday saw the true face of delusional and unaccountable psychopathy at work. the closest he's ever come to paying for his war crimes was a brief period before a pardon and as such he's more entitled and fearless than the average deep state scumbag. add the typical zionist persecution complex ("pre-traumatic stress disorder") and a healthy dose of spite and it's clear this won't end until it has to. ..."
"... As for the western media, they'll screech no matter what happens. I "hate watch" the BBC's american coverage and it is even more painful than you'd think. They're fixated at an autistic level on "OMG TEH AID WTF!!!!111!!" and parade out rando "opposition" types who claim they're tortured martyrs while wearing make-up in a new york TV studio. ..."
"... I have to agree with the false flag suggestions. anyone who saw abrams get reamed by omar yesterday saw the true face of delusional and unaccountable psychopathy at work. the closest he's ever come to paying for his war crimes was a brief period before a pardon and as such he's more entitled and fearless than the average deep state scumbag. add the typical zionist persecution complex ("pre-traumatic stress disorder") and a healthy dose of spite and it's clear this won't end until it has to. ..."
"... As for the western media, they'll screech no matter what happens. I "hate watch" the BBC's american coverage and it is even more painful than you'd think. They're fixated at an autistic level on "OMG TEH AID WTF!!!!111!!" and parade out rando "opposition" types who claim they're tortured martyrs while wearing make-up in a new york TV studio. ..."
Market shelves in the scruffy Colombian town of Puerto Santander are loaded with
Venezuelan maize flour, rice, cheese spread and more, heavily subsidized consumer goods
smuggled by government officials and ordinary citizens alike and sold at big mark-ups.
Gasoline is ferried from Venezuela too, as people cash in on the arbitrage opportunities
created by extreme price distortions. The spectacle of food being spirited out of a country
where hunger is becoming epidemic shows in microcosm how Maduro's socialist government has
created an economic and humanitarian disaster. While this black-market trade has been going
on for years now, it's jarring to witness it at a time when much of the world has thrown its
support behind efforts by Maduro's rival, Juan Guaido, to bring emergency supplies into the
country. "It makes you angry to see these products for sale," said Lisbeth Cisneros, 28, a
pregnant mother of four who fled the Venezuelan town of San Cristobal three months ago and
works as a street vendor on the Colombian side of the border. "The situation is horrible over
there."
@israel
shamir I read the link The setting for this incident is British soldiers and colonists
under siege at Fort Pitt by Indians allied with Pontiac. There is no evidence for any
sustained program of attempting to infect Indians with smallpox in U.S. history. This charge
is of a piece with the general use of the term "genocide" regarding American relations with
the Indians. And it is equally fallacious.
In this struggle, President Trump is his own bitter enemy. He seeks approval of the War
Party, and his own base will be disappointed by his actions.
Sad but true. Trump is over. Any Qanons out there still trying desperately to convince
themselves that he's secretly fighting the deep state are just delusional specimens at this
point. Don't get me wrong: I'm still glad Hillary's still not president. I'm just saddened
that there'll be no MAGA but then, I guess that was always unlikely.
A bigger problem is that Venezuela had become a monoculture economy: it exports oil and
imports everything else. It does not even produce food to feed its 35 million inhabitants.
Venezuela is a victim of neoliberal doctrine claiming that you can buy what you can't
produce. Now they can't buy and they do not produce. Imagine a democratic Saudi Arabia hit
by blockade.
This point is worth emphasizing, since it's not a problem unique to Venezuela. In fact,
the Globalist institutions (IMF, WorldBank, USAid, etc.) have worked tirelessly for decades
now to increase third-world countries' dependence on import-export agriculture, rather than
encouraging them to become more self-sufficient. Instead of extending them credit to grow
food for the domestic market, for example, the WorldBank will only extend them credit to grow
crops–usually dry crops like cotton–for export, forcing them to import
much of the food they need. Meanwhile, Washington throws crazy subsidies at agri-giants like
Monsanto (rather than 'small family farms') to encourage them to export more of their GMO
garbage to these countries. Just ask the Mexicans what happened to their domestic
corn-growing industry after NAFTA came into effect. Now, all those Mexicans who lost their
farms are up in the US working as laborers for the very agri-businesses that put them
out of business in the first place!
But hey: sactionable countries, broke farmers heading pa' norte to look for work,
and constant instability throughout the third world–those are all features of
the NWO, not bugs.
By the way, am I the only one who thinks Juan Guaidó looks sort of like a gay
Obama?
Unlike Asians and Arabs, Latin Americans don't have it in them to fight a war. Sure they can
bluster, but like Africans, it's all just chest puffing noise.
When the U.S. decides to go in, they'll meet little resistance. The tragedy will be what
comes later as when the U.S. exported democracy to Iraq, Syria and Libya. Rich Venezuelans
will make out like bandits, the poor will be reduced to selling their daughters.
What surprises me is the silence of both the left and Hispanics. Trump is about to do a
regime change in a Latin American socialist country and they have nothing to say about
it.
Israel Shamir should have better sense than to spread the 'diseased blankets' given by
Americans to the Indians nonsense. Even the link fails to come close to proving a single
case. First, the only known written suggestion that anyone had considered it is from Colonial
days – those are officers of the British Empire. Second, the one case of a possible
such transmission, and it perhaps an accident, also is from the Colonial era.
The most genocidally inclined Americans with power and authority who might have done such
a thing, Union Generals Sherman and Sheridan, did not take advantage of their positions to do
such an evil.
The real decimation of the Native American population was caused by diseases brought by the
Spanish to which they had no immunity. This occurred before widespread settlement on the
Eastern seaboard.
Yes, there was one recorded incident of an army officer giving infected blankets to the
Indians but that was not a widespread program in itself.
Venezuela invasion thing is double-faceted: a trap for Trump & a bluff. if the invasion
is, then bye-bye 2020 election, mission accomplished. if no invasion on sight then the bluff
of Pompeo-Bolton-Abrams is called & the 2020 reelection assured. Venezuela in the role of
bait.
@Anonymous
And of course the trail of tears by the Cherokees and later by the Navaho added to it, as
hundreds if thousand didn't died from the lack of blankets and the lack of food, only to be
used as forced labor living in holes in the ground young women selling them selves for a loaf
of bread while they built a fort.The truth was we tried to kill off by any means as many as
we could for the dead has no claim to the land.!!!.!!c
@Jake
Hmm I believe it was Sherman to said "kill the children for nits breed lice" and surly don't
leave out Custer who the Indians call the 'eastern sun" for he always attacked as the sun
came up attacking friendly villages as well as those not so friendly !!
"... First, you starve people; then you bring them humanitarian aid. This was proposed by John McNaughton at Pentagon: bomb locks and dams, by shallow-flooding the rice, cause widespread starvation (more than a million dead?) "And then we shall deliver humanitarian aid to the starving Vietnamese". Or, rather, "we could offer to do [that] at the conference table." Planning a million dead by starvation, in writing: if such a note would be found on the ruins of the Third Reich, it would seal the story of genocide, it would be quoted daily. But the story of the genocide of the Vietnamese is rarely mentioned nowadays. ..."
"... They did it in Syria, too. At first, they brought weapons for every Muslim extremist, then they blockaded Damascus, and then they sent some humanitarian aid, but only to the areas under rebel control. ..."
"... The Israelis practice it in Gaza. They block all export or import from the Strip, interdict fishing in the Mediterranean and drip-feed the captive Palestinians by 'humanitarian aid'. Jews, being Jews, make it one better: they made the EU to pay for the humanitarian aid to Gaza AND to buy the aid stuff from Israel. This made Gaza an important source of profit for the Jewish state. ..."
You are so kind-hearted! I shed a tear thinking of American generosity. "So many delightful
goodies: sacks of rice, canned tuna and protein-rich biscuits, corn flour, lentils and pasta,
arrived at the border of troubled Venezuela – enough for one light meal each for five
thousand people", – reported the news in a sublime reference to five thousand fed by
Christ's fishes and loaves. True, Christ did not take over the bank accounts and did not seize
the gold of those he fed. But 21st century Venezuela is a good deal more-prosperous than 1st
century Galilee. Nowadays, you have to organise a blockade if you want people to be grateful
for your humanitarian aid.
This is not a problem. The US-UK duo did it in Iraq, as marvellous Arundhati Roy wrote in
April 2003 (in The Guardian of old, before it turned into an imperial tool): After
Iraq was brought to its knees, its people starved, half a million of its children killed, its
infrastructure severely damaged the blockade and war were followed by you guessed it!
Humanitarian relief. At first, they blocked food supplies worth billions of dollars, and then
they delivered 450 tonnes of humanitarian aid and celebrated their generosity for a few days of
live TV broadcasts. Iraq had had enough money to buy all the food it needed, but it was
blocked, and its people received only some peanuts.
And this was rather humane by American standards. In the 18th century, the British colonists
in North America used more drastic methods while dispensing aid to disobedient natives. The Red
Indians were expelled from their native places, and then they were provided humanitarian aid:
whiskey and blankets. The blankets had been previously used by smallpox
patients . The native population of North America was decimated by the ensuing epidemics
from this and similar measures. Probably you haven't heard of this chapter of your history: the
USA has many Holocaust museums but not a single memorial to the genocide near home. It is much
more fun to discuss faults of Germans and Turks than of your own forefathers.
First, you starve people; then you bring them humanitarian aid. This was proposed by John
McNaughton at Pentagon: bomb locks and dams, by shallow-flooding the rice, cause widespread
starvation (more than a million dead?) "And then we shall deliver humanitarian aid to the
starving Vietnamese". Or, rather, "we could offer to do [that] at the conference table."
Planning a million dead by starvation, in writing: if such a note would be found on the ruins
of the Third Reich, it would seal the story of genocide, it would be quoted daily. But the
story of the genocide of the Vietnamese is rarely mentioned nowadays.
They did it in Syria, too. At first, they brought weapons for every Muslim extremist,
then they blockaded Damascus, and then they sent some humanitarian aid, but only to the areas
under rebel control.
This cruel but efficient method of breaking nations' spirit has been developed by lion
tamers for years, perhaps for centuries. You have to starve the beast until it will take food
from your hands and lick your fingers. 'Starvation-taming', they call it.
The Israelis practice it in Gaza. They block all export or import from the Strip,
interdict fishing in the Mediterranean and drip-feed the captive Palestinians by 'humanitarian
aid'. Jews, being Jews, make it one better: they made the EU to pay for the humanitarian aid to
Gaza AND to buy the aid stuff from Israel. This made Gaza an important source of profit for the
Jewish state.
So in Venezuela they follow an old script. The US and its London poodle seized over 20
billion dollars from Venezuela and from Venezuelan national companies. They stole over a
billion in gold ingots Venezuela had trustingly deposited in the cellars of the Bank of
England.
Well, they said they will give this money to a Venezuelan Random Dude, rather. To the guy
who already promised to give the wealth of Venezuela to the US companies. And after this
daylight robbery, they bring a few containers of humanitarian aid to the border and wait for
the rush of bereft Venezuelans for food.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted : "The Venezuelan people
desperately need humanitarian aid. The U.S. & other countries are trying to help, but
Venezuela's military under Maduro's orders is blocking aid with trucks and shipping tankers.
The Maduro regime must LET THE AID REACH THE STARVING PEOPLE."
Venezuelans aren't starving, even though they are going through difficulties. The biggest
noise is made by the wealthy, as always. If Pompeo wants to help Venezuelans, he might lift the
sanctions, return the funds, lift the blockade. The biscuits he wants to provide are of but
little use.
President Maduro is right when he refuses to let this hypocrisy bribe the stomachs and
hearts of his people. It is not just that he remembers his Virgil and knows, Timeo danaos
et dona ferentes , "beware gift-bearing Greeks." There are too many American and Colombian
soldiers around the pending delivery place, and this place is suspiciously close to an airport
with an extra-long runway suitable for a an airlift.
The US is known for its propensity to invade its neighbours: Panama was invaded in 1989 to
keep the Panama Canal in American hands and to roll back the agreement signed by the
good-hearted President Jimmy Carter. President George Bush Sr sent his airborne troops in after
calling Panama president "a dictator and cocaine smuggler". This is exactly what President
Trump says about Venezuela's president.
They are likely to use this aid to invade and suborn Venezuela. Wisely, Maduro began large
military exercises to prepare the army in case of invasion. The situation of Venezuela is dire
enough even without invasion. Their money has been appropriated, their main oil company is as
good as confiscated; and there is a strong fifth column waiting for Yankees in Caracas.
ORDER IT NOW
This fifth column consists mainly of compradors , well-off young folk with a
smattering of Western education and upbringing, who see their future within the framework of
the American Empire. They are ready to betray the unwashed masses and invite the US troops in.
They are supported by the super-rich, by representatives of foreign companies, by Western
secret services. Such people exist everywhere; they tried to organise the Gucci Revolution in
Lebanon, the Green Revolution in Iran, the Maidan in the Ukraine. In Russia they had their
chance in the winter of 2011/2012 when their Mink-Coat Revolution was played at
Moscow's Bolotnaya Heath.
In Moscow they lost when their opponents, the Russia-First crowd, bettered them by fielding
a much-bigger demo
at Poklonnaya Hill. The Western news agencies tried to cover the defeat by broadcasting
pictures of the Putin-supporters demo and saying it was the pro-Western Heath. Other Western
agencies published pictures of 1991 rallies saying they were taken in 2012 on the Heath. In
Moscow, nobody was fooled: the mink-coat crowd knew they were licked.
In the Ukraine, they won, for President Yanukovich, a hesitant and pusillanimous man of two
minds, failed to gather massive support. It is a big question whether Maduro will be able to
mobilise Venezuela-First masses. If he is, he will win the confrontation with the US as
well.
Maduro is rather reticent; he hasn't disciplined unruly oligarchs; he does not control the
media; he tries to play a social-democrat game in a country that is not Sweden by long shot.
His subsidies have allowed ordinary people to escape dire poverty, but now they are used by
black marketeers to siphon off the wealth of the nation. Far from being a disaster zone,
Venezuela is a true Bonanza, a real Klondike: you can fill a tanker with petrol for pennies,
smuggle it to neighbouring Colombia and sell it for market price. Many supporters of the Random
Guy have made small fortunes this way, and they hope to make a large killing if and when the
Americans come.
A bigger problem is that Venezuela had become a monoculture economy: it exports oil and
imports everything else. It does not even produce food to feed its 35 million inhabitants.
Venezuela is a victim of neoliberal doctrine claiming that you can buy what you can't produce.
Now they can't buy and they do not produce. Imagine a democratic Saudi Arabia hit by
blockade.
In order to save the economy, Maduro should drain the swamp, end the black market and
profiteering, encourage agriculture, tax the rich, develop some industry for local consumption.
It can be done. Venezuela is not a socialist state like orderly Cuba, nor a social-democratic
one like Sweden and England in 1970s, but even its very modest model of allowing the masses to
rise out of misery, poverty and ignorance seems too much for the West.
It is often said there are two antagonists in the West, the Populists and the Globalists,
and President Trump is the Populist leader. The Venezuela crisis proved these two forces are
united if there is a chance to attack and rob an outsider country. Trump is condemned at home
when he calls his troops back from Afghanistan or Syria, but he gains support when he threatens
Venezuela or North Korea. He can be sure he will be cheered on by Macron and Merkel and even by
The Washington Post and The New York Times .
He has the real WMD, the Weapons of Mass Deception, to attack Venezuela, and these WMD had
been activated with the beginning of the creeping coup. When a rather unknown young politician,
the leader of a small neoliberal rabidly pro-American fraction in the Parliament, Random Dude,
claimed the title of president, he was immediately recognised by Trump, and the Western media
reported that the people of Venezuela went out in mass demos to greet the new president and
demand Maduro's removal.
They beamed videos of huge Caracas demos back to Venezuela. Not many viewers abroad noticed
that the video was old, filmed in 2016 demos, but the Venezuelans saw that at once. They
weren't fooled. They knew that there is no chance for a big protest demo on that day, the day
of a particularly important baseball game in the professional league between Leones of Caracas
and Cardenales de Lara from Barquisimeto.
But the WMD kept lying. Here is a report by
Moon of Alabama : the reports of large anti-government rallies are fake news or prophecies
hoping to become self-fulfilling ones:
Agence France-Press stated at 11:10 utc yesterday that "tens of thousands" would
join a rally.
Tens of thousands of protesters are set to pour onto the streets of Venezuela's capital
#Caracas Saturday to back opposition leader Juan Guaido's calls for early elections as
international pressure increased on President #Maduro to step down http://u.afp.com/Jouu
They lie that there are army deserters spoiling for a fight with the army. The young guys
CNN presented weren't deserters, and they didn't live in Venezuela. Even their military
insignia were of the kind discarded years ago, as our friend The Saker
noticed .
However, these lies won't avail -- my correspondents in Caracas report that there are demos
for and against government (for Maduro slightly bigger crowds), but the feelings aren't strong.
The crisis is manufactured in Washington, and the Venezuelans aren't keen to get involved.
That's why we can expect an American attempt to use force, preceded by some provocation.
Probably it won't be a full-blown war: the US never fought an enemy that wasn't exhausted prior
to the encounter. If the Maduro administration survives the blow, the crisis will take a low
profile, until sanctions do their work and further undermine the economy.
ORDER IT NOW
In this struggle, President Trump is his own bitter enemy. He seeks approval of the War
Party, and his own base will be disappointed by his actions. His sanctions will send more
refugees to the US, wall or no wall. He undermines the unique status of the US dollar by
weaponising it. In 2020, he will reap what he sow.
I am pretty sure that there won't be any military intervention by US in Venezuela. How do I
know this? Well, if it was any other nation, – for example a nation of people whose
brains have been turned into mush by decades long propaganda – then I would be worried.
Luckily, US have one of the best informed populations on earth – they have all those
bastions of truth like CNN, CBS, NYT and so on. That's why I am fairly certain that the US
wouldn't dare to attack Venezuela. Their peace-loving nation wouldn't let them.
The only way it can happen is if in the next few weeks a group of Venezuelan terrorists
hijacked few planes and flew them into some tall buildings in the US. That's the only way
that the public opinion in the peace loving nation can be swayed towards war.
Remember, every time the US has gone to war, they had to stage various versions of 9/11
– in order to convince the well informed and peace loving Americans that someone hates
their freedoms, so they have to go over there to fight for those freedoms, rather than wait
over here for someone to bring the fight to them.
I am pretty sure that there won't be any military intervention by US in Venezuela. How do I
know this? Well, if it was any other nation, – for example a nation of people whose
brains have been turned into mush by decades long propaganda – then I would be worried.
Luckily, US have one of the best informed populations on earth – they have all those
bastions of truth like CNN, CBS, NYT and so on. That's why I am fairly certain that the US
wouldn't dare to attack Venezuela. Their peace-loving nation wouldn't let them.
The only way it can happen is if in the next few weeks a group of Venezuelan terrorists
hijacked few planes and flew them into some tall buildings in the US. That's the only way
that the public opinion in the peace loving nation can be swayed towards war.
Remember, every time the US has gone to war, they had to stage various versions of 9/11
– in order to convince the well informed and peace loving Americans that someone hates
their freedoms, so they have to go over there to fight for those freedoms, rather than wait
over here for someone to bring the fight to them.
@Verymuchalive
According to numbers from Venezuela's Ministry of Agriculture, after relatively stagnant food
production throughout the 1990s, from 2003 to 2011 milk production increased by 230 percent,
beef production by 19 percent, chicken by 60 percent, rice by 25 percent, corn by 116
percent, and beans by 320 percent.
As can be seen, the claims among Chavez's critics of a decrease in food production are
simply false. And while it is true that there have been food shortages, the real reason is
quite different from what the media reports. An impressive increase in food production in
recent years has simply been outpaced by growing consumption that has increased even more
rapidly, creating supply problems in many basic items and the need to import increasing
amounts of food. Though often cited as a major failure of the Chavez government, it is
actually the result of millions of poor Venezuelans eating better and consuming more than
ever before. As one Venezuelan recently said to an opposition activist who insisted that
empty supermarket shelves were proof of the government's failures and demanded to know, "Then
where is the milk?": "The milk," he replied, "is in the bellies of Venezuela's poor." https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/7513
As for the USSR, only now the Russians are coming to the levels of modest affluence circa
1985, after the disaster of anti-communist rule in 1990s.
Russian Communism is a secularised Russian Orthodox Christianity. Likewise, American system
is secularised Judaism.
BRAVO OMAR ..2 nd time in my life I have seen balls in congress.
Venezuela Envoy Elliott Abrams Lose His Cool During Tense Exchange With Rep. Ilhan
Omar
Watch the video at link
"Mr. Abrams, in 1991 you pleaded guilty to two counts of withholding information from
Congress regarding your involvement in the Iran-Contra affair, for which you were later
pardoned by president George H.W. Bush," began Omar. "I fail to understand why members of
this committee or the American people should find any testimony that you give today to be
truthful."
"If I could respond to that " interjected Abrams.
"It was not a question," shot back Omar.
After a brief exchange in which Abrams protested "It was not right!" Omar cut Abrams off,
saying "Thank you for your participation."
@bluedog
Please present you proof your 'forced labor living in holes in the ground, women selling
themselves for bread'.
You cannot, or you would have.
We note your avoidance of the facts. Violent Stone Age 'Indians':
– kept slaves
– were in constant states of war with other tribes
– treated & traded women like cattle
– practiced genocide against other 'Indian' tribes
– used crude environmentally destructive slash & burn agricultural methods
– decimated the animal populations
– the first acts by them when they got horses from the Spaniards was to attack and
decimate other tribes
– engaged in cannibalism
– roasted people alive
– routinely butchered children
– engaged in human sacrifice
– constant rapes
– took scalps from their enemies
https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~kw/crichton.html "The noble savage is a fantasy, and it was never true. That anyone still believes it, 200
years after Rousseau, shows the tenacity of religious myths"
@bluedog
I've read biographies of Custer and can only recall two villages attacked by him at the head
of his regiment, the 7th U.S. Cavalry. In November 1868 he led an attack on the Cheyenne
encampment on the Washita River, in Oklahoma. Reports differ on the casualties, but this was
decidedly not a friendly village. The second is his celebrated and perhaps precipitous attack
on the massive summer encampment of Lakota/Cheyenne/Arapaho on the Little Bighorn River.in
June of 1876. They had refused President Grant's order to return to their reservations the
previous January, and placed themselves subject to military action. He had been involved in
other skirmishes with hostile Indians, in Kansas in 1867 and on the Yellowstone Expedition of
1873, but I'm unaware of any other attacks on villages.
I'm hardly a communist myself, but not everything can be blamed on communism.
Venezuela is not a communist state by any stretch of the imagination, and Chavez and Maduro
can hardly be compared to Lenin and Stalin, that's just a bit too much .
I didn't claim that Chavez and Maduro were Communists. Only that they had had a disastrous
effect on Venezuelan agriculture as Lenin and Stalin had on Soviet agriculture – though
of course Bolshevism was many degrees worse. I said elsewhere that Chavez used money from oil
to import ever more food from abroad, rather than stimulate indigenous food production. I
said that this was a very odd form of Socialism. In fact, it's not Socialism at all.
Back in the 1970s and 1980s – if, like me, you are old enough to remember – there
were a number of pseudo-Communist 3rd World States, like North Yemen, Angola and Ethiopia.
Beneath the very thin veneer, they were kleptocracies run to benefit those in power.
Venezuela is a similar pseudo-Socialist kleptocracy. Before he obtained power, Chavez
presented himself as a Reformer, rather than a Socialist. Afterwards, he claimed he was "
Bolivarian Socialist ".
Oil is a very capital intensive industry. If you fail to invest sufficiently, then production
will tail off, particularly the heavy, sulphurous product Venezuela produces. Chavez took
this money and used it to bribe the masses in welfare payments. Talk about being bribed by
your own money ! As much money if not more was stolen by the kleptocracy for their own
benefit – over $200bn or more if Forbes is to believed.
Oil production has gone down from 3.5bbp day before Chavez to 2.4bbp day on his death. It is
now down to 1 bbp day. By the end of the year, it will be be 0.5bbp day or less, regardless
of what America does.
I totally agree with you. The US should stay out of this conflict. Whether it wishes to
embargo Venezuelan crude imports is up to the American government. Otherwise, keep out.
Regardless, the Venezuelan Government would collapse within 18 months. Venezuela will need a
great deal of aid, not only to reconstruct their country, but also to invest heavily in oil
production. If the Us supplies this, let them have the oil. It will be the most expensive oil
in the world
A bigger problem is that Venezuela had become a monoculture economy: it exports oil and
imports everything else. It does not even produce food to feed its 35 million inhabitants.
Venezuela is a victim of neoliberal doctrine claiming that you can buy what you can't
produce.
Under two decades of Chavismo, Venezuela became much more a monoculture economy than it
used to be. Oil exports as a percentage of Venezuelan exports increased from 71.7% in 1998,
the year Chávez was elected, to 97.8% by 2013. Which implies that Chávez was
following, to quote your words, a "neoliberal doctrine claiming that you can buy what you
can't produce."
Yet you say this about the current Chavismo opponent.
When a rather unknown young politician, the leader of a small neoliberal
rabidly pro-American fraction in the Parliament, Random Dude, claimed the title of
president,
You inform us the leader of the opposition is "neoliberal," which implies that Maduro and
Chavismo are NOT neoliberal, in fact are far from being neoliberal. Yet you also inform us
that Chavismo, in its two decades in power followed "neoliberal doctrine claiming that you
can buy what you can't produce."
You are not making sense.
Fuel exports (% of merchandise exports)
1998 71.7%
2013 97.8%
CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuelans reported losing on average 11 kilograms (24
lbs) in body weight last year and almost 90 percent now live in poverty, according to a new
university study on the impact of a devastating economic crisis and food shortages.
Over 60 percent of Venezuelans surveyed said that during the previous three months they had
woken up hungry because they did not have enough money to buy food. About a quarter of the
population was eating two or less meals a day, the study showed.
Last year, the three universities found that Venezuelans said they had lost an average
of 8 kilograms during 2016. This time, the study's dozen investigators surveyed 6,168
Venezuelans between the ages of 20 and 65 across the country of 30 million people.
Most people would term "difficulties" a euphemism for that.
@israel
shamirAs can be seen, the claims among Chavez's critics of a decrease in food
production are simply false.
FAO Stats tell us otherwise. You could find no data beyond 2011? Probably because your
information source, the Venezuelan Ministry of Agriculture didn't want to release
embarrassing data.
Chávez was elected in 2016. FAO Stats inform us that from 1998 to 2016,
Venezuela's net per capita Crops (PIN) production has fallen 35.7%.
Venezuela's net per capita Cereals, Total production (here corn and rice) has fallen
46.9%.
Cereals production fell a further 17% in 2017. From 2014-2017, Cereals production in
Venezuela fell 59%.
"Claims among Chavez's critics of a decrease in food production are simply false ?" As
they say in Venezuela, "Dime otro de vaqueros." Tell me another cowboy story. Tell me
another fish tale.
"... The book Giants: The Global Power Elite by Peter Philips provides extensive detail on how imperial capital issues its instructions to the institutions it controls. ..."
"... I am very suspicious of the 32% figure. I don't trust it. A poll conducted a few weeks ago has shown just 20% of Venezuelans knew who Guaidó was. How can it be that 32% now consider him the legitimate President? ..."
"... I can certainly picture Trump pulling out all of the stops to overthrow the Venezuelan government the closer it gets to the US elections. I could even see Trump encouraging Colombia and Brazil to invade Venezuelan, but we'll have to wait see. ..."
"... Polls have had a long history of being used to bend the public narrative, slide the Overton window and otherwise obfuscate the core issue(s)......because money pays for them ..."
"... It is so weird to see this unfolding. Nobody even seems to be asking why Guaido didn't just run for president -- he wasn't barred. ..."
"... the moment the Venezuelan right-wing realized the USA chose Guaidó, they quickly begun to "support" him. Of course, this is all a farce: they know Guaidó is merely a code word for American military intervention and regime change. This is textbook color revolution. ..."
This poll basically reflects the Venezuelan people's polarization. The Chavistas always
had circa 60% and the right-wing circa 40%.
What this poll shows, though, is that the people knows how to play politics: those 32% who
answered Guaidó is the "legitimate president" know he's not, but they say he is either
way; they're sending a message to the USA: "please, bomb our country and exterminate the
Chavistas, and we'll serve you as a Puppet State".
Patricia E Schild , Feb 11, 2019 3:17:11 PM |
link
I can't wrap my brain around Venezuela "wanting" the USA to intervene in their sovereign
affairs... When Chavez took power the rich were scattering like cockroaches....Now, they're
seeking their revenge and trying to get back into power. After the results we've seen from
western intervention in the Middle East, I hope very strongly that the USA fails in Veneuela.
The true people of Venezuela deserve so much better. #Istandwiththepeopleofvenezuela
I'm surprised that even out of the right wing/bourgeois constituency of Venezuela, 32% would
say the Guaido is the legitimate President. However, I guess that means the "opposition" are
at least temporarily united behind Random Guy, for now. (Of course, constitutionally, even if
Maduro did step down the Vice President, Delcy Rodriguez, would be the next Constitutional
President.)
@9 AriusArmenian No, don't arrest him. Not yet. According to the Venezuelan constitution an
"interim President" can only be in that position for 30 days, no more, no less.
Let him run around making a fool of himself for 30 days, then tap him on the shoulder and
say "times up buddy, you haven't even called for an election. What was the point of all
this?"
This about it this way: whatever thin veneer of "legitimacy" he has claimed for himself
disappears after a month, so there is no need to rush this. After all, it isn't as if Guaido is building up any momentum.
Quite the opposite, by the look of things.
@9 Good question. I think Maduro is being smart by ignoring Random Dude's pleas. Arresting
him might create a martyr for their cause and serve as a pretext for more US ingerence. The
longer he talks the more he shows the workd the shallowness and ineffectiveness of the coup
attempt..
Hinterlaces' poll that B cites above does not say where the polling was done or how it was
done. For all we know, the "direct interviewing" - one assumes this is face-to-face polling,
not polling by phoning people selected randomly from city phone-books or electoral rolls -
could have been done in neighbourhoods where the interviewers felt most comfortable and these
neighbourhoods may be less supportive of the government on average.
Areas where the people are most in favour of the government are likely to be areas deemed
unsafe to travel on foot because there is a perception that these neighbourhoods are violent
and dominated by drug and other gangs.
I got some information about Hinterlaces itself using Google Translate and this is what
the agency says about itself:
Hinterlaces is the first Venezuelan Intelligence Agency, specializing in public opinion
and market research services, situational analysis and strategic consulting, with emphasis on
the scientific interpretation of the cultural and symbolic dimension of society.
Our mission
Hinterlaces provides intelligence for strategic decision making. Through studies of
public opinion and markets, Hinterlaces is dedicated to producing knowledge, making
situational and environmental analyzes, providing strategic lines to build, enrich, renew and
/ or surpass the social, political, business and commercial performance of our
clients. http://hinterlaces.com/quienes-somos/
This is a polling agency whose agenda might incline towards favouring the private
commercial sector. So take heart that even with in-built bias, the poll Hinterlaces conducted still showed
that a majority of Venezuelans support the Maduro government.
Gee, imagine if the U$A actually lived up to the rhetoric it spews daily about it caring for
democracy and freedom. Then I woke up. The millions of lives ruined, and the innocents we kill daily, all for the sake of greed
and avarice of a few wealthy elites, is mind numbing.
Venezuela is just the latest target in the empire's lust for global domination...
I ask you to step back for a moment and take a look at the whole world. The US is at war in
one form or another with the entire world, 7 or 8 countries in the Middle East in its effort
to gain control of central Eurasia just a Brzezinski dreamed, threatening Iran for its access
to the Caspian Sea and more. The US has troops and is actually fighting and killing in 52 of
54 African countries. The US has built numerous new military bases all around Latin America
and is threatening Venezuela. It is doing everything it can to contain China with military
maneuvers in the South China Sea and trade, and of course Russia nothing needs to be said.
It is the US led western empire against the rest of the world. The Empire apparently
believes it is all or nothing time.
The US led Empire is not the US, the US government is the home of the imperial
institutions, it is Imperial HQ.
The actual "king" and ruler of the Western world is its core block of capital which acts
as one force it is today 50 trillion dollars which is managed by 17 management funds - and
guess what - they all invest in each other.
The book Giants: The Global Power Elite by Peter Philips provides extensive detail on
how imperial capital issues its instructions to the institutions it controls.
The Venezulean military have been running massive exercises (scheduled 11-15 February) -
showing their willingness to fight for Venezuela under Maduro. Their actual combat abilities
are unknown but motivation goes a long way.
That was my thought too, that the percentage for Guaido was so high it must have been an
attempt to get a majority, which failed. If the poll had asked whether the US should be
sponsoring an unelected president, I'm sure the number would be 80% saying "no".
@9 AriusArmenian
Regarding whether Guaido should be arrested - he can't be. As the speaker of the National
Assembly, he's immune from prosecution except as the Venezuelan supreme court rules. The
government applied to the Court, which ruled to prohibit Guaido from leaving the country, and
to freeze his assets. Beyond this, we have not yet heard any more.
Everything is being played by the Maduro government to the letter of the law - which is
the great tactical weakness in the US play here, and the place to strike back.
It is the oil ..... the 'bananas' of United Fruit Company when a neighbor country was over
run by Americans. WTF, I've been brainwashed by them little Russian puppies on social media,
we (US) don't interfere in other countries.
I think it is better to wait. Of course, the interpretation that the Venezuelan presidency is
vacant and that in that special case, the president of the National Assembly rather than the
vice president takes over is odd. It presupposes quite a number of things that defy reality
(there is an elected president) and certainly should not be claimed by anyone outside
Venezuela (for that view, all Venezuelan institutions except the National Assembly and in
particular the Supreme Court would have to be regarded as illegitimate, not just the
president).
But even if that interpretation is odd, it is still a fiction that is probably quite
important for some European governments that now support an attempted (and so far failed)
coup against the democratically elected president of Venezuela.
What will happen after 30 days when the „interim presidency" of Guaido is over? If
he still claims to be president after the 30 days are over, he is an illegitimate usurper
even according to the strange fiction many governments cling to in order to pretend they
support the constitution of Venezuela when in fact they support a would-be coup leader (or
rather the puppet of one). Will these governments then say that they don't care about the
constitution of Venezuela, after all, and still support Guaido after he has even lost any
semblance of legitimacy? Will Guaido call for new elections or even „conduct" them,
which he certainly can't?
Then, I think it is also relevant that (unless I am mistaken), the next regular date for
elections for the National Assembly is already 2020. Perhaps these uncooperative opposition
parties should rather think about how they are going to campaign - after all, it seems likely
that they will lose (more moderate opposition parties that are not involved in the current
coup attempt might have better chances). The playbook for the coup attempt has probably been
written in Washington, but the fear of the parties that currently dominate the National
Assembly that they will lose the 2020 elections is probably a motivating factor, they want to
escalate the situation beforehand in the hope that the 2020 elections either will not take
place or under undemocratic circumstances after a coup or foreign invasion that are favorable
to them.
The elections in Venezuela have all generally used the same system. The pro-US forces have
won just once, while in most elections the Chavists won. These pro-US forces that support
sanctions against their own country and even don't exclude supporting a foreign invasion of
their country have won just one election, and they claim that all elections they lost or in
which they voluntarily did not participate are illegitimate. Probably, they don't have much
hopes of winning the 2020 elections after their despicable behavior since the last elections,
so they want to come to power by force and with foreign support rather than by democratic
means.
Our political parties and media have as much contempt for the democratic process and people
choosing their leaders as the Rhodes/Milner group. They didn't respect the Syrian elections
of 2012 or 2014 even with multiple parties participating and monitors present.
The evidence of Maduro's popularity in Venezuela comes through plain as day in the MSM. This
newest coalition of the killing to take down the Syrian government is calling for new
elections in which Maduro does not participate. There can be no other reason for this other
than the coalition of the killing know that Maduro will win any free and fair election.
Same applied to Assad.
32% is roughly the % that voted for opposition presidential candidates. I'd like to see a polling company ask if the Outlaw US Empire has any right to interfere
with Venezuela whatsoever; and if yes, then how so.
I am very suspicious of the 32% figure. I don't trust it. A poll conducted a few weeks ago
has shown just 20% of Venezuelans knew who Guaidó was. How can it be that 32% now
consider him the legitimate President? Perhaps the poll asked whom they supported/sympathized
with/wanted as President, not who was the legitimate one?
Keep in mind that 75% of Venezuela's radio and TV stations are in private hands and property
of oligarchs bent on sabotaging the bolivarian revolution. Under 5% of media in Venezuela are
state-owned...
So even though western proxies and compradors elites holding iron clad
propaganda monopoly, they can barely muster a third of venezuelans to support their
reactionary program of social regression.
We're witnessing Hugo Chavez's failure to
neutralize the brutal European oligarchy that ran Venezuela as a latifundia for centuries.
One thing is certain 60% of slaves are now refusing to go back to pre-Bolivarian years.
Without kinetic action, the compradors aligned with the West have no chance to pull off a
successful change of regime.
The longer this Guaidó (i'm sorry I mean Gweedo) farce goes on the stronger the Maduro
government's position becomes (although not necessary Maduro's position itself). given that
the US has been working to overthrow the Venezuelan government since at least 2003 and have
now crossed the Rubicon by declaring "Gweedo" president (there's no way to take that back and
return to recognizing Maduro).
I imagine that the Maduro government's plan is to ride out
this crisis till the next election cycle (I think in 2023/2024) and have Maduro step down in
favour of his hand-picked successor, this would then give the US a face-saving option of
recognizing Maduro's successor as the new President, without the humiliation of having to go
back to recognizing Maduro.
The problem however is the 2020 election cycle in the US. For the last 30 years, US
presidents have developed a (another) terrible tradition when going into reelection (the US
also never seems to end a war once it starts one, which is why the US is now current fighting
at least 7 undeclared wars, plus dozens of military operations in various countries). Trump
is desperate for a "Win" going into the 2020 cycle and right now that column is pretty
thread-bare in terms of achievements for the average American worker (the economy is doing
well, but more and more people are concerned that the US is heading towards a recession in
2019, so that may not hold until the 2020). although Trump launching a full-scale invasion
seems unlikely, I can certainly picture Trump pulling out all of the stops to overthrow the
Venezuelan government the closer it gets to the US elections. I could even see Trump
encouraging Colombia and Brazil to invade Venezuelan, but we'll have to wait see.
I don't trust the numbers. Does anyone have the specific questions that were asked? Who owns this "independent" polling company? I didn't read who paid for the poll? I keep think that the US is being set up to fail big time so that default on the US debt
seems "reasonable" given the circumstances. That is when the deals will be made to set the
next stage of ??? humanity....though it might be a bit rocky for a while...
Psychohistorian @ 36 (and anyone else who is interested): Oscar Schemel is the director of the Hinterlaces polling agency which carried out the
survey. He was elected to the National Constituent Assembly (the legitimate legislative body
of the government) in 2017, representing the business sector.
https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Schemel (You'll need Google Translate.)
The results from the Grayzone article do not comport with what is reported here by b and
so maybe is another study but seems to be the same number of participants.....but then says
was done before Guaido became a thing. Still don't know specific questions for reported results nor who funded it.
Polls have had a long history of being used to bend the public narrative, slide the
Overton window and otherwise obfuscate the core issue(s)......because money pays for them
@Jen: Okay, so, according to The Grayzone translation of Schemel's presentation, only 17%
support U.S. sanctions applied against Venezuela to remove Maduro, only 20% support
international intervention to remove Maduro, only 12% support international military
intervention to remove Maduro, and only 15% don't want any dialogue between government and
opposition to resolve economic problems in the country.
How does that fit in with 32%
supposedly recognizing Guaidó as "legitimate President"? This can't be. Something is
fishy with the 32% figure.
86% "DISAGREE" WITH MILITARY INTERVENTION AGAINST VENEZUELA
Monitor País reveals that 66% of Venezuelans would prefer Maduro to take
effective measures and solve Venezuela's economic problems.
71% are "in disagreement" with the United States applying economic and financial
sanctions against Venezuela to remove President Nicolás Maduro from power, while 24%
"agree", reveals Monitor País de Hinterlaces about what Venezuelans think of an
eventual international intervention and the "exit" of Maduro from the presidency.
The study carried out between July 22 and August 9, conducted through 1,580 telephone
interviews, details that 67% of Venezuelans believe that the presidential elections of 2018
should be expected , while 32% demand the "exit" of the Mature.
With a level of confidence of 95% and a maximum admissible error of +/- 2.5% for the
figures obtained, the research maintains that 66% of Venezuelans would prefer the Maduro
government to take effective measures and solve the economic problems of the country, while
30% would prefer an opposition government to come.
Opinion on intervention
86% of Venezuelans are "in disagreement" with an international military intervention in
Venezuela to get Maduro out of power, while 13% are "in agreement",
76% of Venezuelans are "in disagreement" that there is an international intervention in
Venezuela to remove President Maduro from power, while 22% are "in agreement".
59% believe that the US government is promoting a foreign intervention in Venezuela to
get President Maduro out of power, while 31% consider "no".
How do we know the company still exists? And if it does, how do we know Globovisión
is citing it properly and not just inventing some random numbers?
@ ben #38
There is one Democratic candidate that is in the race specifically to fight the Empires
forever wars. Tulsi Gabbard. And she is being smeared badly by the MSM. But getting a lot of
support from the non-MSM, even from many on the other side of the spectrum.
Pro-coup Twitter accounts actually accuse Hinterlaces of working for "the regime" (skim
through this
thread ), while, in my opinion, its numbers (if true) are skewed in favor of
Guaidó. Anyway, this whole discussion is pointless: anybody can claim anything, as the
company seems to have stopped operating a year and a half ago.
Apart from reinforcing the case that Maduro's Presidency has the support of a simple majority
of voters, this poll is virtually meaningless and irrelevant. The only way to make it
relevant would be to insist that each of the Nazified, Christian Colonial countries which
oppose Maduro conduct a similar poll of the voters in their own country.
i.e. Compare the popularity of the President/PM of the country with popularity of current
Opposition contenders for the Leadership role.
Would Trump, Micron, Mrs May or Scum Mo score anything like 57%?
No effing way, imo.
To keep everything neat and tidy it would be helpful, and conducive to much mirth and
merriment, to conduct the same poll in the countries whose leaders have recognised and
endorsed Maduro's legitimacy.
It is so weird to see this unfolding. Nobody even seems to be asking why Guaido didn't just
run for president -- he wasn't barred. There was lots of criticism of Maduro in the papers,
so the press had the freedom to get behind one or another candidate. There was other
opposition that ran.
Why did some of the opposition boycott the elections? Who was the
opposition that was barred from running by the supreme court, where they wildly popular? Why
didn't they declare themselves president with popular support, rather than this newbie? Why
did the opposition ask UN observers to stay away? It is so blatant that there are narratives
being sold.
I don't see this poll as good news for the Maduro govt at all; looking at other people's
comments, I don't seem to be the only one.
A short month ago, Guaido was a nobody, while
Maduro was the unquestioned, even though not universally liked of course, president.
Once
Uncle Sam went to work on the issue, some clown who basically just started calling himself
president seems to have over 1/3 behind him, while Maduro is only slightly above 50%.
Washington probably feels it's successful in moving the needle, and will go all out trying to
move it further.
B quotes Globovision's report that the Hinterlaces poll was carried out some time between
21 January and 2 February 2019. Grayzone Project refers to a poll carried out in early
January 2019 before 23 January 2019 when Guaidó made his announcement. So there is a
possibility that these are two separate questionnaires conducted at different times - but
maybe with the same sample (too small, in my opinion, for the issue the surveys address).
Please also refer to my comment @ 13 about my misgivings about the validity of the poll.
We do not know how the sample was selected, how the interviews were done (although since I
posted the comment, I found some other online sources suggesting they were telephone
interviews) and whether the interview design had inbuilt biases reflecting Hinterlaces' own
agenda. The website offers no explanation and appears to have been neglected since 2017.
@ Posted by: Ma Laoshi | Feb 12, 2019 2:29:47 AM | 48
Well, news travel fast nowadays: the moment the Venezuelan right-wing realized the USA
chose Guaidó, they quickly begun to "support" him. Of course, this is all a farce:
they know Guaidó is merely a code word for American military intervention and regime
change. This is textbook color revolution.
"... Originally published: FAIR by Gregory Shupak (February 6, 2019) ..."
"... In contact with the popular communities, we consider that one of the fundamental causes of the economic crisis in the country is the effect [of] the unilateral coercive sanctions that are applied in the economy, especially by the government of the United States. ..."
"... While internal errors also contributed to the nation's problems, Russian said it's likely that few countries in the world have ever suffered an "economic siege" like the one Venezuelans are living under. ..."
The U.S. media chorus supporting a U.S. overthrow of the Venezuelan government has for years
pointed to the country's economic crisis as a justification for regime change, while
whitewashing the ways in which the U.S. has strangled the Venezuelan economy ( FAIR.org
, 3/22/18 ).
Sister Eugenia Russian, president of Fundalatin , a Venezuelan human rights NGO
that was established in 1978 and has special consultative status at the UN, told the
Independent (
1/26/19 ):
In contact with the popular communities, we consider that one of the fundamental causes
of the economic crisis in the country is the effect [of] the unilateral coercive sanctions that
are applied in the economy, especially by the government of the United States.
While internal errors also contributed to the nation's problems, Russian said it's
likely that few countries in the world have ever suffered an "economic siege" like the one
Venezuelans are living under.
While the New York Times and the Washington Post have lately professed
profound (and definitely 100 percent sincere) concern for the welfare of Venezuelans, neither
publication has ever referred to Fundalatin.
Alfred de Zayas, the first UN special rapporteur to visit Venezuela in 21 years, told the
Independent (
1/26/19 ) that U.S., Canadian and European Union "economic warfare" has killed Venezuelans,
noting that the sanctions fall most heavily on the poorest people and demonstrably cause death
through food and medicine shortages, lead to violations of human rights and are aimed at
coercing economic change in a "sister democracy."
It's a great article. I want to thank CN, because I feel that Steve's conclusions and his
predictions are excellent.
But like anyone, I always hate to show my ignorance's, and do I have to admit that I need
some help. In this case my ignorance has to do with the word sanction.
For instance ( to name just a few ):
1- In order for the U.S. to legally implement sanctions, it declared "..a national emergency
with respect to the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign
policy of the United States". What, and where was this evidence provided, and was it
conducted under fair hearings with both sides represented?
2 – How does a State seize the property of another State when no trial has been
conducted?
3 – Isn't this punishing victims (34 million in this case) who have committed no
crime?
4 – Did countries like England, France, Germany, etc., provide any proof of
"emergency", in order to wholesale deny it's own citizens the right to free markets (.. let
alone, Venezuelans)?
5 – Since, sanctions only have significant (wmd) impact when they are implemented by
empires, does a collective body like the U.N., (that I assume) is suppose to represent every
country, want to touch sanctions with a forty foot pole?
6 – What about that "Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement" with Israel?
I could go on & on with many more questions.. But, I know that most here can dissect
this word "sanction" much better than I. .. And, I wish you would.
This is from 2014: http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=2377482&CategoryId=10717
"President Obama today issued a new Executive Order (E.O.) declaring a national emergency
with respect to the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign
policy of the United States posed by the situation in Venezuela. The targeted sanctions in
the E.O. implement the Venezuela Defense of Human Rights and Civil Society Act of 2014, which
the President signed on December 18, 2014, and also go beyond the requirements of this
legislation.
..
"We are committed to advancing respect for human rights, safeguarding democratic
institutions, and protecting the U.S. financial system from the illicit financial flows from
public corruption in Venezuela," the White House said.
..
We are deeply concerned by the Venezuelan government's efforts to escalate intimidation of
its political opponents. Venezuela's problems cannot be solved by criminalizing dissent. We
have consistently called on the Venezuelan government to release those it has unjustly jailed
as well as to improve the climate of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, such
as the freedoms of expression and peaceful assembly. These are essential to a functioning
democracy, and the Venezuelan government has an obligation to protect these fundamental
freedoms. The Venezuelan government should release all political prisoners, including dozens
of students, opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez and Mayors Daniel Ceballos and Antonio
Ledezma."
.. And as I understand it, declaring that "national emergency" -- was of course, the legal
prerequisite to imposing today's sanctions..
Thank You.
jaycee , February 12, 2019 at 1:50 pm
The declaration of national emergencies is one facet of "executive power" as envisioned by
the lawyers Dick Cheney brought into the White House. This allows for policy to be declared
and implemented without Congress and without public debate. These theories of executive power
have never actually been challenged on Constitutional/ legal grounds, and in fact the W Bush
administration several times backed away from an executive power directed policy rather than
have it challenged in court. The Democrats, once assuming executive power themselves under
Obama, dropped their Constitutional objections to embrace the convenience a wide-ranging
executive power concept provided.
bevin , February 12, 2019 at 11:47 am
"How does it get more inappropriate, more threatening than American officials contacting
members of Venezuela's armed forces and luring them to revolt?
"Americans, is this the kind of work you elect your government to perform?"
It most certainly is. It is precisely the way that President Zelaya was removed, overnight,
in Honduras, after the State Department , under Hillary Clinton, had given permission.
Garrett Connelly , February 12, 2019 at 11:17 am
Only three brave congressional representatives voted against the united democratic and
republican party war lust directed at Venezuela.
Antonio Costa , February 12, 2019 at 10:46 am
The UN has recognized the Maduro government as the official administration. This was
determined by the UN's general assembly.
There is nothing in the Venezuelan constitution that would allow Guaidó (a small
time instigator and relatively small opposition party member) to swear himself in as
president. This was also confirmed by the Venezuelan high court. Furthermore, after the May
election of 2018, the opposition parties signed off on the election results (which were
monitored by hundreds on internation observers and declared fair election), Maduro was sworn
in, end of story.
Therefore any negotiation and/or aid must go through the Maduro administration, not
Guaidó. This is a covert thug regime change by the US.
torture this , February 12, 2019 at 10:14 am
"The stigma would undoubtedly scuttle their chances of maintaining longstanding majority
support and in doing so would undermine their authority and ability to govern."
Support of the people doesn't matter in the U.S. because all the avenues to power are
largely blocked for anyone except those endorsed by the elites, themselves. So, I doubt that
the oligarchs will have any problems in disappearing and murdering anybody who speaks up for
ordinary people in Venezuela. What the U.S. does to its own dissenters is anything but
democracy.
Sally Snyder , February 12, 2019 at 8:16 am
As shown in this article, American intervention to protect its economic interests in South
America is not unprecedented:
Unfortunately, Washington is incapable of seeing the unintended consequences of its global
agenda.
michael , February 12, 2019 at 7:13 am
While I am sure that the regime change in Venezuela is a long time in coming (with Trump
or not), as evidenced by most of the EU (UK, Spain, France, Germany, Sweden and Denmark)
'instant' recognition of Guaido, I am curious as to the lack of American politicians at least
giving lip service against the coup (has anyone outside of Tulsi Gabbard spoken up?)
In addition to the albatross of John Bolton around his neck, the neocons have also saddled
Trump with Elliott Abrams? There are no decent diplomats/ bureaucrats willing to work (and
risk their careers) with Trump?
Looks like events have complex dynamics and Washington did not fully understand possible blowback from its actions to unseat Maduro.
As usual Trump administration actions are not consistent with the rule of law and elementary knowledge of international
relations. It's pure imperial bulling and as such it might well backfire. In addition to the albatross of John Bolton
around his neck, the neocons put Elliott Abrams? looks like there are no decent diplomats/ bureaucrats willing to work (and risk
their careers) with Trump...
Notable quotes:
"... Furthermore, Venezuelans will perceive any sign of economic recovery under a Guaidó government as made possible by aid, if not handouts, from Washington, designed to discredit Maduro's socialist government, though such assistance will undoubtedly be used to further U.S. economic and political interests. In fact, U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton has indicated that he is already calling on oil companies to opt for investments in Venezuela once Maduro is overthrown. ..."
"... The U.S. effort to encourage the military to step in was again made evident on Wednesday in a tweet by John Bolton . ..."
"... The Wall Street Journal ..."
"... The Trump administration's blatant and undisguised interventionism may in fact backfire and help Maduro counter his sagging poll numbers, which last October the polling firm Datanálisis reported was 23 percent. Maduro recently lashed out on Twitter at the close nexus between Washington and the opposition, saying "Aren't you embarrassed at yourselves, ashamed at the way every day by Twitter Mike Pence, John Bolton, Mike Pompeo tell you what you should do." ..."
"... Anti-imperialism is, of course, a major cornerstone of the Chavista movement, born from resentment of U.S. interventionism and heavy-handedness that had for decades controlled many of Venezuela's resources and dictated its economic policies. The maneuvers of the Trump administration and its allies only double down on this narrative, and are counterproductive at best when it comes to solving the crisis. Their actions also risk fanning the flames of anti-Americanism throughout the continent ..."
"... Meanwhile, President Donald Trump appointed neocon Elliott Abrams as special envoy to Venezuela. As a longtime U.S. diplomat, Abrams has in many ways personified the application of the Monroe Doctrine with his blatant disregard for human rights violations and the principle of non-intervention in Guatemala , Nicaragua, and El Salvador in the 1980s and his alleged involvement in the 2002 coup against Hugo Chávez. ..."
"... While condemning anti-democratic actions and fraudulent elections in Venezuela, these sanctions ignore the rule of law. The Maduro government was never given the opportunity to defend itself and legal procedures were not followed ..."
"... Yet regardless of short-term results of U.S. support for Guaidó, the final outcome will be negative. There are a number of reasons why: first, it bolsters the position of the most radical elements of the opposition led by the VP party, thus contributing to the fragmentation of the anti-Chavista movement. Second, it attaches a "made in U.S.A." label to those positioned to govern should Maduro fall. ..."
"... the appeal to the military to save Venezuela has terrifying implications for a continent with a long history of military rule. And finally, the seizure of Venezuelan assets, which have then been turned over to a political ally, violates sacred norms of property rights, and in the process erodes confidence in the system of private property ..."
"... NACLA: Report on the Americas ..."
"... Latin American Perspectives ..."
"... The intention behind the pressure directed at Venezuela is quite clear: the current government is being told to resign and hand power over to a selected member of the opposition. To advance this strategy, various degrees of, frankly, organized crime style threats of punishment or positive inducement are daily publicized, iterated by US public officials. ..."
Trump's backing of Juan Guaidó's shadow government could weaken the opposition's longstanding support among the majority of Venezuelans,
writes Steve Ellner.
Since its outset, the Trump administration has ratcheted up pressure on Venezuela and
radicalized its positions. In the process, the Venezuelan opposition has become more and more associated with -- and dependent on
-- Washington and its allies. An example is the opposition protests that occurred last week. The actions were timed to coincide with
the European Union's "
ultimatum ," which stated they would recognize the shadow government of Juan Guaidó if President Nicolás Maduro had not called
elections within a week's time.
The opposition's most radical sectors, which include Guaidó's Voluntad Popular party (VP) along with former presidential candidate
María Corina Machado, have always had close ties with the United States. Guaidó, as well as VP head Leopoldo López and the VP's Carlos
Vecchio, who is the shadow government's chargé d'affaires in Washington, were educated in prestigious U.S. universities -- not uncommon
among Latin American economic and political elites. The ties between the opposition and international actors are strong: last weekend,
Vecchio called the campaign to unseat Maduro "an international
effort ." At the same time, Guaidó, referring to opposition-called protests, stated "today, February 2, we are going to meet
again in the streets to show our gratitude to the support that the European Parliament has given us." In doing so, Guaidó explicitly
connected the authority of outside countries to his own assumption of leadership.
The outcome of Washington's actions is bound to be unfavorable in a number of ways, regardless of whether or not they achieve
regime change. Most importantly, a government headed by Guaidó will be perceived both by Venezuelans and international observers
as "made in U.S.A." Further, the opposition's association with foreign powers has enabled the Maduro leadership to keep discontented
members of the Chavista movement in their ranks.
Furthermore, Venezuelans will perceive any sign of economic recovery under a Guaidó government as made possible by aid, if
not handouts, from Washington, designed to discredit Maduro's socialist government, though such assistance will undoubtedly be used
to further U.S. economic and political interests. In fact, U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton has indicated that he is already
calling on oil companies to opt for investments in Venezuela once Maduro is overthrown. As he
told
Fox News , "we're in conversation with major American companies now It will make a big difference to the United States
economically if we could have American oil companies really invest in and produce the oil capabilities in Venezuela."
Washington Dictating Strategy
Either explicitly or implicitly, Washington is dictating strategy, or at least providing input into its formulation. One of the
challenges the opposition faces is the need to demonstrate to rank-and-file Venezuelans that the current offensive against Maduro
will be different from the disastrous attempts of 2014 and 2017, when anti-government leaders assured protesters that the president
would be toppled in a matter of days. The opposition leadership claims that this time is different for two reasons. First, the regional
Right turn has deepened, and the opposition is more able than ever to rely on decisive support from Washington and other governments,
regardless of how democratic they are -- see the neofascist credentials of
Brazil's
Jair Bolsonaro .
Second, the opposition is counting on the backing of military officers, particularly lower-ranking ones who have allegedly lost
patience with Maduro. In addition to some defections, junior officers attempted to
stage a military coup just two days before
mass opposition protests on Jan. 23 when Guaidó declared himself president. Previously, the Venezuelan opposition expressed a degree
of contempt for military officers for their unwillingness to defy the Chavista government. The opposition's new perspective dates
back to Trump's three
meetings with
military rebels and his
statement
, made alongside President Iván Duque of Colombia in September of last year, that the Maduro government "could be toppled very quickly
by the military if the military decides to do that." The U.S. effort to encourage the military to step in was again made evident
on Wednesday in a tweet by
John Bolton .
Recently, Guaidó made a similar offer to military officers, implying continuity and closeness between Washington and the shadow
government.
Also noteworthy is that Guaidó and other VP leaders are closer to Washington than the rest of the opposition. The Wall Street
Journal reported that Guaidó consulted Vice President Mike Pence the night before his self-proclamation as president on Jan.
23. According to ex-presidential candidate Henrique Capriles Radonski the majority of the
opposition parties were not aware of Guaidó's intentions
and in fact did not support the idea.
Calling on Military
To make matters worse, the VP-led opposition is openly working hand-in-glove with Washington. Last week Guaidó announced that
he would attempt to transport
humanitarian aid the United States has deposited on the Colombian and Brazilian borders into Venezuela. He called on the Venezuelan
military to disobey orders from the Maduro government by facilitating the passage of goods, while Maduro ordered it blocked. While
playing political benefactor, Washington was clearly manipulating the optics of the situation to discredit Maduro and rally more
international support for Guaído. In an apparent rebuke to Washington and Guaidó, UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric on Wednesday
insisted that the humanitarian aid be "
depoliticized. "
Opposition leaders and the Trump government are also working together to isolate Venezuela economically throughout the world.
Julio Borges, a leading member of the opposition, has campaigned to convince international financial institutions to shun Venezuelan
transactions and has
urged Great Britain to refuse to repatriate Venezuelan gold stored in London. President Maduro has responded by calling on the
attorney general to open judicial proceedings against Borges on grounds of treason. Along similar lines, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury
Steven Mnuchin and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross are currently attempting to convince international business interests to
deny the Venezuelan government access to national assets in their possession.
The Trump administration's blatant and undisguised interventionism may in fact backfire and help Maduro counter his sagging
poll numbers, which last October the polling firm Datanálisis reported was 23 percent. Maduro recently
lashed out on Twitter at the close nexus between Washington and the opposition, saying "Aren't you embarrassed at yourselves,
ashamed at the way every day by Twitter Mike Pence, John Bolton, Mike Pompeo tell you what you should do."
Cornerstone of Chavista Movement
Anti-imperialism is, of course, a major cornerstone of the Chavista movement, born from resentment of U.S. interventionism
and heavy-handedness that had for decades controlled many of Venezuela's resources and dictated its economic policies. The maneuvers
of the Trump administration and its allies only double down on this narrative, and are counterproductive at best when it comes to
solving the crisis. Their actions also risk fanning the flames of anti-Americanism throughout the continent. It wouldn't be
the first time: In 1958, then-Vice President Richard Nixon was attacked by a riotous crowd in Caracas, and a decade later Nelson
Rockefeller's fact-finding tour arranged by then-President Nixon faced off with angry disruptive protests. Both incidents were responses
to Washington's self-serving support for regimes that came to power through undemocratic means, in some cases with U.S. involvement.
In its strategy towards Venezuela, Washington is invoking not only its Cold War policy but the
Monroe
Doctrine and its view of Latin America as the U.S.' "backyard," -- a claim that is especially anathema throughout the region.
Indeed, Pence told
Fox News
, in answering a question about why Trump is withdrawing troops from Syria and Afghanistan while intervening in Venezuela: "President
Trump has always had a very different view of our hemisphere. He's long understood that the United States has a special responsibility
to support and nurture democracy and freedom in this hemisphere and that's a longstanding tradition."
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump appointed neocon Elliott Abrams as special envoy to Venezuela. As a longtime U.S. diplomat,
Abrams has in many ways personified the application of the Monroe Doctrine with his blatant disregard for human rights violations
and the principle of non-intervention in
Guatemala , Nicaragua, and El Salvador in the 1980s and his alleged involvement in the 2002 coup against Hugo Chávez.
Finally, Trump's decision regarding CITGO, a U.S.-based company owned by Venezuela's state oil company, speaks to a dangerous
precedent. Last week he declared that jurisdiction over CITGO would be turned over to the shadow government, and appealed to other
countries to follow similar steps. While condemning anti-democratic actions and fraudulent elections in Venezuela, these sanctions
ignore the rule of law. The Maduro government was never given the opportunity to defend itself and legal procedures were not followed.
It is always a dubious exercise to guess at Trump's intentions. His actions in Venezuela could be designed to divert attention
from the multiple probes into his own unethical behavior, or they may be a way to draw attention away from the utter fiasco of U.S.
interventions in the Middle East, from Libya to Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. Trump may also view his Venezuela policy as a quick
fix to Make America Great Again. Along similar lines, Trump evidently sees the downfall of the Maduro government as the ultimate
proof that socialism doesn't work. He indicated as much in his
State of the Union address when he used the topic of Venezuela as a springboard for declaring: "We are born free, and we will
stay free America will never be a socialist country."
Yet regardless of short-term results of U.S. support for Guaidó, the final outcome will be negative. There are a number of reasons
why: first, it bolsters the position of the most radical elements of the opposition led by the VP party, thus contributing to the
fragmentation of the anti-Chavista movement. Second, it attaches a "made in U.S.A." label to those positioned to govern should Maduro
fall.
The stigma would undoubtedly scuttle their chances of maintaining longstanding majority support and in doing so would undermine
their authority and ability to govern. Third, the appeal to the military to save Venezuela has terrifying implications for a continent
with a long history of military rule. And finally, the seizure of Venezuelan assets, which have then been turned over to a political
ally, violates sacred norms of property rights, and in the process erodes confidence in the system of private property. These four
considerations are an indication of the multiple adverse impacts that the Trump administration's rash approach to the Maduro government
will have on the United States, Venezuela, and the rest of the region.
Steve Ellner is a retired professor from Venezuela's University of the East, a long-time contributor to NACLA: Report on the Americas , and currently associate managing editor
of Latin American Perspectives . Among his over a dozen
books on Latin America is his edited "The Pink Tide Experiences: Breakthroughs and Shortcomings in Twenty-First Century Latin America"
(Rowman & Littlefield, 2019).
jaycee
,
February 12, 2019 at 1:34 pm
The intention behind the pressure directed at Venezuela is quite clear: the current government is
being told to resign and hand power over to a selected member of the opposition. To advance this
strategy, various degrees of, frankly, organized crime style threats of punishment or positive
inducement are daily publicized, iterated by US public officials.
The government-in-waiting is
supposedly preparing new elections, at least that's wha they say – but Guaido's representative in
Washington told reporters last week that such elections might happen by the end of the year, maybe
not, but a new government's priorities would be changing the structural underpinnings of the country's
economy.
So the new government will be installed and will swiftly dismantle all of the popular
programs instituted by the Chavistas over the past twenty years. That is, a political platform which
has lost elections consistently for these past twenty years will be engaged without popular mandate,
and before any new elections will be permitted. That's a coup, not a restoration of democracy.
"... Earlier this month, Maduro stated that smuggling seizure efforts in Colombia have recovered close to $400 million U.S. dollars worth of goods. Due to these smuggling incidents, the Venezuelan government intends to introduce a biometric tracking system that will limit citizens' food purchases via a fingerprint scanning. ..."
Venezuela's
government continues to battle a food hoarding and smuggling
epidemic . It accuses food smugglers of causing national food shortages in the country. The
government states that food smugglers hoard goods to resell for profit and smuggle such items
into Venezuela's neighboring countries.
Due to currency controls and a lack of U.S. dollars, Venezuela has found it to be
increasingly difficult to import foreign food products from other countries. One of the most
popular countries for food smuggling is Colombia , which borders Venezuela.
Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro
and Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos have both acknowledged the problem.
Earlier this month, Maduro stated that smuggling seizure efforts in Colombia have
recovered close to $400 million U.S. dollars worth of goods. Due to these smuggling incidents,
the Venezuelan government intends to introduce a biometric tracking system that will limit
citizens' food purchases via a fingerprint scanning.
A military spokesperson for the government told El Universal newspaper that the quantity of
goods smuggled to Colombia "would be enough to load the shelves of our supermarkets."
This July, the government seized more than 11 tons worth of fish, chicken and beef.
Last month, Venezuela began to close its border to Colombia at night and deploy thousands of
troops in an effort to stop the smuggling in Venezuela from taking place. However, opposition
to the plan suggests that the policy will treat Venezuelan citizens as criminals and even
breach individual privacy. Many have suggested that the policy leans toward food rationing.
Smuggling is a way of life in the Colombian border town of Cúcuta -- and for decades,
that's meant drugs. But in recent years it's ordinary goods like gasoline or oranges or diapers
that make their way from Venezuela to Colombia. The side of the road into Cúcuta is
dotted with illegal gasoline vendors, while the shelves of the local stores are stocked with
products labeled "Produced for the Venezuelan market." That's because the combination of the
extremely low valuation of the Venezuelan Boliviar -- it takes 800 boliviars to buy a U.S
dollar compared to just 200 one year ago -- and the strong price controls that the Venezuelan
government has applied to many basic goods has made it extremely profitable to buy just about
anything cheaply in Venezuela, and smuggle it into neighboring Colombia, where no such price
controls exist and the local currency, the peso, is significantly stronger.
Venezuela is hurting -- for the second year in a row, Bloomberg has ranked the Venezuelan
economy "the most miserable economy" and the IMF predicts that the country's inflation rate
will hit 720 percent this year, up from 141.5 percent near the end of last year. For
comparison, the U.S. has maintained an inflation rate between one and five percent over the
last decade. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has repeatedly blamed both the smuggling and
the migration of people into Venezuela to take advantage of the highly subsidized health and
education for his country's economic woes.
... ... ...
Though Maduro announced a crackdown on smuggling last year and closed the
major border crossings, the financial incentive to keep goods flowing is high. McDermott
estimates that the smuggling trade is back up to previous levels. And Colombian smugglers like
Gabriela and Camila -- two sisters in their 30s, each divorced, who work to support their
mother and multiple children -- are part of the reasons why.
Early each morning Gabriela and Camila hitch a ride along a road that runs north from
Cúcuta and traces the river that makes up the border between Colombia and Venezuela.
They head past the small city of San Faustino and across the river into Venezuela. Once there,
they meet a local who has purchased about 60 kilos of beef at the Mercal, the state subsidized
supermarket, for the equivalent of just $54. By the end of the day that same quantity of meat
will be on a market shelf in Cucuta, where it will sell for over $200.
On one recent morning, the sisters hitched a ride back to Cúcuta from Venezuela.
Along the way they had to pass back through San Faustino, where a police check point was
established to crack down on just this kind of smuggling. Their car was stopped, and as police
officers began to inspect the plastic bags of meat in the trunk, Camila slipped a 10,000-peso
bill–worth just over three dollars–to the police officer. After initially
expressing concern over the goods, he decides everything is fine and allows the car to continue
on.
... ... ...
The neighborhood of Escobal in Cúcuta was once a busy and free-flowing crossing point
between Venezuela and Colombia. Now, under orders from Maduro, the bridge has been blockaded to
prevent any vehicles from passing, while police and customs agents check the papers of those
who cross by foot. Even here, a location actively monitored by law enforcement, the smuggling
is obvious. Those crossing east into the Venezuelan town of Ureña are usually empty
handed or just carrying a backpack. Those on the return path lug huge bags, often working in
pairs just to carry the weight. Inside is everything from baby diapers to cooking oil to
cigarettes -- all illegal imports, all much cheaper in Venezuela than in Colombia.
These commuters are mostly Colombian citizens who lived in Venezuela for years before Maduro
announced a crackdown on both smuggling and migration following the murder of three Venezuelan
soldiers who were looking for smugglers late last year. The government expelled over a thousand
Colombians, while another 20,000 fled back over the border out of fear. Maduro accused many of
the banished Colombians of being part of paramilitary groups and involved in the long-running
Colombian civil conflict between the government and various paramilitary forces. However, many
of these same people had originally fled into Venezuela to escape violence in Colombia, and
were now being forced to return.
... ... ...
After months of negotiations, the two governments agreed to allow some Colombians to return
to Venezuela for schooling or health care. But the border remains officially closed at night.
In a land with rule-of-law that is vague at best, however, simply closing bridges at night
isn't anywhere near enough come to stop the flow of contraband across the border, though it has
pushed much of the activity to more rural areas.
... ... ...
Less than a quarter-mile downstream from the official crossing point in
Escobal, young smugglers gather on the under the shade of tropical trees on the riverbank
waiting for work. Using their rugged motorcycles, they spend the day and night ferrying people
across the border who don't have the proper papers to cross the nearby bridge, or they pick up
contraband brought back over the river by hikers or people on bicycles and deliver it to the
market towards the center of Cúcuta.
They might appear harmless and disorganized -- but they're not. A ruthless paramilitary
group controls this territory, like each of the areas along the border. Within Cúcuta
there are about a dozen such groups, and they have a well-earned reputation for violence.
Paramilitary-related murders are common in this part of Colombia. For many years Cúcuta
was a stronghold of an armed criminal group called the Rastrojos, but they have weakened in
recent years and since 2011 the Urabeños, one of the most powerful criminal
organizations in Colombia, has taken control of the contraband hub, according to InSight Crime,
a foundation that studies organized crime in the Americas.
Less than a thousand feet away from the riverbank is a police station. The motorcycles
travel right past with their freshly smuggled contraband. Those police officers, like the
majority of the police officers charged with cracking down on smuggling in Cúcuta, are
paid off, explained "El Jefe," a smuggler who has been in the business for decades and who
served three years in prison after getting caught smuggling cocaine several years ago. He got
out of the drug business, but still runs a profitable commodity depot where smugglers drop off
and repackage goods coming from Venezuela. In Cúcuta there is an unspoken rule: as long
as the officials remain paid off, business continues as usual. "The few times that local police
make big busts, it is often a punishment for a certain group of smugglers failing to pay off
the proper authorities," said El Jefe.
... ... ...
The majority of contraband moves over the border at night and arrives at the Cúcuta
market called Cenabustos in the early hours of the morning. At 1am wood-paneled trucks start
pulling into large parking lots outside sprawling warehouses. They are filled with rice,
citrus, onions, potatoes, plantains and any other kind of produce or commodity subsidized by
the Venezuelan government. The citrus gives away the smuggling operation. Citrus isn't produced
in Cúcuta or any of the surrounding areas, which means it must have come from
Venezuela
Gene Sharp recipes in action: the talking point in the article below were taken directly from EuroMaydan: opposition rallies are huge; pro-government rally are
tiny and
activists were delivered by buses.
This gambit with aid delivery is pretty inventive and might play in favor of opposition: they try present the
government as cruel and indifferent to sufferings of common people. Meanwhile smuggling food out of Venezuela continues unabated.
"Thousands of Venezuelans living near the border discovered years ago that smuggling heavily subsidized food into Colombia made them
far more money than the meager wages from regular jobs."
Reuters
Guaido, who says he's the rightful leader of Venezuela after Maduro's election was widely disputed, has made a
political tool of the food stalled in the Colombian border town of Cucuta. Traditional aid groups have shunned the
effort as a ploy, and it's been unclear whether the trailers of rice, flour and other staples would actually be
able enter the country. Maduro's security forces are using shipping containers and a tractor-trailer to close off
an international bridge.
'In Caravans'
Guaido's supporters had spoken of using clandestine means, even bringing it in by sea. He said Tuesday that
250,000 people have signed up on a website to volunteer for his initiative. "We'll have to go in caravans, as a
protest," he said.
People cross a bridge from Cucuta, Colombia to Urena, Venezuela on Feb. 12.
Photographer: Luis Robayo/AFP via Getty Images
While Venezuela faces deep shortages of necessities like antibiotics, first-aid supplies and baby formula,
Maduro has portrayed the shipments as a pretext for an invasion, sent to humiliate him and undermine his
presidency.
Vice President Delcy Rodriguez said at a news conference Tuesday that the food sent by the U.S. is a
"biological weapon."
"That humanitarian aid is contaminated and poisoned," she claimed. "It's carcinogenic. This has been proven by
different scientific studies."
'So Desperate'
The U.S. Agency for International Development has said the first phase of a $20 million assistance program will
include food and hygiene kits, nutritional supplements and emergency medical kits. Lester Toledo, Guaido's
international coordinator for humanitarian aid, said Brazil had authorized a collection center in the border state
of Roraima. Supplies will also come through a Caribbean island.
People eat at a soup kitchen for Venezuelan migrants in the town of La Parada, Cucuta, Colombia, on Feb. 11.
Photographer: Ivan Valencia/Bloomberg
At the blocked Tienditas Bridge in Cucucta, small groups of opposition protesters gathered Tuesday, singing the
national anthem and praying the Lord's Prayer.
"Our relatives and our compatriots die for the lack of antibiotics or something as simple as a dehydration
caused by diarrhea," said Rafael Polos, a 48-year-old former airport manager who fled to Colombia and now sells
candies in the street. "The change in Venezuela is close. We are so desperate. In fact we wanted to enter the
bridge and take all that humanitarian aid to Venezuela, but we have to do things the right way."
Tuesday's protests were the third protest in the past two weeks against Maduro, the largest wave of overt
resistance since 2017. The regime has largely allowed citizens to march, however, police have raided neighborhoods
at night in search of opposition supporters. At least 35 people have died and more than 850 have been
detained, according to human-rights groups including Provea and Penal Forum.
Supporters of Juan Guaido during a rally in Caracas on Feb. 12
Photographer: Fabiola Ferrero/Bloomberg
In eastern Caracas, Guaido's supporters filled the streets. People streamed down Francisco de Miranda Avenue,
draping flags over their shoulders and holding signs. Shops and restaurants remained open, but some of the main
avenues in downtown Caracas were closed near a plaza where government supporters took in a video address from
Maduro. A large truck blasted reggaeton with government propaganda.
The opposition march filled several blocks with thousands of people, and it seemed more like a celebration than
a protest. Rap singers took selfies with demonstrators, who walked with small children or dogs. There were no
hooded protesters or the confrontational mood seen in 2017.
"We're moving forward. We have international support, and soon we'll open a path for elections," said Nathalie
Torres, 37, a shopkeeper. She was marching from the working-class neighborhood of La Candelaria alongside three
other women, all wearing white shirts and tricolor hats. At least one U.S. flag waved amid the Venezuelan colors.
Supporters of Nicolas Maduro participate in a pro-government demonstration in Caracas on Feb. 12.
Photographer: Rodrigo Abd/AP Photo
Many fewer people came to the rally point for the regime's march: Hundreds filled only a couple of blocks,
despite the government buses that lined the streets to transport them. Many who marched were state employees and
wore shirts and hats representing ministries and public institutions.
"The United States refuses to understand that we are free," said Pedro Villegas, 25, a student leader in
Maduro's socialist PSUV party. "Guaido is a lackey; he has been imposed by a foreign agenda to steal power."
Thousands of Venezuelans living near the border discovered years ago that smuggling heavily
subsidized food into Colombia made them far more money than the meager wages from regular
jobs.
But with crisis-hit Venezuela suffering drastic food shortages this year and local resale
prices spiraling, some have decided to flip the business model: zipping into Colombia to buy
flour, rice and even diapers for desperate shoppers back in Venezuela.
... ... ...
Rice, for instance, can be bought in Colombia for the equivalent of about 1,300 bolivars and
sold in Venezuela for around 1,800 bolivars.
Venezuela's government fixes a kilo of rice at some 120 bolivars, but on the local black
market the coveted product now fetches approximately 2,000 bolivars - just $2 at the unofficial
foreign exchange rate but around one-fifth of a monthly minimum wage, factoring in monthly food
tickets.
"... These illegal operations for destabilization have a two-fold purpose: (1) To disrupt the lives of the people, create unrest and blame the government for inefficiency and inability to provide food and other essentials for the people. (2) To occupy government time and resources, diverting it from the regular daily work on infrastructure, social and security services that are normally expected from all governments. ..."
Anyone who has been paying attention to the economic war against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela will be familiar with the
hoarding, dumping and smuggling of food as part of destabilization efforts by opposition food processing plants, points of sale and
foreign entities.
Here in my home state of Aragua, we have been experiencing certain missing products in our retail markets for a week or two, only
to reappear in a later week to create long lines of people waiting to buy from the new delivery. That problem has to do with the
privately-run distribution system over which the government still hasn't gained control. When a big shipment of the missing item(s)
does arrive at a later date, it is typically off-loaded at a single store in this city of 300,000 people, creating the long lines
of buyers who may wait for hours to make their purchase. The store itself often opens only one cashier for the desired product to
make the sale of the product even slower. When the missing product does appear, another suddenly disappears. During the past two
weeks our local supermarkets suddenly had zero rice or pasta, products that were there in abundance during weeks past. The illegal
smuggling and hoarding operations are being busted on a weekly basis if not daily. But imagine the cost and difficulty for the government
to search out all the hidden sites in a country of 30 million people across 23 states. However, the fact that the smuggling mafia
are resorting to new innovative methods to hoard their stolen products (see second report with photos below) shows that the pressure
is on.
These illegal operations for destabilization have a two-fold purpose: (1) To disrupt the lives of the people, create unrest
and blame the government for inefficiency and inability to provide food and other essentials for the people. (2) To occupy government
time and resources, diverting it from the regular daily work on infrastructure, social and security services that are normally expected
from all governments.
We could report on Axis of Logic these discoveries of food held in secret warehouses and kept off the retail markets on a regular
basis but the two that follow will serve as examples for the doubters.
On August 13, Noticias 24 reported the confiscation of 14,144 tons of processed whole chicken in the State of Falcon. The government's
Superintendency for the Defense of Socio-Economic Rights (Sundde) coordinated the operation with the Bolivarian National Guard (GNB)
and authorities in Falcon State to locate and confiscate the birds. The final destination of the shipment a warehouse located in
Puerto Cumarebo on the northwest tip of Venezuela's Caribbean coast. The massive illegal cargo was detected through Sundde's contact
network.
The fact that the opposition can conspire and operate openly is proof that the
government has not suppressed them in any way. While it is dangerous that they continue to
collaborate to overthrow the government, they are emboldened by the freedoms granted and
upheld by the same Constitution they seek to obliterate. Their continued freedom is
evidence that Venezuela is not only a democracy, but a tolerant, peaceful society.
Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Feb 12, 2019 9:47:29 AM | 60
In case the link between Scientology and Venezuela which I'm proposing isn't obvious, and
obviously reliant on pitiful levels of Public Gullibility, it is adequately illustrated by
the fact that the goals of the Venezuela Scam are just as nebulously unspecified as the goals
of Scientology itself.
In the doco mentioned above there's a segment exposing an entire lavishly funded Dept withing
Scientology which is tasked with recruiting celebrities.
The segment outlines the way the
decision to recruit Tom Cruse was planned and executed. It involved flattering Cruse into
accepting 'help' from cult members in every aspect of his life.
Fiendishly clever, but unflattering to Tom's intelligence, imo.
Posted by: anonymous | Feb 12, 2019 1:52:16 AM | 47
(Lots of questions NOT being asked about Guiado)
You've nailed it.
The whole charade is about tightly controlling the narrative, and there are many ugly
precedents for this modus operandi. There was a reminder of one particularly well-known and
infamous example on TV this evening in the form of one of a series of docos about Scientology
called Scientology And The Aftermath.
Basically, the crux of the Scientology scam is a set of Utopian Principles which
prospective members are required to swear to uphold at any cost and to pledge undying
devotion and obedience to the Church. These pledges are then used to blackmail members into
'proving' their loyalty to The Dream by undertaking unconscionable and unethical tasks in
pursuit of the Church's nebulously unspecified goals.
There's plenty of damning info about Scientology in general, and this series in
particular, on the www including a Rolling Stone article called 5 Things We Learned From Leah
Remini's Scientology TV Show.
When this phase of the Empire's regime change operation loses steam and Guido's moment in
the spotlight is fading, the CIA will murder him to provide the corporate mass media with
evidence of how brutal the Venezuelan government is. They will personally blame Maduro for
Random Guido's death. When Random Guido's trajectory of fame begins to turn from polarizing
figure to laughingstock, the CIA will terminate him to extract a bit of extra value and hide
the fact that the coup failed to win popular support.
Screenshots of today's pro-Guaido
demo show a rather tiny crowd exceedingly smaller than earlier boasts. The opposition
refuses to talk while the government continues to govern and attempt to alleviate its
citizen's complaints. The theft of National Wealth that's owned by all Venezuelans by the
Outlaw US Empire was a disastrous move. Every day that goes by Maduro grows stronger while
the usurper weakens further.
It's quite possible the outcome will be far worse than the Bay of Pigs for the forces of
reaction within the region.
Donald Trump imagines Juan Guaidó is the rightful president of Venezuela. Mr.
Guaidó, a man of impeccable illegitimacy, was
exposed by Cohen and Blumenthal as "a product of a decade-long project overseen by
Washington's elite regime change trainers."
Argentinian sociologist Marco Teruggi described Guaidó in the same article as "a
character that has been
created for this circumstance" of regime change.
Here, his constitutional credentials to be interim president of Venezuela are deconstructed.
Educated at George Washington University in DC, Guaidó was virtually unknown in his
native Venezuela before being thrust on to the world stage in a rapidly unfolding series of
events. In a
poll conducted a little more than a week before Guaidó appointed himself president
of the country, 81% of Venezuelans had never even heard of the 35-year-old.
To make a short story shorter, US Vice President Pence phoned Guaidó on the evening
of January 22rd and presumably asked him how'd he like to be made president of Venezuela. The
next day, Guaidó announced that he considered himself president of Venezuela, followed
within minutes by US President Trump confirming the self-appointment.
A few weeks before on January 5, Guaidó had been installed as president of
Venezuela's National Assembly, their unicameral legislature. He had been elected to the
assembly from a coastal district with 26% of the vote. It was his party's turn for the
presidency of the body, and he was hand-picked for the position. Guaidó, even within his
own party, was not in the top leadership.
Guaidó's party, Popular Will, is a far-right marginal group whose most enthusiastic
boosters are John Bolton, Elliott Abrams, and Mike Pompeo. Popular Will had adopted a strategy
of regime change by extra-parliamentary means rather than engage in the democratic electoral
process and had not participated in recent Venezuelan elections.
Although anointed by Trump and company, Guaidó's Popular Will Party is not
representative of the "Venezuelan opposition," which is a fractious bunch whose hatred of
Maduro is only matched by their abhorrence of each other. Leading opposition candidate Henri
Falcón, who ran against Maduro in 2018 on a neoliberal austerity platform, had been
vehemently opposed by Popular Will who demanded that he join their US-backed boycott of the
election.
The Venezuelan news outlet, Ultimas Noticias , reported that prominent opposition politician
Henrique Capriles, who had run against Maduro in 2013, "affirmed during an interview that the
majority of
opposition parties did not agree with the self-swearing in of Juan Guaidó as interim
president of the country." Claudio Fermin , president of the party
Solutions for Venezuela, wrote "we believe in the vote, in dialogue, we believe in coming to an
understanding, we believe Venezuelans need to part ways with the extremist sectors that
only offer hatred, revenge, lynching." Key opposition governor of the State of Táchira,
Laidy Gómez, has rejected
Guaidó's support of intervention by the US, warning that it "would generate death of
Venezuelans."
The Guaidó/Trump cabal does not reflect the democratic consensus in Venezuela, where
polls consistently show super majorities oppose
outside intervention . Popular opinion in Venezuela supports negotiations between the
government and the opposition as proposed by Mexico, Uruguay, and the Vatican. The Maduro
administration has embraced the negotiations as a peaceful solution to the crisis facing
Venezuela.
The US government
rejects a negotiated solution , in the words of Vice President Pence: "This is no time for
dialogue; this is time for action." This intransigent position is faithfully echoed by
Guaidó. So while most Venezuelans want peace, the self-appointed president, backed by
the full force of US military power, wrote in a New York Times
op-ed that it was possible to "end the Maduro regime with a minimum of bloodshed."
The Guaidó/Trump cabal's fig leaf for legitimacy is based on the bogus
argument that Article 233 of the Venezuelan constitution gives the National
Assembly the power to declare a national president's "abandonment" of the office. In which
case, the president of the National Assembly can serve as an interim national president, until
presidential elections are held. The inconvenient truth is that Maduro has shown no inclination
to abandon his post, and the constitution says no such thing.
In fact, the grounds for replacing a president are very clearly laid out in the first
paragraph of Article 233 of the Venezuelan
constitution and do not include fraudulent or illegitimate election, which is what the cabal
has been claiming . In the convoluted logic of the US government and its epigones, if the
people elect someone the cabal doesn't like, the election is by definition fraudulent and the
democratically elected winner is ipso facto a dictator.
The function of adjudicating the validity of an election, as in any country, is to be dealt
with through court challenges, not by turning to Donald Trump for his approval.
And certainly not by anointing an individual from a party that could have run in the 2018
election but decided to boycott.
The Supreme Tribunal of Justice (TSJ), which is the separate supreme court branch of the
Venezuelan government has certified Maduro's reelection, as have independent international
observers. Further, no appeal was filed by any of the boycotting parties, while all
participating parties – including opposition ones – signed off on the validity of
the election after the polls closed.
The far-right opposition has boycotted the high court as well as the electoral process. They
contest the legitimacy of the TSJ because some members of the TSJ were appointed by a lame duck
National Assembly favorable to Maduro, after a new National Assembly with a majority in
opposition had been elected in December 2015 but not yet seated.
Even if President Maduro were somehow deemed to have experienced what is termed a falta
absoluta (i.e., some sort of void in the presidency due to death, insanity, absence, etc.), the
National Assembly president is only authorized to take over if the falta absoluta occurs before
the lawful president "takes possession." However, Maduro was already "in possession" before the
January 10, 2019 presidential inauguration and even before the May 10, 2018 presidential
election. Maduro had won the presidency in the 2013 election and ran and won reelection last
May.
If the falta absoluta is deemed to have occurred during the first four years of the
presidential term, the vice president takes over. Then the constitution decrees that a snap
election for the presidency must be held within 30 days. This is what happened when President
Hugo Chávez died while in office in 2013. Then Vice President Nicolás Maduro
succeeded to the presidency, called for new elections, and was elected by the people of
Venezuela.
If it is deemed that the falta absoluta occurred during the last two years of the six-year
presidential term, the vice president serves until the end of the term, according to the
Venezuelan constitution. And if the time of the alleged falta absoluta is unclear – when
Maduro presided over "illegitimate" elections in 2018, as is claimed by the far-right
opposition – it is up to the TSJ to decide, not the head of the National Assembly or even
such an august authority as US Senator Marco Rubio . Or the craven US press (too numerous to
cite), which without bothering to read the plain language of the Bolivarian Constitution,
repeatedly refers to Guaidó as the "constitutionally authorized" or "legitimate"
president.
As
Alfred de Zayas , United Nations independent expert on the promotion of a democratic and
equitable international order, tweeted: "Article 233 of the Venezuelan constitution is
inapplicable and cannot be twisted into legitimizing Guaidó's self-proclamation as
interim President. A coup is a coup ."
A self professed country calling itself a Capitalista and democracy erects a Gov't for the
people of Venezuela. What a shill murica has become. They did it for Ukraine as well. When
the capitalistas lost the prize, the Russian military port, they abandoned the whole country
an left it to the neo-nazis they erected. The neo nazi regime went after Russians living in
Ukraine and were killing them, while muricans sat by silently. The Russians stepped in and
took in the refugees to safety and also sent caravans of aid for those that choose to stay,
mostly the elderly.
Capitalists and democracy. POS dictators masking as a democracy while their own country
becomes a **** hole.
The latest senior military officer to defect from the Nicolas Maduro government claims that
90% of the armed forces are "unhappy" with Maduro and stand ready to defect, according to
The Times .
Colonel Rubén Paz Jimenez posted a short video to social media over the weekend
declaring his support for US-backed opposition leader Juan Guaidó. "Ninety per cent of
us in the armed forces are really unhappy," he said in the video message. "We are being used to
keep them in power." He further urged soldiers to resist orders to block humanitarian aid
shipped by the United States and to instead facilitate its entry into the country.
According
to The Times Col. Paz is a military doctor and appears to be taking advantage of Guaido's offer
of amnesty to army officers who switch loyalties to him
as interim president :
A stockpile of US aid -- medicines, medical equipment and nutritional supplements -- is in
the Colombian border city of Cucuta. Colonel Paz, a doctor, urged soldiers to help the aid
get into Venezuela . Mr Guaidó has offered amnesty to those in the army who abandon Mr
Maduro, 56, peacefully.
He's been further described as deputy of the Directorate of the Military Hospital in
Maracaibo and the timing of his defection is interesting given the contested issue of US
humanitarian aid.
Trump administration officials like John Bolton have also of late actively encouraged
Venezuelan military defections, something that so far has been limited to a tiny handful of
officers, at least one of them
an Air Force commander -- while also attempting to force the issue of American aid
delivery.
Colonel Ruben Paz Jimenez, deputy of the Directorate of the Military Hospital in Maracaibo,
announced his support for Guaido and urged others to follow: Bolton recently invoked the
"authorization" of Interim President Juan Guaido to ship humanitarian aid into the country
including "medicine, surgical supplies, and nutritional supplements for the people of
Venezuela" according to his statement. He urged Maduro "to get out of the way".
The Times report noted the Venezuelan pharmaceutical association has put the situation of
medicine access to the population at
extreme crisis levels :
The Venezuelan pharmaceutical association has said that 80 per cent of medicines are in
short supply . Most Venezuelans report involuntary weight loss over the past two years, and
three million people -- almost a tenth of the population -- have left since 2014. The economy
has collapsed and inflation is estimated at 2.7 million per cent .
Meanwhile the socialist government in Caracas insists it isn't experiencing a humanitarian
crisis; instead Maduro has slammed US aid to the country as a "political show".
The United States urged the UN to act by presenting a draft resolution before the security
council demanding that Venezuelan forces unblock the aid at the border, reportedly coming via
Brazil and US ally Colombia, in order for the people to access it. Russia is expected to block
the resolution.
Interestingly, prior to this latest defection of military doctor Col. Paz, another high
ranking officer had cited the exact same "90 percent" figure describing armed forces who are
actually against Maduro. The
highest ranking armed forces member to defect thus far, Air Force General Francisco Yanez,
who was part of the air force's high command, in his own video message early this month claimed
a wave of defections is coming.
The obvious question remains: is this a mere opposition propaganda talking point employed in
the hopes of gaining momentum? Given the scant number of high level officers willing to abandon
Maduro over the past two weeks as international pressure grows, it appears merely an empty
scripted claim.
Last month National Assembly leader and now US-recognized "Interim President" Guaido first
began appealing to the military to switch sides following a local and short-lived attempt of 27
officers to lead a revolt on Jan. 21, quickly put down by security forces after they stormed an
armory and police checkpoint.
To encourage more such defections, which so far hasn't appeared to penetrate the top layers
of military leadership, Guaido has offered amnesty protection to any officer previously accused
of corruption or human rights abuses should they defect.
But so far there's been a tiny - we might even say insignificant - trickle as the country's
most powerful institution continues to stand by Maduro's side against "foreign aggression" and
the regime change rhetoric issuing from the White House.
"... Maduro might not possess widespread legitimacy, but his government retains control of much of the state apparatus and remains far more entrenched than many opposition members and their supporters would like to believe. ..."
"... Nearly every day over the past two weeks, both National Security Adviser John Bolton and Republican Senator Marco Rubio have used their Twitter accounts to call on the military to align with Guaidó, "defend democracy," and oust Maduro. ..."
"... Guaidó's announcement assuming the role of interim president generated a wave of support from some capitals as well as the Organization of American States. Now the crisis is in a stalemate. Indeed, as Francisco Toro notes , the United States, in granting diplomatic recognition to Guaidó's "government," has created a precarious situation by confusing a normative judgment about who should run the country with the objective fact of who does run the country -- that is, who actually has control over national territory and the state apparatus. ..."
"... If this gamble, this all-or-nothing approach, does not go as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, NSA adviser Bolton, and others hope it will, what will happen in a few weeks, if Maduro remains president? Will Washington continue with economic sanctions and fall into a pattern similar to its decades-long standoff with Cuba? Will it take to exploding cigars and other absurd and criminal plots of subversion? ..."
"... The United States now has little room to play a constructive role in interim efforts, such as the negotiations proposed by Mexico and Uruguay to bring the two sides to the table ..."
"... In fact, Guaidó is from one of the most hard-line political parties among the opposition. ..."
"... More than anything else, Guaidó appears to be a product of the right-wing, middle-class student movement that developed in opposition to the Chávez government in the mid-to-late 2000s. This movement, which took to the streets of Caracas to demand the ouster of Chávez, received much of its funding and training from Washington ..."
"... Over the course of several years, Washington worked with middle-class, opposition-aligned students through the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and its Office for Transition Initiatives (OTI). Indeed, OTI often works in war-torn countries that are, as the office's name indicates, experiencing a "political transition," such as Burma, Iraq, and Libya. When Gill asked a former high-ranking USAID member why OTI worked in Venezuela, he stated that OTI are "the special forces of the democracy assistance community." Another USAID functionary told Gill that OTI allowed the United States to provide funds to opposition members in Venezuela faster than if they used traditional channels. ..."
"... What were the ultimate objectives of USAID/OTI in Venezuela during the years they worked with the student movement? US Ambassador to Venezuela William Brownfield specifically laid them out in a secret embassy cable secured by Chelsea Manning and released by WikiLeaks: "1) Strengthening Democratic Institutions, 2) Penetrating Chavez' Political Base, 3) Dividing Chavismo, 4) Protecting Vital US business, and 5) Isolating Chavez internationally." ..."
"... Thereafter, USAID/OTI largely shifted its efforts toward the burgeoning student movement that developed in the mid-2000s -- the movement in which Guaidó "cut his political teeth," according to a report in The Guardian . A former USAID/OTI member who helped devise US efforts in Venezuela said the "objective was that you had thousands of youth, high school, and college kids that were horrified of this Indian-looking guy in power. They were idealistic. We wanted to help them to build a civic organization, so that they could mobilize and organize. This is different than protesting." In other words, USAID/OTI sought to take advantage of racialized fear of Chávez to organize middle-class youth around a long-term strategy to defeat him. ..."
"... most successful time was during 2007, when the student movement developed. The US had a very daring movement and brought a lot of money to the students through OTI, and it grew a lot as a result ..."
"... Although they could not confirm the specific US origins of this assistance, this sort of aid has been used for CIA operations in the past. ..."
"... While it is unclear what Guaidó's role was in these groups at the time, it is clear that US "democracy promotion" financed his cohort's formation and its demonstrations for over a decade . ..."
"... This is not to suggest that Guaidó, Goicoechea, or any other opposition member is merely a puppet of the United States. But it is clear that Guaidó and others in his circle share a worldview and certain goals with the US government. Many of them linked up with US agencies, which provided them with the resources needed to amplify their voices and reach a much larger audience. ..."
"... A recently released document outlining some of Guaidó's proposals -- accepting much-needed humanitarian aid, eliminating currency controls, and courting private investment -- did little to clarify his vision for the future. Still hanging in the air is how Guaidó intends to accomplish these goals. The lack of specificity is at least partly due to the heterogeneity of the opposition coalition, which is composed of former Communist Party members as well as proponents of neoliberalism. But Guaidó's already cozy relationship with the United States certainly raises concerns that his plans remain vague because they involve massive privatization, the rollback of state services, and other policies that would make Venezuela more "inviting" for foreign investors at the expense of many Venezuelans ..."
"... Finally, though most Venezuelans may not be aware of the ties between Guaidó's party and the United States, his uncritical acceptance of US support has filled some with uncertainty about his motives. ..."
"... At the international level, the stars have surely aligned for Guaidó and the opposition, with right-wing allies like Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil and Donald Trump in the United States now in power. ..."
"... The only real hope for a peaceful outcome lies in dialogue. Given that many citizens do not trust either Maduro or Guaidó, the two sides would need to make serious gestures toward working together to resolve both the economic and political crisis. This would require that Guaidó walk back his refusal to participate in negotiations. ..."
"... Decoupling humanitarian aid from political interests could also demonstrate that Guaidó isn't just focused on gaining power. The Red Cross has already cautioned the United States about the dangers of sending aid to Venezuela if it is not "shielded" from politics and does not have the approval of Venezuelan authorities. ..."
in February 4, more than a dozen European countries recognized the president of Venezuela's National Assembly, Juan Guaidó, as
the country's legitimate president. This decision came almost two weeks after the United States, Canada, and most countries in Latin
America backed Guaidó's claim to the presidential office. Despite continued Chinese and Russian support for Nicolás Maduro's government,
the international community is quickly isolating it, as never before. A strange coalition of left- and right-wing political parties
has formed to assist Guaidó, and knee-jerk support from both pundits and politicians who profess concern about the country's humanitarian
crisis has generated an allegiance to this little-known politician and his call for Maduro's resignation. Many of Guaidó's supporters
have cited Article 233 of the Venezuelan Constitution as grounds for his assumption of the presidency, arguing that the unfair nature
of the 2018 presidential election has rendered the Maduro government illegitimate. There is no question that Venezuelans are suffering
and want to see a change in governance. Maduro is wildly unpopular, even among the working class, and many have grown tired of the
economic crisis that has exploded under his watch. This doesn't mean, though, that citizens necessarily support the opposition or,
worse, US military intervention.
Many continue to identify as chavista , and even those who have shed this identification continue to acknowledge that the
Bolivarian Revolution once improved their livelihoods. Those improvements, though, have largely evaporated under Maduro.
Since some of the most powerful countries in the world have now decided to back Guaidó, there is good reason to ask who he is,
what sort of future he represents for Venezuela, and whether domestic support for Guaidó's call for Maduro's resignation equals support
for him as leader of the country.
Dangerous Brinkmanship
Maduro might not possess widespread legitimacy, but his government retains control of much of the state apparatus and remains
far more entrenched than many opposition members and their supporters would like to believe. In many ways, chavismo remains
dominant and has reshaped Venezuelan society. Whether they like it or not, the opposition will not be able to entirely overturn the
legacy of the Bolivarian Revolution or erase the fondness that many citizens still have for the late Hugo Chávez and the policies
he implemented as president. Some members of the opposition
seem to realize this.
There should not be any doubt, though, about what the United States, alongside other countries within and beyond the Western Hemisphere,
are pushing for in Venezuela: a military overthrow of the Maduro government. The situation is messy, and there are multiple interpretations
concerning the origins of the political-economic crisis in Venezuela, as well as how to solve the political crisis and reboot the
Venezuelan economy. But Washington and its allies seem intent on some basic interventionist strategies. Nearly every day over
the past two weeks, both National Security Adviser John Bolton and Republican Senator Marco Rubio have used their Twitter accounts
to call on the military to align with Guaidó, "defend democracy," and oust Maduro.
For now, the United States has seemed to settle for imposing harsh sanctions on Venezuela that portend economic catastrophe. These
sanctions target the lifeblood of the economy: the state oil company (PDVSA) and its sales to the United States. The aim, of course,
is to weaken Maduro's position by taking away the government's most important source of revenue. But this could very easily backfire.
Venezuelan citizens might blame the United States for worsening the economic crisis, though it won't automatically translate into
support for Maduro. And it certainly won't help build support for international mediation or fondness for the United States on the
part of most Venezuelans.
If these sanctions do break the government, it is likely some portion of the population will feel that whatever comes next is
the product of coercion. If the opposition centered around Guaidó then wins a presidential election, that government may face questions
regarding its own legitimacy. Even for many who do not support Maduro, anti-imperialist sentiments run deep; elections that take
place as a result of US strong-arming will be tainted by these dynamics.
Guaidó's announcement assuming the role of interim president generated a wave of support from some capitals as well as the
Organization of American States. Now the crisis is in a stalemate. Indeed,
as Francisco Toro notes
, the United States, in granting diplomatic recognition to Guaidó's "government," has created a precarious situation by confusing
a normative judgment about who should run the country with the objective fact of who does run the country -- that is, who actually
has control over national territory and the state apparatus.
If this gamble, this all-or-nothing approach, does not go as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, NSA adviser Bolton, and others
hope it will, what will happen in a few weeks, if Maduro remains president? Will Washington continue with economic sanctions and
fall into a pattern similar to its decades-long standoff with Cuba? Will it take to exploding cigars and other absurd and criminal
plots of subversion?
The United States now has little room to play a constructive role in interim efforts, such as the negotiations proposed by
Mexico and Uruguay to bring the two sides to the table.In fact, Washington's intransigence only bolsters opposition
intransigence. Indeed, since January 23, we have seen escalation upon escalation, potentially setting the stage for violent conflict,
even civil war.
Washington's Campaign: 'Dividing Chavismo' and 'Protecting Vital US Business'
Following the opposition's victory in 2015 parliamentary elections, opposition-party leaders agreed to a rotating cast of leadership
within the National Assembly. In 2019, Guaidó, representing the Voluntad Popular party, assumed the position of National Assembly
president. Very few know much about the 35-year-old Guaidó. Indeed, a common remark about him from Venezuelans is that he has "come
out of nowhere" ( viene de la nada ).
In fact, Guaidó is from one of the most hard-line political parties among the opposition. While some parties have sought
to displace chavismo through an electoral route, Leopoldo López, one of the founders of Voluntad Popular, led protests in 2014 --
many of which became violent -- demanding Maduro's exit. After Maduro's first election, in 2013, López justified undemocratic approaches
to removing him by declaring his government illegitimate. One of the few things we do know about Guaidó is that López has been one
of his political mentors; some have even suggested López is continuing to call the shots while still under house arrest in suburban
Caracas.
More than anything else, Guaidó appears to be a product of the right-wing, middle-class student movement that developed in
opposition to the Chávez government in the mid-to-late 2000s. This movement, which took to the streets of Caracas to demand the ouster
of Chávez, received much of its funding and training from Washington.
The following reporting is based on Tim Gill's extensive research on US foreign policy toward Venezuela under Chávez, and the
ways in which Washington sought to"promote democracy." Gill conducted interviews with numerous US state actors and members Venezuelan
civil society.
Over the course of several years, Washington worked with middle-class, opposition-aligned students through the US Agency for
International Development (USAID) and its Office for Transition Initiatives (OTI). Indeed, OTI often
works in war-torn countries that
are, as the office's name indicates, experiencing a "political transition," such as Burma, Iraq, and Libya. When Gill asked a former
high-ranking USAID member why OTI worked in Venezuela, he stated that OTI are "the special forces of the democracy assistance community."
Another USAID functionary told Gill that OTI allowed the United States to provide funds to opposition members in Venezuela faster
than if they used traditional channels.
What were the ultimate objectives of USAID/OTI in Venezuela during the years they worked with the student movement? US Ambassador
to Venezuela William Brownfield specifically laid
them out in a secret embassy cable secured by Chelsea Manning and released by WikiLeaks: "1) Strengthening Democratic Institutions,
2) Penetrating Chavez' Political Base, 3) Dividing Chavismo, 4) Protecting Vital US business, and 5) Isolating Chavez internationally."
These efforts initially focused on setting up community groups in working-class neighborhoods, which appeared neutral but were
actually operated by opposition activists. Since USAID/OTI could not directly fund political parties, they worked with party leaders,
including those from Voluntad Popular, to help opposition activists set up these community groups in neighborhoods where chavistas
were predominant. The groups, which claimed to promote and provide training related to participatory democracy, ultimately aimed
to put opposition activists in contact with Chávez supporters in an effort to generate chavista support for their political
parties. One USAID/OTI contractor who helped to organize these groups in Venezuela explained to Gill:
We even developed new NGOs that were looking very neutral in the eyes of the government; by them we can help people in the
poor neighborhoods. They looked neutral because they had no affiliation with no political party. They were people from the neighborhood,
even though they were opposition. They create the organizations with no past relation to political parties. So when they worked
in the barrios , they looked very neutral. So we gave them money, but they succeeded in helping democratic values. They
were pulling people away from Chávez in a subtle manner. We were telling them what democracy is, and showing them what democracy
means. We developed very nice materials and took care of every word to give them, so it didn't look like we were sympathizing
with the opposition.
The campaign didn't work out as planned. Chávez continued to garner support among the popular classes, and many barrio
inhabitants eventually caught on that the community groups were organized by the opposition, so most stopped attending.
Thereafter, USAID/OTI largely shifted its efforts toward the burgeoning student movement that developed in the mid-2000s --
the movement in which Guaidó "cut his political teeth," according to
a report in The Guardian . A former USAID/OTI member who helped devise US efforts in Venezuela said the "objective was that you
had thousands of youth, high school, and college kids that were horrified of this Indian-looking guy in power. They were idealistic.
We wanted to help them to build a civic organization, so that they could mobilize and organize. This is different than protesting."
In other words, USAID/OTI sought to take advantage of racialized fear of Chávez to organize middle-class youth around a long-term
strategy to defeat him.
How exactly did the United States help these students? One USAID/OTI contractor who worked directly with them on a routine basis
revealed to Gill that Washington provided funding and training to the student groups that developed at the same time Guaidó was part
of them. This contractor said that for USAID/OTI, the
most successful time was during 2007, when the student movement developed. The US had a very daring movement and brought
a lot of money to the students through OTI, and it grew a lot as a result. I can say with pride that a lot of people
[now] in the Congress -- I know them from our projects. I'm proud. It's like you see your son and daughter grow up. I knew them
when they grew up the potential leaders when/if there is a change of government, and we were the ones who showed them the first
steps.
Washington gave money to these student groups for a number of purposes. As one USAID/OTI employee put it, the funding was for
"all the things they needed: microphones, things for presentations, paper." Another USAID/OTI employee described hosting seminars
and courses with student protesters. One employee described the training this way: "what is democracy, what is the vote, all the
pillars with the democracy system, to reinforce them, what language they have to use." However, one USAID worker contended that Washington
-- albeit not through USAID -- was also providing the students with items that could "be used in the street and protect themselves,
[such as] masks, but it was not part of open grants." Although they could not confirm the specific US origins of this assistance,
this sort of aid has been used for CIA operations in the past.
While it is unclear what Guaidó's role was in these groups at the time, it is clear that US "democracy promotion" financed
his cohort's formation and its demonstrations for over a decade . Two of the key actors that USAID/OTI contractors interacted
with during this period were Yon Goicoechea and Freddy Guevara, who like Guaidó were from Voluntad Popular. All three have been widely
documented in the media as leading student protests against the Chávez government at the same time, putting them in the same organizational
circles.
This is not to suggest that Guaidó, Goicoechea, or any other opposition member is merely a puppet of the United States. But
it is clear that Guaidó and others in his circle share a worldview and certain goals with the US government. Many of them linked
up with US agencies, which provided them with the resources needed to amplify their voices and reach a much larger audience.When Gill asked one USAID/OTI member whether the goal was "to get Chávez out of office," the member responded, "That was the
idea."
What Does Guaidó Want?
Fast-forward to 2019, when Guaidó is at the forefront of the movement to oust Maduro. As with much of the Venezuelan opposition,
though, Guaidó has been vague about his actual policies. On January 30, he presented a "Plan País" at the Central University of Venezuela.
But much of this time was spent criticizing what the government has done and talking in generalities about how Guaidó would improve
the economy. This included vague references to "stabilizing the economy" and "establishing legal certainty for business."
A recently released document outlining some of Guaidó's proposals -- accepting much-needed humanitarian aid, eliminating currency
controls, and courting private investment -- did little to clarify his vision for the future. Still hanging in the air is how Guaidó
intends to accomplish these goals. The lack of specificity is at least partly due to the heterogeneity of the opposition coalition,
which is composed of former Communist Party members as well as proponents of neoliberalism. But Guaidó's already cozy relationship
with the United States certainly raises concerns that his plans remain vague because they involve massive privatization, the rollback
of state services, and other policies that would make Venezuela more "inviting" for foreign investors at the expense of many Venezuelans.
According to a glowing
recent article in The New York Times , "While it's still far from certain that Mr. Guaidó will ever set foot in the presidential
palace, the number of ordinary Venezuelans and foreign powers taking his side is growing." This formulation confuses provisional
support for Guaidó as a means of clearing the way for elections with support for Guaidó as president -- a dangerous conflation to
make in a country where it could take up to one or two years to organize elections. And so far, we still don't know what Guaidó is
more committed to: putting his friends and party members into power, or supporting democratic elections, regardless of the outcome.
The only thing we know for sure is that in the short term, he wishes to fully assume the presidency.
Guaidó's intransigent opposition to negotiations is perhaps another reason to question his motives. Undoubtedly, previous talks
have not generated confidence or optimism on either side. In lockstep with the United States and several other countries, Guaidó
has asserted that the time for dialogue is over. This position seems to have only encouraged Maduro to dig in his heels.
It's unlikely the Maduro government will simply calmly step aside and cede the government to Guaidó. High-ranking military members
seemingly remain on board with Maduro -- maybe because they fear an end to the economic benefits they now receive, or even prosecution
under an opposition government. The opposition, for its part, is working to provide an exit ramp for military officers tangled up
with the Maduro government. Given this standstill, Guaidó's resistance to dialogue only moves the needle closer to US military intervention.
And his embrace of economic sanctions will hammer the poor before anyone else.
Guaidó's calls for more protests and military defections, and his actions at the international level (for example, his rush to
appoint ambassadors to sympathetic countries) seem designed to bait Maduro into pursuing him legally. Bolton et al. have publicly
warned Maduro that actions against Guaidó will have consequences. Clearly, the Iraq War–endorsing national-security adviser and his
new colleague -- the
notorious neocon Elliott Abrams, Trump's recently appointed special envoy to Venezuela -- are eager to assert US political and
military dominance over a neighboring country that has irritated Washington for two decades.
Guaidó's Shaky Support
Over the past few years, discontent with the Maduro government has clearly grown, but we should not conflate that growth in opposition
with support for Guaidó. For years, the opposition coalition has asserted that it represents a majority of the country, even as it
has ignored the poor and working class. The fact that Guaidó's mobilizations in Caracas on February 2 were centered in Las Mercedes,
one of the richest neighborhoods, does not generate confidence that the opposition has moved beyond its narrow, elitist base. In
late January Rebecca Hanson conducted research in Catia, a conglomeration of poor and working-class neighborhoods in west Caracas
where she has worked since 2009, on perceptions of the self-proclaimed interim president. She found that even those who voice support
for Guaidó do so because he is not Maduro -- that is, they support him not for who he is, but for who he isn't. At most, there may
be tentative agreement that Guaidó represents una esperanza (a hope) for a change in government.
It was not excitement about potential change but rather pessimism and hopelessness that characterized one group interview that
Hanson organized with women in Los Magallanes, a section of Catia, only 10 days after Guaidó's proclamation. Though the women participating
said that Guaidó offered some hope, this was limited to getting Maduro out of office. Most of them felt that there is no real difference
between Maduro and Guaidó, with one fighting to maintain his position in power and the other fighting to seize it. As one participant
in the interview put it, the two are in a fight to distribute the spoils of war among their respective inner circle. "You don't know
who to believe"; "I don't believe in anyone"; and "All politicians want the same thing" were common refrains.
What is more, no one Hanson interviewed was under the illusion that the opposition under Guaidó was different from when it was
under López or Henrique Capriles, the opposition's 2012 and 2013 presidential candidate. In other words, no one was convinced that
Guaidó had the interests of the people at heart. These and other conversations suggest that at least some Venezuelans will support
Guaidó only, or at least primarily, because they feel they have been backed into a corner, either by Maduro's incompetence or his
unwillingness to make serious economic changes.
Finally, though most Venezuelans may not be aware of the ties between Guaidó's party and the United States, his uncritical
acceptance of US support has filled some with uncertainty about his motives.Some would prefer that he "put his house
in order" without outside intervention -- that he demonstrate his ability to generate support within Venezuela. For others, his very
public endorsement of the United States recalls memories of Venezuela's status decades ago, during the cuarta republica ,
when "our oil was not our own," as chavistas that Hanson has conducted research with often say. Still others worry that Venezuela
is being sold off bit by bit to Russia and China. The choice between Guaidó and Maduro could, sadly, end up being a question of which
empire to serve.
No Peace Without Chavismo
At the international level, the stars have surely aligned for Guaidó and the opposition, with right-wing allies like Jair
Bolsonaro in Brazil and Donald Trump in the United States now in power. Yet the Venezuelan government has fended off international
intervention before. Hugo Chávez survived Bush and his overt support for the 2002 coup (as well as former Colombian President Alvaro
Uribe and his saber rattling). However, in earlier years, the so-called Latin American Pink Tide, with leftist governments in countries
like Ecuador and Brazil, gave Venezuela firm regional allies. This is no longer the case.
True, Maduro does retain the support of China and Russia. Over the past decade they have supplied Venezuela with shipments of
missiles, advanced aircraft, and tanks, which have shored up a sizable military. This could make a US invasion more complicated than
what the Pentagon faced in Grenada in 1983 and Panama in 1989, two military forays that Trump and others often reference in defense
of this possibility.
The only real hope for a peaceful outcome lies in dialogue. Given that many citizens do not trust either Maduro or Guaidó,
the two sides would need to make serious gestures toward working together to resolve both the economic and political crisis. This
would require that Guaidó walk back his refusal to participate in negotiations. A few global actors like Mexico and Uruguay
understand this and have urged the government and opposition to sit down and work out a plan for the future.
Dialogue is a much better option than the current US plan to starve Venezuelans into revolt by applying crippling economic sanctions.
Have US elites learned nothing from the experience of Cuba, Iran, or Zimbabwe? These economies limped on, and their leaders clung
to state power for decades, despite sanctions. Far from damaging US foes, sanctions have primarily taken their toll on the citizens
they were allegedly designed to liberate.
Guaidó could invest less time in courting international actors and more time winning over sectors in Venezuela that have traditionally
supported chavismo . For example, he could take a page from the playbook of Henrique Capriles, who announced during his 2012
presidential campaign that social programs like Barrio Adentro, which provided free health care in popular sectors, should not only
be maintained but improved and extended. Although Guaidó has criticized militarized police raids that have killed hundreds in poor
neighborhoods, the Guaidó-led opposition has remained silent about how their government would protect the rights and well-being of
the poor, suggesting that it has yet to concede that these sectors, the majority of the population, must be the priority of any future
government. Given the high level of discontent with the Maduro government, this is a luxury he can probably afford -- in the short
term. Eventually, however, he will need to put forward a platform demonstrating that the poor and working-class sectors will not
end up bearing the brunt of the transition if he wishes to secure their support.
Decoupling humanitarian aid from political interests could also demonstrate that Guaidó isn't just focused on gaining power.
The Red Cross has already cautioned the United
States about the dangers of sending aid to Venezuela if it is not "shielded" from politics and does not have the approval of Venezuelan
authorities. Humanitarian aid should not be a bargaining chip, and using it as such contributes to the perception that the battle
Guaidó is waging is for power, not el pueblo . Finally, and not least, Guaidó should put forward a concrete plan for new elections,
guaranteeing the participation of chavista candidates. There is no political future in Venezuela without chavista participation,
and, one way or another, the opposition and chavismo will eventually need to work together toward a new future. See also
Dismal economic performance of Venezuelan economy and impoverishment of population created perfect environment for the color revolution...
Notable quotes:
"... 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. ..."
"... 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. ..."
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.
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,"
wrote Luis 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
survived
three 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.'ť 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:
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.
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 Cedeńo 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.
Cedeńo, 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.
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.
"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."
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
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.
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.
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 withGuaidó 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."
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."
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 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 .
http://www.dancohenmedia.com/
@Tyrion 2 good, as Venezuela "resists" America." This is complete nonsense. "Doing
things" is corrupt" ? Thus, doing nothing is "good ? I mean, WHAT ? Venezuela is not "good",
per se, except that in this particular case of international relations its largely
innocent . The US has unilaterally decided that the election loser is the election
winner
( Clinton actually "won" in 2016; she's the real president).
US sanctions, threats & striving for a civil war is not just "doing something"
–but doing something wrong (but then, who gives a fuck for international law ?
Who respects sovereignty ?)
What a despicable ideology makes people think like that? It is cloying and maudlin and
resentful.
US sanctions, threats & striving for a civil war is not just "doing something"
–but doing something wrong (but then, who gives a fuck for international law ? Who
respects sovereignty ?
Sovereignty is exercised by the legitimate government. Maduro is not the legitimate head
of the Venezuelan government. Expecting him to step down or at least call a proper
Presidential election is respecting this.
We can argue about that, but pearl clutching appeals to "but America is competent so
America is bad" are gross.
@Tyrion 2 Your mindless postmodernism is astonishing. So you think that facts don' t
matter and you haven't noticed that people are commenting facts based on what is happening,
what different acteurs have done? If you have no idea about Venezuela, why don't you read
what Mark Weisbrot or Max Blumenthal and others have written about the theme recently?
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - The United States will continue to use all measures available to stop
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's revenue streams, National Security Advisor John Bolton
said in a statement on Friday.
"The US will continue to use all tools to separate Maduro [and] his cronies from money that
rightfully belongs to the people of Venezuela", Bolton said via Twitter. "Those who continue to
plunder the resources of Venezuela & stand against its people will not be forgotten".
He also called on Russia and other nations to recognise Juan Guaido as Venezuelan
President.
Bolton added that countries and companies buying Venezuelan oil must take steps to ensure
that President Nicolas Maduro and his government cannot access and divert the payments for
their own use. In late January, the United States blocked all assets of Venezuela's state
energy giant PDVSA in its jurisdiction and imposed a ban on deals with the company. US Treasury
Secretary Steven Mnuchin explained the United States was taking care of the PDVSA in the
interests of the Venezuelan people and also protecting its own market.
On January 23, opposition leader Juan Guaido proclaimed himself interim president of
Venezuela after the opposition-controlled National Assembly claimed Maduro has usurped power.
The United States and some of its allies have recognised Guaido as interim
president.
Russia, China, Mexico and several other countries have said they recognise Maduro
as Venezuela's only legitimate president.
Maduro has accused the United States of orchestrating a coup and informed the US of his
decision to sever diplomatic relations. Washington, however, has refused to withdraw its
diplomatic mission personnel from the Latin American country.
"... The US State Department announced last month that Washington froze some $7 billion in assets belonging to Venezuelan state-owned oil company PDVSA in order to make some of that money available to Guaido and his team. ..."
"... Maduro, after launching a signature-gathering campaign against alleged US interference, has repeatedly stressed his sentiment that the main objective behind Washington's interest in the political outcome in Venezuela is the nation's oil reserves, said to the largest in the world. ..."
The US intelligence community is directly communicating with members of Venezuela's military
in attempts to convince them to abandon beleaguered President Nicolas Maduro while also
considering additional sanctions to ramp up the pressure, a senior White House official
divulged to Reuters. Despite the fact that only a few senior officers have to date abandoned
Maduro, the Trump administration expects additional military personnel to jump ship.
In late January, Juan Guaido, the head of the opposition-led National Assembly, proclaimed
himself the South American nation's interim president, in a move swiftly recognized by the US
and a handful of other countries.
"We believe these to be those first couple pebbles before we start really seeing bigger
rocks rolling down the hill," the unnamed White House official speaking on a condition of
anonymity, told Reuters. "We're still having conversations with members of the former Maduro
regime, with military members, although those conversations are very, very limited."
The unnamed official did not provide additional details regarding what form motivation was
being offered to top military officials to gain their support, according to Reuters.
Many members of the Venezuelan military remain loyal to Maduro, mostly in fear of being
targeted by the embattled leader. To convince those on-the-fence members to abandon Maduro, the
US must offer something that makes a turncoat move worthwhile, noted Eric Farnsworth, vice
president of the Council of the Americas think tank in Washington.
"It depends on what they're offering," Farnsworth told Reuters. "Are there incentives built
into these contacts that will at least cause people to question their loyalty to the
regime?"
A few European nations have joined the Trump administration in its support of Guaido as the
interim president, although those nations professing political support have not taken the
additional step of backing US sanctions on Venezuela's state-owned oil giant PDVSA as well as
other restrictions on financial transactions imposed by Washington.
The US State Department announced last month that Washington froze some $7 billion in
assets belonging to Venezuelan state-owned oil company PDVSA in order to make some of that
money available to Guaido and his team.
According to the US official who spoke anonymously to Reuters, the Trump administration is
also considering imposing sanctions on Cuban military and intelligence officials who are
thought to be assisting Maduro.
Maduro, after launching a signature-gathering campaign against alleged US interference,
has repeatedly stressed his sentiment that the main objective behind Washington's interest in
the political outcome in Venezuela is the nation's oil reserves, said to the largest in the
world.
"... Indeed, a year later, Trump built a pro-war team that includes the most bloodthirsty, hawkish neocons. And then, he ordered a second airstrike against Syria, together with his neocolonial friends. ..."
"... Trump conducted the longest experiment on neoliberals' ultimate goal: abolishing the annoying presence of the state. And this was just a taste of what Trump is willing to do in order to satisfy all neoliberals' wet dreams. ..."
"... And perhaps the best proof for that is a statement by one of the most warmongering figures of the neocon/neoliberal cabal, hired by Trump . As John Bolton cynically and openly admitted recently, " It will make a big difference to the United States economically if we could have American oil companies really invest in and produce the oil capabilities in Venezuela. " ..."
"... Donald Trump is the personification of an authoritarian system that increasingly unveils its true nature. The US empire makes the Venezuelan economy 'scream hard', as it did in Chile in 1973. The country then turned into the first laboratory of neoliberalism with the help of the Chicago Boys and a brutal dictatorship. So, as the big fraud is clear now, neoliberalism is losing ground and ideological influence over countries and societies, after decades of complete dominance. ..."
Government shutdown, Venezuela: Donald Trump evolves into the best propagator of neoliberal fascism that tends to become a
normFebruary
07, 2019by system failure
Even before the 2016 US presidential election, this blog supported that Donald Trump is
apure sample of neoliberal barbarism . Many almost laughed at this perception because Trump was being already promoted,
more or less, as the 'terminator' of the neoliberal establishment. And many people, especially in the US, tired from the economic
disasters, the growing inequality and the endless wars, were anxious to believe that this was indeed his special mission.
Right after the elections, we supported that the
US establishment
gave a brilliant performance by putting its reserve, Donald Trump, in power, against the only candidate that the same
establishment identified as a real threat: Bernie Sanders.
In 2017 , Trump bombed Syria for the first time, resembling the lies that led us to the Iraq war disaster. Despite the fact that
the US Tomahawk missile attack had zero value in operational level (the United States allegedly warned Russia and Syria, while the
targeted airport was operating normally just hours after the attack), Trump sent a clear message to the US deep state that he is
prepared to meet all its demands - and especially the escalation of the confrontation with Russia.
Indeed, a year later, Trump built a pro-war team that includes the most bloodthirsty, hawkish neocons. And then, he ordered
a second airstrike against Syria, together with his neocolonial friends.
In the middle of all this 'orgy' of pro-establishment moves, Trump offered a controversial withdrawal of US forces from Syria
and Afghanistan to save whatever was possible from his 'anti-interventionist' profile. And it was indeed a highly controversial action
with very little value, considering all these US military bases that are still fully operational in the broader Middle East and beyond.
Not to mention the various ways through which the US intervenes in the area (training proxies, equip them with heavy weapons, supporting
the Saudis and contribute to war crimes in Yemen, etc.)
And then , after this very short break, Trump returned to 'business as usual' to satisfy the neoliberal establishment with a 'glorious'
record. He achieved a 35-day government shutdown, which is the
"longest shutdown in US history"
.
Trump conducted the longest experiment on neoliberals' ultimate goal: abolishing the annoying presence of the state. And this
was just a taste of what Trump is willing to do in order to satisfy all neoliberals' wet dreams.
And now, we have the Venezuela issue. Since Hugo Chavez nationalized PDVSA, the central oil and natural gas company, the US empire
launched a fierce economic war against the country. Yet, while all previous US administrations were trying to replace legitimate
governments with their puppets as much silently as possible through slow-motion coup operations, Trump has no problem to do it in
plain sight.
And perhaps the best proof for that is a statement by one of the most warmongering figures of the neocon/neoliberal cabal,
hired by Trump . As John Bolton cynically and openly
admitted recently, " It will make
a big difference to the United States economically if we could have American oil companies really invest in and produce the oil capabilities
in Venezuela. "
Therefore, one should be very naive of course to believe that the Western imperialist gang seriously cares about the Venezuelan
people and especially the poor. Here are three basic reasons behind the open US intervention in Venezuela:
The imperialists want to grab the rich oil fields for the US big oil cartel, as well as the
great
untapped natural resources , particularly gold (mostly for the Canadian companies).
Venezuela must not become an example for other countries in the region on social-programs policy, which is mainly funded
by the oil production. The imperialists know that they must interrupt the path of Venezuela to real Socialism by force if
necessary. Neoliberalism must prevail by all means for the benefit of the big banks and corporations.
Venezuela must not turn to cooperation with rival powers like China and Russia. Such a prospect may give the country
the ability to minimize the effects of the economic war. The country may find an alternative to escape the Western sanctions in
order to fund its social programs for the benefit of the people. And, of course, the West will never accept the exploitation of
the Venezuelan resources by the Sino-Russian bloc.
So, when Trump declared the unelected Juan Guaido as the 'legitimate president' of Venezuela, all the main neoliberal powers of
the West rushed to follow the decision.
This is something we have never seen before. The 'liberal democracies' of the West - only by name - immediately, uncritically
and without hesitation jumped on the same boat with Trump towards this outrageously undemocratic action. They recognized Washington's
puppet as the legitimate president of a third country. A man that was never elected by the Venezuelan people and has very low popularity
in the country. Even worse, the EU parliament
approved this action
, killing any last remnants of democracy in the Union.
Yet, it seems that the US is finding increasingly difficult to force many countries to align with its agenda. Even some European
countries took some distance from the attempted constitutional coup, with Italy even
trying to
veto EU's decision to recognize Guaido.
Donald Trump is the personification of an authoritarian system that increasingly unveils its true nature. The US empire makes
the Venezuelan economy 'scream hard', as it did in Chile in 1973. The country then turned into the first laboratory of neoliberalism
with the help of the Chicago Boys and a brutal dictatorship. So, as the big fraud is clear now, neoliberalism is losing ground and
ideological influence over countries and societies, after decades of complete dominance.
This unprecedented action by the Western neoliberal powers to recognize Guaido is a serious sign that neoliberalism returns
to its roots and slips towards fascism. It appears now that this is the only way to maintain some level of power.
"... Recently, Guaido addressed both Russia and China, trying to convince them that a change in government would actually be in their economic interests. "What most suits Russia and China is a change of government," he said. "Maduro does not protect Venezuela, he doesn't protect anyone's investments, and he is not a good deal for those countries." ..."
"... But despite these power projection ploys, Russia's real capabilities to influence the outcome of the crisis seem limited. After a new US oil embargo against PDVSA was announced last week, Maduro's regime was cut off from its main source of revenue. Analysts say that the fate of Venezuela now rests in the hands of the military – on whether, and how long, it will remain loyal to Maduro. ..."
As of 2017, Russia controlled 13% of Venezuela's crude exports, Reuters
reported . According to some experts, Rosneft has been taking advantage of Venezuela's
difficulties to secure deals which will be profitable in the long term.
The Kremlin's point man for Venezuela is Igor Sechin, CEO of Russian state-owned company
Rosneft and a close Putin ally, who has made frequent visits to Caracas in recent years.
Rosneft has provided $6 billion in loans to PDVSA, which is repaying them with oil. Rosneft has
also gained a share of ownership in five of Venezuela's petroleum projects, while playing a
middleman role in global markets, selling Venezuelan oil on to customers worldwide.
However, Russia's investments in Venezuela look far from lucrative. In 2017 the two
countries agreed to restructure Venezuela's debt, amounting to over $3 billion, by shifting the
repayment terms to 2027.
The beleaguered country's economy is on the verge of collapse and the oil sector, which
accounts for over 90% of national export revenues, has not been spared. Last year, oil
production dropped by 37% compared with 2017. So, Maduro has been struggling to pay back the
loans and last year, Sechin had to fly to Caracas to negotiate with the Venezuelan leader over
delayed oil supplies.
Russia's concern about a collapse in Venezuela's economy is tangible. A delegation of
high-ranking Russian officials flew to Caracas in October to advise the government on how to
overcome the crisis. With the country in a state of turmoil, Russia's Deputy Minister of
Finance Sergei Storchak
said he expects Venezuela to struggle to repay its debt, and the next $100 million tranche
is due next month.
... ... ...
Recently, Guaido addressed both Russia and China, trying to convince them that a change in
government would actually be in their economic interests. "What most suits Russia and China is
a change of government," he said. "Maduro does not protect Venezuela, he doesn't protect
anyone's investments, and he is not a good deal for those countries."
But Russia's switch of sides is highly unlikely at this point, for economic interests are
not the only factor involved.
Russian bridgehead
As Krutikhin pointed out, supporting Maduro is a matter of principle for Russia. Betraying
Maduro at this point would make the Kremlin look weak in front of its domestic audience.
Also, Russia's support for the Maduro regime is based on geopolitics. Together, with
Ecuador, Bolivia and Cuba, Maduro's regime is a key Russian ally on the American continent.
This alliance is essentially a Cold War legacy, dating back to when the Kremlin actively
supported anti-US governments in Latin America, such as Fidel Castro's Cuba and the Sandinista
regime in Nicaragua.
Today, Putin's Russia is defying the US-led world order by supporting leaders such as
Syria's Bashar Assad and Maduro's Venezuela, even though, in the case of the latter, that comes
with substantial economic costs.
In return, Venezuela has been taking Russia's side in international disputes. One example
came after the brief Russo-Georgian conflict in 2008. Venezuela was among the few states
recognizing the Russia-backed breakaway republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
On the strategic front, Russia has been granting Venezuela multi-billion dollar loans to buy
Russian heavy weaponry, such as Sukhoi fighter jets, T-72 tanks and S-300 air defense
systems.
In return, Maduro has been offering Russia a platform to showcase its military power right
in the US backyard. In late 2018, Russian TU-160 strategic bombers – which are capable of
carrying nuclear weapons – flew to Caracas for joint exercises. That provided proof of
Russia's global reach in a region a long way from its traditional area of influence.
According to Reuters, Russian military contractors arrived recently in Caracas to protect
Maduro from a possible violent coup. The mercenaries reportedly belong to the secretive private
military company "Wagner," which has been defending Russian interests in both Syria and Eastern
Ukraine. The Kremlin, however, denied these claims.
But despite these power projection ploys, Russia's real capabilities to influence the
outcome of the crisis seem limited. After a new US oil embargo against PDVSA was announced last
week, Maduro's regime was cut off from its main source of revenue. Analysts say that the fate
of Venezuela now rests in the hands of the military – on whether, and how long, it will
remain loyal to Maduro.
For Russia, a best-case scenario looks unlikely.
If Guaido's revolution succeeds, Russia will lose a major ally in the region. If Maduro
manages to hold on to power, the Kremlin will preserve its geopolitical foothold, but at a
hefty economic price.
The problem for the USA military intervention is whether the Venezuelan resistance can make
it a second Iraq?
Notable quotes:
"... It is stupid and dangerous for Guaido to be talking about U.S. military intervention, and in doing so he is almost certainly making it more difficult to resolve the crisis in Venezuela peacefully. ..."
"... Floating the idea of a foreign invasion for any reason gives the top military commanders an added incentive to stick with Maduro and resist attempts to depose him, and they already have several reasons to remain on his side. ..."
"... An all-or-nothing approach to the crisis is likely to lead to escalation, and so far that has been the only kind of approach that the Trump administration knows how to do. Military intervention would be the absolute worst form that approach could take, and Congress and the public need to oppose any moves by this administration in that direction. ..."
Venezuela's self-proclaimed acting president Juan Guaido refused to rule out on Friday the
possibility of authorizing United States intervention to help force President Nicolas Maduro
from power and alleviate a humanitarian crisis.
National Assembly leader Guaido told AFP he would do "everything that is necessary to save
human lives," acknowledging that US intervention is "a very controversial subject."
It is stupid and dangerous for Guaido to be talking about U.S. military intervention,
and in doing so he is almost certainly making it more difficult to resolve the crisis in
Venezuela peacefully. The military's support for Maduro remains the largest and most
significant obstacle to the opposition's claim to power. Floating the idea of a foreign
invasion for any reason gives the top military commanders an added incentive to stick with
Maduro and resist attempts to depose him, and they already have
several reasons to remain on his side.
U.S. military intervention in Venezuela must not happen, and members of Congress should make
clear that it is not an option. Rep. Ro Khanna responded to Guaido's statements earlier
today:
Attacking Venezuela would be a costly and unnecessary war for the U.S., but more than that
it would be a calamity for the people of Venezuela, whose country would be plunged into even
worse conditions for the duration of the conflict. The U.S. needs to be willing to consider
some sort of compromise solution, whether it is a power-sharing arrangement or negotiations
that lead to the holding of early elections. An all-or-nothing approach to the crisis is
likely to lead to escalation, and so far that has been the only kind of approach that the Trump
administration knows how to do. Military intervention would be the absolute worst form that
approach could take, and Congress and the public need to oppose any moves by this
administration in that direction.
From oil to infrastructure, why China has plenty to lose from political turmoil in
Venezuela
Caracas needs Chinese loans and investment in various sectors, but the relationship
offers mutual benefits
Instability and a struggling economy in the South American country have already cost
Beijing dearly
As Venezuela's biggest creditor, China is bound to be affected by the outcome.
Here are some of the Chinese investments that have already hit trouble in Venezuela:
Oil-for-loan deals
The last loan Maduro got from China was one of US$5 billion in September 2017. This was in
addition to US$65 billion loaned by China to Caracas over the past decade, which the South
American nation has been repaying in oil shipments.
Several state-owned Chinese oil corporations have bought stakes in or entered joint
ventures with Venezuelan counterparts.
But after the escalating political chaos, it was reported last week by Reuters that
PetroChina planned to drop Petroleos de Venezuela as a partner in a planned US$10 billion oil
refinery and petrochemical project in southern China.
China has provided more than US$100 billion in loan commitments to Latin American
countries and firms since 2005. This would mean China's loans to Venezuela accounted for well
over half of its loans to South America.
China, as the biggest oil importer in the world, is receiving 240,000 barrels of oil a day
– mostly as debt repayment – from Venezuela, which has the world's biggest oil
reserves.
Latin America's high-speed railway
Even before the current chaos over the presidential race, Venezuela's economy had long
been hampered by its political instability. This led to the abandonment in 2016 of a
Chinese-backed high-speed rail project that had cost US$7.5 billion.
The 462km Tinaco-Anaco line was intended to become part of South America's first
high-speed rail route and carry 5 million passengers and 9.8 million tonnes of cargo a
year.
Beijing-backed China Railway Engineering Corporation had a stake of 40 per cent in the
project, with Venezuela holding the rest, and construction began in 2009.
But it fell behind schedule and was abandoned by the Chinese state company in 2015,
according to an Associated Press report. By 2016, the construction sites and factories had
been ransacked for power generators, computers, metals, ceramics and other materials.
Mining opportunities
In 2017, China agreed to help diversify Venezuela's oil-dependent economy by developing
its mining sector. A US$400 million joint venture was established between the Corporacion
Venezolana de Mineria, Chinese firms CAMCE and Yankuang Group, and Colombia's Inter-American
Coal to boost Venezuela's coal mining and port operations.
CAMCE, a construction engineering affiliate of state-owned China National Machinery
Industry Corporation, and Yankuang, a Shandong-based coal company, have also promised to
invest US$180 million to develop the country's nickel industry.
No progress has been reported from the project so far, but other mining projects in the
country have been hindered.
Baoji Oilfield Machinery Company suspended its activities in Venezuela in 2015 following a
series of political protests. In March 2016, a gang gunned down 17 miners in an area of the
Orinoco Mining Arc site that was licensed to Yankuang.
Everything is as usual. Old American slogan: Do you have oil? We are going to you to teach
you democracy (that is, we will rob, but democratically). And after that, Americans sincerely
wonder why the rest of the world (except for Israel and Saudi Arabia) "loves" them so
much.
The USA has no interest in other communist regimes of the world that have no gold or oil.
Seems to me the MO is obvious. The use of the outdated MSM planting lies is also worth noting
because it's not even on the fringe of expansion or acceptance, it's dying a slow death.
The old American way of invading a country because it has oil and, coincidentally, is
experiencing a "humanitarian crisis" while using corrupt MSM outlets is so friggin'
old.......
I went to Venezuela to drink some beer. I find that it's pointless to try to tell the
truth about Venezuela to most Americans. People say that, because I went to a small town
instead of Caracas, I couldn't possibly know the 'real' situation.
Zorov description of Caracas is a giant Potemkin Village. The refugees flooding into
Columbia and Brazil are just actors hired by CIA to make Maduro look bad. Sounds like
paradise!
Gresham's Law is reversed in the socialist paradise and good money drives the bad from
circulation? Right. Got it. If this trolling reporter actually believes that, I have some
Continentals for him. I'll print them up to order.
I start to think that I don't feel sorry for Maduro at all. He really corrupted en
entire country with such generous handouts. And they willingly take, but no one says "thank
you," just that they want more and more.
Sounds familiar, I see this **** in the US and the left is setting up it's constituents to
starve and suffer.
Our Air France flight was grounded in Paris for 5 hours; no one wants to land in
Venezuela in the middle of the night, due to the "dangerous criminal situation."
So what would you call the situation in Paris, exactly? Mayberry? And this is precisely
why journalistic bias works better than anything else when it comes to exposing the kind of
stupidity that rivals what existed during the Dark Age. They call themselves out, shout "Hey!
I'm a moron!", and then we all laugh.
I don't know what ZH has gone but on the fake news this morning the experts were telling
me Maduro was stopping humanitarian aid sent from the US at the border.
This is the same thing that happens to anybody that questions Trump. Doing that means they
support Honest Hill'rey or is a "libtard". Without knowing much at all about Maduro, US
intervention in Venezuela is somthing I do not support at all and the maverick outside is
POTUS. So right or wrong I blame him.
This is the personal view of the correspondent on today's life of Caracas.
Translated by Scott
Day one...
Our Air France flight was grounded in Paris for 5 hours; no one wants to land in Venezuela
in the middle of the night, due to the "dangerous criminal situation." The airliner is half
empty, the passengers, judging by nervous conversations, are only Venezuelans. A taxi driver,
while leaving the airport, locks the doors, and sweetly warns that after dark, bandits scatter
spikes on the roads and rob the stranded cars. "Oh, don't worry, Amigo, I have an old car. They
are not interested in old, cars." That's where you understand why Caracas is ranked first in
the ranking of the most dangerous cities in the world. It's too late for supper, but I at least
want to exchange my US dollars for Venezuelan bolivars. I ask my cab driver. He violently
shakes his head:
"No, no, no. I do not mess with such things, it's illegal!"
"Whatever," I laugh at him.
"Tomorrow, someone will take the dollars, maybe even with my hands torn off." I was
wrong
The following morning, no one at the hotel wants to look at my dollars.
The hotel employee tells me to go to one of the official "exchange stores" but honestly
adds: "only Americans, or complete jerks go there."
In Venezuela, the official dollar exchange rate is 200 bolivars, and the "black market"
exchange rate is 2,715. And if you exchange your currency in a bank, then according to this
calculation, a bottle of ordinary water will cost 330 rubles, and a modest lunch in an
inexpensive cafe -- 7,000 rubles per person. Judging by the stories on the Internet, in
Venezuelan people should simply kill each other for dollars, but this is not the case.
There is also other things different from perception. On western news, it is shown that
demonstrators fight with police daily, tens killed, hundreds wounded, the sea of blood. But in
Caracas, all is quiet. In an afternoon, people are sitting in cafes and idly sipping rum with
ice, while maintenance crews sweep the streets. It turns out that the world 's leading TV new
sources (including CNN and the BBC) show some fantasy film about Venezuela. "Demonstrations?"
yawns Alejandro, a street vendor selling corn. "Well, Saturday there will be one, sort of. On
one end of the city will be a rally of opposition supporters, and on the other, Maduro
supporters. The police keep them separate to prevent fights."
Amazing.
You browse the Internet, you turn on the TV, and you see the revolution, the people dying on
streets to overthrow the "evil dictator Maduro." And you come here, and nobody cares.
Then it got even better. Never in my life have I had so many adventures while trying to
exchange one currency for another. The country has a problem with cash money, long queues
waiting for the ATM, and even the street dealers of "currency" have no "efectivo," as they call
cash. I wander inside a jewelry store and ask if they want some "green." The answer is "No."
Everyone acts like law-abiding citizens. I am told that police recently started arresting
people for private exchange, that's why people don't want to associate. One owner of the
jewelry store almost agrees.
"What do you have? Dollars? No, I won't take that."
"Why now?"
"I take only the Euros dollar, man, is the currency of the aggressor, they try to tell us
how to live!"
Damn it! I have money in my pocket, and I can't even buy lunch! Finally, a certain woman,
nursing a baby in a workplace, very reluctantly agrees to exchange 2,200 bolivars for a "buck."
I want to curse her out, but I have to live somehow. Bolivars seem like a beautiful,
unattainable currency, which hides all the benefits of the world, that's why they are so hard
to get. I'm nodding in agreement. The woman calls somewhere, and asks to wait. After 15 minutes
she tells me that "there is a problem." Of course, money is not to be found. Her man couldn't
withdraw them from the ATM, everywhere the ATMs are on a strict daily rate.
"President Maduro is fighting for the strengthening of the national currency," explained
the nursing mother. "We all use our cards to pay for everything."
I don't know how it works, but yesterday an exchange rate was 3,200 bolívars for 1
dollar, and today the "bucks" fell to 2,700. I have started to realize that in the very next
few days I'll starve to death with dollars in my pocket. A unique fate, perhaps, that has never
happen in history.
In the next kiosk cash for gold place I am offered a plastic debit card loaded with local
money, and then I would try my luck withdrawing bills from neighboring ATMs. "Or, maybe not, if
you're not lucky." Well, of course. By the way, an attempt to buy a SIM card for the phone also
fails. They don't sell them to foreigners, you need a Venezuelan ID card. Yes, and I have
nothing to pay for it. The feeling is that the dollar is a gift that no one wants. Sadly, I
walk by stores. People come out of there with packages of eggs, bread, packs of butter. The
range is not like in Moscow, of course, but again, if you believe the news on TV, Venezuela is
suffering from a terrible famine, supermarkets are empty, and people are fighting each other
for food. Nothing like that. There are queues, but not kilometers long. In general, television
stations in the United States and Europe (and ours too) created their own Venezuela, drawn like
a terrible cartoon. I walk into a cafe at random.
"Will you accept dollars for lunch?" I ask hopelessly.
"Yes, at the rate of "black market" they whispered to me.
"But the change will also be in dollars... sorry, no bolivars at all...we've been hunting
for them ourselves for weeks."
My first day in Venezuela is over. How unusual. I've been here for 24 hours, and I've not
held a Bolivian bill in my hand. Oh, but there will be more...
Day two...
60 liters of gasoline here cost five cents, and a basket of basic food products - 50 rubles
(about 90 cents).
"The gas station," my driver reaches into his purse and takes out a banknote of 2 Bolivar.
The exchange rate of the Venezuelan currency changes every day, and today it is 2,580 bolivars
per one dollar. In Russian money, that is 10 cents. "We must now fill a full tank," says the
taxi driver. 60 liters of gasoline cost 1 bolívar, but we give the 2 bolivars bill,
because there is no 1 bolivar bill. I can't believe that is a full tank of fuel costs FIVE
CENTS?
"And how much can you even fill at this price?"
"Once a day for every citizen. And it's enough for me."
All the way to the center city, the driver scolds President Maduro, and tells me how much he
loves America, and how it will be good when the "guy with mustache" is finally overthrow by the
Americans.
I start to think that I don't feel sorry for Maduro at all. He really corrupted en entire
country with such generous handouts. And they willingly take, but no one says "thank you," just
that they want more and more.
On the street there is a long line into a "social supermarket," a place you can buy 400
types of goods at the solid low prices. These shops were established by the late President Hugo
Chavez "to fight inflation and protect the poor." The stores are funded by the Venezuelan
government. The buyer comes with a passport, gets a number, and waits in line until they are
allowed to enter and buy a certain set of products. The selection isn't very impressive, only
the essentials: chicken, bananas, pineapples, sausages, milk. A box of these food items costs
of equivalent of 50 rubles. CNN and the BBC show videos of Venezuelans wrapped in rolls of
toilet paper and sadly wandering across the border with Colombia. The toilet paper is found in
absolutely every store, and without any problems. I am once again simply amazed: Western TV
news is something from Hollywood, they are not reporting but making fantasy blockbusters. On
the BBC website I read that hungry Venezuelan children after school go to take a look at the
street vendors cooking meat. I've been all over the town. Restaurants, cafes, eateries, during
the lunch hour are crowded, and people look well-dressed. The mass hunger, the Western media
paints for us, doesn't exist in reality.
I take a few pictures inside the supermarket, and I am immediately approached by the workers
or "Maduro followers."
"It's forbidden to take pictures here."
"Is this a military facility?"
"Leave or we'll call the police."
"Listen, everywhere on TV they tell us that there is hunger in Venezuela. I want to prove
that the reality is different."
"We are not interested, we just work here: leave immediately!"
I started to understand perfectly well why Nicolas Maduro lost the information war. Hugo
Chavez was often praised even in private conversations, but even Chavez supporters find little
positive to say about Maduro. When people protested against Hugo's endless nominations as the
head of state, he used to meet them with the open arms, smiling and saying : "Guys, what's the
problem? I'm your President, I love you, let's sit down and talk!" Maduro doesn't have this
image of being one of the guys. He is not able to communicate with the public, and his
assistants, like the employees of the social store, can only push and ban and threaten with the
police.
On the streets, provincial farmers sell fruits and vegetables: mango, tomatoes, cucumbers.
All about the same price of 25 rubles per kilogram. Here, a dozen eggs from street vendors is
4,800 bolivars or about 130 rubles, and that is not cheap . During the peak of oil prices, when
a barrel of oil was sold for $150, Venezuela lived on the principle of a rich fool. To develop
domestic production? No, what is that nonsense? We can buy every triviality abroad. Even the
managers of the oil production weren't local, they hired specialists from Europe, and paid them
a lot of money. Food imports into the country reached 95 percent. And now the situation is not
too different. When I order my meal in a cafe (incidentally, still paying in dollars, all
attempts to change dollars to bolivars failed), I get excellent pork. "Where is it from?" "From
Colombia." "And chicken?" "From Brazil, that's why it's so expensive." Even flour for bread
comes from neighboring Guyana. Chavez and his successor Maduro wanted to be "people's
presidents," handing out money left and right. But then oil prices collapsed, food shortages
began, and people rebelled. People demand as before: cheap food in supermarkets, gasoline for
nothing, and they don't want to hear anything more or less.
"Chavez was a great guy!" says a fan of the former president, 75-year-old Raul Romero,
dressed in a red "chavist" shirt.
"Maduro is nothing like him! There is speculators on the streets, he does nothing. In his
time, Chavez arrested the dealers raising food prices, closed their shops, confiscated land
from landowners, and gave it to the people. We need a firm hand, a real dictatorship!"
In the TV world, Maduro is portrayed as a dictator and executioner, although in Venezuela,
he is openly scolded for being meek; they draw cartoon of him, and insult him as much as they
can. But who cares about the truth? Much more colorful to show the suffering for the toilet
paper.
Day three...
"I got robbed by a COP for my phone. I'm talking on the cell phone outside, he walks over
to me, pokes in my side with his gun. "Give me your mobile." I don't understand immediately,
and automatically continue the conversation. He cocks his gun, and says, "Kill." I give him
my phone. It's still good, I love being robbed by cops. They are not bandits from the
"Barrios," the poor neighborhoods in the mountains, who can shoot you first and then rummage
your corpse's pockets. I'm lucky, I've lived in Venezuela for 27 years and this was the first
time I was "hop-stopped." A lot of people get robbed every year.
I am talking to Mikhail, a citizen of Russia living in Venezuela since the beginning of the
nineties. He helps me move around Caracas and instructs me on how to visit the local slums.
"You don't have protection? Oh, who would doubt that. Then leave your watch, phone, and camera
at the hotel. Take some money for a taxi, you also have to have some cash in case you get
ambushed, otherwise they might get offended and kill you. Sometimes, people get shot in an arm
and a leg, that survivable." After such a nice story, I still go to the "Barrios." It is there
that the supporters of President Nicolas Maduro mainly live. According to CNN and BBC,
impoverished people in Venezuela are revolting against the government. Nothing can be further
from the truth; it's a wealthy middle class that goes to demonstrate. Maduro is applauded in
poor neighborhoods, because the President gives their residents free food sets enough for a
month and gives free (!) apartments. Formally, they belong to the state, but people live in
them for generations.
"I will cut a throat for the President," a heavily-tattooed man smiles menacingly, and
introduces himself as Emilio.
"Who else would give me food and a 'roof ' for free? He is our father and benefactor."
Maduro deliberately does not touch such people, which is why crime in Caracas gushes over
the edge. I am advised not to stop on the street to look at anything, but just to keep going,
otherwise bandits will have time to look closely at me. That's why they have constant robberies
on the streets, plus the police and the national guard can easily take away your favorite
things. No one can be happy about all these. "I love Russians," told me the businessman Carlos
while conversing over coffee near the Plaza de Bolivar.
" But you'd better send Maduro economic advisers. Teach him a lesson! He doesn't know
anything about economy. He has one recipe for everything, to give more money to the poor,
more free apartments, free food, free gasoline, to build a full communism here. But with
this, sorry, any state would collapse ."
The opposition rally in the Western part of Caracas is huge, at least 100 thousand people
gathered. The protesters are friendly to me, Russia here is respected. It is not considered an
enemy. Zero aggression at all and then I wonder about what I see on CNN, videos of the
opposition being rolled into a pancake by tanks. The police keep the neutrality, it disappears
from the streets, to not give a cause to provocateurs. People are happily waving flying in the
sky military helicopter. Many-in t-shirts with the American flag, a man passes by, holding a
hand-written poster with the altered slogan of Donald Trump -"Make Venezuela great again."
"Do you love the U.S.?"
"Yes, adore it!"
"I remember you already had a pro-American President in 1993, Carlos Andrés
Pérez. He sharply raised the price of gasoline, 80% of the goods were imported, he
drove the republic into billions of IMF debts. People went to demonstrations, and
Pérez drowned them in blood, killing 2,000 people then he fled to America."
The man freezes, with his mouth open. Finally, he gets the gift of speech back.
"I hope this time the pro-American President will be different."
"Are you sure?"
"Sorry, I have nothing to say."
Asking the girl from the opposition how she feels about the US:
"The US is our neighbor, let them change the power here." "In countries where the US changed power like Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, hundreds of
thousands people were killed. Are you ready for this?"
Again, she pauses and sighs.
"No, no, no. We are not Africa or Asia. All will go peacefully. Venezuelans will not kill
each other."
Where the opinions splits is the question of whether the free gasoline and free food
packages will remain with an American-instilled government. Many are sincerely sure that the
"freebies" will remain under a new president. How else? The minority that recognizes that state
gifts will be canceled say that they at least "we will be free." As I said, the protesters are
mostly well-dressed, well-off people. By the way, the leader of the opposition, Juan Guido,
also has no real economic program promising to "quadruple the oil production." No one thinks
that after that price will fall four times. In short, I get a feeling that neither the
President, nor the opposition, know anything about the economy in Venezuela.
The demonstrations in support of Maduro take place at the other end of the city, to prevent
the opponents from fighting.
"You Americans are insolent!" screamed an old woman in a red t-shirt rushing towards
me. "Bastards! You should be hanged on a first tree! Cheers to socialism!"
"I'm Russian, grandma."
The old lady recoils.
"Sorry, please." "Don't get that upset, senora."
Many people gathered here are joyful, dancing and singing. A soldier stands in front of me and doesn't allow me to take any pictures. Not just me, but
also other passers-by.
"You can't take pictures here." "Says who?" "President Maduro."
No, Maduro is definitely doing everything he can to be disliked. Those gathering here are
poor, blue-collared workers and farmers from the suburbs. I am interested , honestly, were you
brought here on the busses? "Yes, he did!" says one grandfather, proudly displaying a portrait
of Che Guevara.
"But I would walk here for Maduro! It's a lie that we were paid to be here."
Other people applaud him happily. I shake hands. "Russians are welcome! Venezuela loves you,
you're home."
The day of rallies is over. The maintenance crews came to the sidewalk, strewn with plastic
bottles, crumpled packs of cigarettes, and other debris left after by a cloud. At the entrance
of an old house, old people drink coffee.
"They say that today some general has defected to the side of the opposition," says one of
them. "Some significant person." "What's this guy's name?" "Who knows?"
It is all moving same pieces of capitalistic BS around. Basic imperialistic struggle among
former hegemon who is going down due to stupidity and bad choices and newly rising hopefuls.
Once USA is safely put out and hopefully down, new great powers will suck lesser powers
dry probably by smarter and less aggressive means but nevertheless.
Souverenity is being used as a tool now, but truly sovereign can be only few great powers
in capitalistic world and Venezuela will never be sovereign.
Sacker as usually lacks imagination to go beyond his narrow views. He is also
contradictory.
Fighting the only successful socialist state in the world which was the only one capable
to put his anglozios in place yet defending this pathetic entity pretending to be
socialist.
If it is socialist how come all those oligarchs and their base is still around to keep
creating troubles? They should have gotten rid off long time ago and their all assets and
capitals nationalized for common good.
Regarding USA I have never had any illusions about this entity. Not even in 80s. All those
birth Mark's were there from the start. As with every old person they turned into marasm at
certain age.
Venezuela has claimed to have unveiled a mass conspiracy involving military personnel
and politicians trying to unseat the country's government by force, as well as plans of
potential U.S. military action.
Venezuelan Communications Minister Jorge Rodriguez has alleged that Julio Borges, an
opposition politician and former head of the National Assembly, was behind both a failed
2014 coup and an assassination attempt last August against Venezuelan President
Nicolás Maduro. The information was allegedly gathered by confessions from
recently-arrested Colonel Oswaldo García, who was behind another unsuccessful
conspiracy to unseat Maduro last year and was seen confessing on video during Thursday's
conference.
I am not so sure the Pinochet would be able to overthrow Allende government so early without
CIA support and infiltration (people, money, intelligence)
Notable quotes:
"... what more do you to see or hear or read before you believe that US had been hyper -focused and heavily engaged and entirely illegally to destroy Valenzuela independence form crony capitalism? ..."
@mike k I try to separate the effects of US aggression from that effects of the
Venezuelan governments own failures.
I agree with what another commentator pointed out. US influence in Latin America is often
overestimated. In my opinion by both the "left" who see it as cause of most problems and the
"right" who tend to see it positive.
Certain groups in Latin America tend to ally with the US. But they do this so they can
easier to pursue their own interests. For example imho Pinochet would have successfully
overthrown Allende in Chile even without US support. Latin Americans aren't mindless puppets
that are controlled and played from Washington. Moscow or Beijing.
@EliteCommInc. I don't advocate and American (supposed you are American or British)
intervention in Venezuela. I merely wanted to point out that this article/interview one sided
and and therefore not better that the bullshit the Murdoch media and their likes are probably
spreading lately.
@Captain Willard A key to Chavez’s current weakness is the decline in
the electricity sector. There is the grave possibility that some 70 percent of the
country’s electricity grid could go dark as soon as April 2010. Water
levels at the Guris dam are dropping, and Chavez has been unable to reduce consumption
sufficiently to compensate for the deteriorating industry. This could be the watershed event,
as there is little that Chavez can do to protect the poor from the failure of that system.
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.
Alliances with the military could be critical because in such a situation of massive public
unrest and rejection of the presidency, malcontent sectors of the military will likely decide
to intervene, but only if they believe they have sufficient support. This has been the
pattern in the past three coup attempts. Where the military thought it had enough support,
there was a failure in the public to respond positively (or the public responded in the
negative), so the coup failed. --
The GiFiles,
Files released: 5543061
The GiFiles
Specified Search
@Matthias Eckert For example imho Pinochet would have successfully overthrown Allende in
Chile even without US support"
This is called softening of arguments and doubt and making room for possible exoneration
of US.
Tomorrow we will hear that Haiti's Aristides would have been forced by Haitian to board
plane and leave
Tomorrow we will know that Honduran president would have been anyways sent to the pasture
of retirement by some military without Clinton's ( Mrs this time ).
@Matthias Eckert 1 "Soldiers eat out of garbage cans & their families go hungry in
Venezuela while Maduro & friends live like kings & block humanitarian aid," Mr. Rubio
wrote. He then added: "The world would support the Armed Forces in #Venezuela if they decide
to protect the people & restore democracy by removing a dictator."
2
In a speech in April, when he was still White House policy chief for Latin America, Mr.
Cruz issued a message to the Venezuelan military. Referring to Mr. Maduro as a "madman," Mr.
Cruz said all Venezuelans should "urge the military to respect the oath they took to perform
their functions. Honor your oath."
3
Roberta Jacobson, a former ambassador to Mexico who preceded Ms. Aponte as the top State
Department official for Latin America policy, said that while Washington has long regarded
the Venezuelan military as "widely corrupt, deeply involved in narcotics trafficking and very
unsavory," she saw merit in establishing a back channel with some of them
4. Mr. Tillerson raised the potential for a military coup.
"When things are so bad that the military leadership realizes that it just can't serve the
citizens anymore, they will manage a peaceful transition," he said.
what more do you to see or hear or read before you believe that US had been hyper
-focused and heavily engaged and entirely illegally to destroy Valenzuela independence form
crony capitalism?
Analyst Canthama agrees with Pepe (BTL SyrPer #286513):
The Saker has a nice article on Venezuela, few days old, but quite balanced on his
analysis, people could disagree with one or two things but in general quite to the point on
all fronts.
Though Colombia and Brazil border Venezuela on its West and South, any sort of military
invasion from those directions will first have to conquer nature.
So there are only two ways to remove Maduro:
1) US cruise missiles hitting hundreds of spots in Venezuela would be completely
unacceptable for any Latina America population, a violence that would cause the US to lose
support even its most vassal States.
In parallel, such violence would spark the return of the Colombian guerrilla, blowback will
be very bad and wide spread. Thus military intervention is not likely.
2) The second option is assassination of Maduro , and this is where some of
Venezuela's allies are trying to help, either with security guards, intel and direct
protection.
As in Syria, time is an ally for Venezuela, the Venezuela Government will become stronger
and diplomacy will take shape, There is a real danger though for a false flag, and this is in
fact what Bolton and Pompeo are preparing with Guaidó's supporters knowledge [as in
Syria].
Time is also important since the US regime and its dying fiat economy, 2019 will be a
tough year for the G7, meaning theses regimes will either have to create another massive QE
that will bring them down or start a big war, which the vast majority of their country
citizens will never support, see France with yellow vest, many more countries would see the
same -- even the US.
So, time is good friend to the Venezuela, they must push it as long as they can, and
things will be all right.
Pepe Escobar gives the global view; with Venezuela, Iran, Russia and China abandoning the
mythical petrodollar, Uncle $cam's fiat currency is heading for the dustbin of history:
https://thesaker.is/venezuela-lets-cut-to-the-chase/
"That is a signal to every country that has or may have difficulties with the US, [that
they had] better get their money out of England and out of London because it's not the safe
place as it once was," he said.
"One of the few things left for Britain is to be the financial center that London has been
for so long. And one of the ways you stay a financial center is if you don't play games with
other people's money," he said.
Listening to David Graeber in this interview there is no mention of declining energy
surpluses in the discussion of the economic paradigm of the coming future. No consideration
of the role of the labour of fossil fuels in the economy of the past two centuries.
It's amazing, the argument seems not to have reached them, such that it is doesn't even get a
look in. (Listen from 40 min mark, and you will hear a completely opposite view of what is to
come -- " We are not going to have the problem of how to deploy scarce resources, given an
only moderate level of productivity ").
https://novaramedia.com/2019/02/01/david-graeber-bullshit-jobs-direct-democracy-the-end-of-capitalism/
Fittingly, there is a fascinating section (52.min 30 sec onwards) exploring Graeber's new
book project about how much of the enlightenment thinking of pre-revolutionary France was
either a pilfering of, or a reaction to, the ideas of social organisation coming from
pre-European Americans.
The Graun seems to have been anti-Chavez from the get go. With a set of 'journalists' who
seem to jave made it their lifes work to reverse that democratic revolution. It is not easy
to find their biogs.
This whole business of "recognizing a president" not yet in power has a precedent: Rwanda.
When the bUgandan army invaded Rwanda (with US, Canadian, British and Belgian backing) in
1990 (1 October), or in propaganda terms, the RPA started its "liberation," the US moved its
embassy to Mulindi, and sent the bUgandan chief of intelligence from his IMET junket at Fort
Leavenworth, to take over in northern Rwanda. I refer to Paul Kagame.
International institutions also started to deal with Mulindi, rather than Kigali.
Accusations of genocide within a year
Loathsome though he is, Bolton is probably the only honest neocon around. In Iraq, while the
likes of Blair were banging on about 45 minutes, human rights and democracy etc, Bolton
always made it clear that is was simply a matter of US interests. AKA Oil. He has never
pretended to represent anything but rapacious US self interest.
Fair play. At least you know what you're getting with that tash.
Prior to being assigned to Latin America, Phillips was the Guardian's China correspondent for
five years or so. His task, which he diligently accomplished, was to produce a couple of
articles a week on "Why China Is No Good" . I don't think he ever once found anything
positive to say about the place.
As an individual he's a complete Jodrell, but there are few to compare with him in his
ability to relentlessly toe the Washington neocon line. You couldn't get a fag paper in
between him and Luke Harding. I wonder if he's paid for it, or whether it's just that
seductive sense of 'belonging' that comes from rubbing shoulders with really powerful
people .
Principally, the principles , better said the absence of statute & principle in Law,
behind mass surveillance, was what Snowden was desperate to highlight and that the public's
principal concern of the Guardian's hard drives, were the least of our problems, legally
speaking , coz' other copies existed already elsewhere, anyway
OFFG could always ask Glen Greenwald to explain why he ceased to 'copulate' with the
Guardian and maybe even 'intercept' an opinion or two from Snowden, whilst he's at it
intercepting. Indeed , a few extra nails in the Guardian's coffin , could be delivered quite
speedily & succinctly , with some professional journalistic exchange of Question &
Answer, with nail-gun loaded & mutual benefit would seem to be an all round obvious
win-win debate on matters of principle, legal permissions & submissions.
In some ways it is refreshing to have these power hungry narcissists in charge of the US as
they cannot seem to not blurt out their naked ambitions, which in this example ftom the ft
basically shows kidnap is an agreeable part of trade negotiation.
'Five days after a top executive of Huawei, the Chinese telecoms group, was arrested on a
US request in Canada, President Donald Trump said he was willing to intervene -- if it helped
secure "the largest trade deal ever made". The detention of Meng Wanzhou, one of China's best
known executives, was undoubtedly an incendiary step, escalating trade tensions with Beijing.
But presidential interference in the case would send entirely the wrong message about the US
justice system -- and about how the administration conducts international affairs.
The US and western allies have legitimate concerns about China's reputation for digital
espionage and theft of intellectual property. They agree a more robust stance is needed
towards Beijing. But arresting a star of Chinese business -- Ms Meng has been called China's
Sheryl Sandberg -- on a Canadian stopover en route to Mexico from Hong Kong is not the way to
persuade Beijing to change its behaviour.
Even if the Huawei chief financial officer was held on unrelated charges of violating US
sanctions on Iran, the move smacks of using individuals as pawns in negotiations. It is seen
in Beijing as Washington rewriting the rules of engagement. Such waywardness and
unpredictability from a country that used to portray itself as a pillar of the international
rules-based order will tempt China to respond in kind, leading to a downward spiral of
tit-for-tat behaviour. Indeed, the detention of a former Canadian diplomat, Michael Kovrig,
in Beijing looks worryingly like retaliation.
It may be necessary to take at face value Mr Trump's claims that he was unaware of the US
extradition application, and of the detention itself -- which occurred on the day he was
holding talks on a trade truce with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in Buenos Aires. Had
he known, even Mr Trump seems unlikely to have been cynical enough not to mention the arrest
to Mr Xi. Presidential ignorance, however, offers little reassurance.
That Mr Trump would not be notified of such a sensitive case by his justice department
strengthens the impression of a dysfunctional administration, whose different arms pursue
their agendas with little co-ordination, if not in open competition. It strains credibility
that his recent presidential predecessors would have been left in the dark in similar
situations. The Huawei incident comes in the same week that John Kelly's departure as chief
of staff seemed to confirm the extent to which the Trump White House defies conventional
management.
The president's offer to do "whatever's good for this country" regarding Ms Meng's case
reflects a dealmaker's desire to put his talks with Mr Xi back on track, while extracting
whatever advantage he can. But it amounts, in effect, to saying he is holding the Huawei CFO
hostage as a trade negotiating chip. The situation carries echoes of the White House's
reversal in July of a seven-year executive ban on ZTE, the Chinese telecoms equipment maker,
on purchasing critical equipment from the US, in what appeared a tactical concession to
Beijing.
Presidential interference in Ms Meng's case would send a worse signal: that rule of law in
the US is a function of the whim of the chief executive, or that illegal behaviour can be up
for negotiation. It risks creating an impression that there is little difference between
America's judicial system and that of, say, Turkey -- or indeed China. The Huawei executive's
detention was damaging. It is, however, not for the White House, but for independent courts
in Canada and -- if Ms Meng is extradited -- the US to determine what happens next.'
It all depends on your acceptance of "legality" of American sanctions on Iran. I don't,
therefore American action against Ms Meng imo is political and nothing to do with the rule of
law. Mr Trump's opinions are irrelevant.
President Trump's comments and opinions as expressed on Twitter will become relevant in
Sabrina Meng's court case. Her legal defence could use Trump's opinions as evidence that her
arrest was politically motivated and therefore she should not be extradited.
Canadian PM Justin Bieber Trudeau sacked the Ambassador to China for saying this and
expressing other opinions, among them Canada's view as to whether the current (and new) US
sanctions on Iran are binding on Canada.
The hypocrisy of the MSM in all this is yet again. So blatant it is sickening. At the same
time as Yemen is being battered by bombs with the Wests names on them. Deliberately starved
to death. With Western MSM indifference. Not to even mention. All the other countries Western
powers have illegally devastated. The hand ringing over the plight of the Venezuelan people
under Maduro is suddenly more then they can all bare. Western sanctioning and deliberate
sabotage by the West against the country. Undermining any chance of peace. Don't get a peep
of a mention by the MSM.
Here we go again. Roll up roll up. This is the latest hypocritical propaganda media show.
Maduro is evil we must save his country from this evil. Saintly peace bringing Western
alliance must save Venezuela. All that's needed is a more pliant Western puppet or chaos and
civil war. Oil Opps sorry shh don't mention the oil. Does any one really buy into this
deranged demented narrative any more. For gods sake how many more times do we have to say. NO
NOT IN MY NAME.
$13 billion in Venezuelan assets have been stolen by Uncle Sam and his satraps over the past
few days. Why oh why oh why do countries and foreign individuals persist in keeping their
assets in the US/ UK??????. Billions were stolen from Libya in a few days in 2011. Where it
all went is one of life's big mysteries. Cameron even stole a boat load of Libyan currency
that had been printed in the UK.
A Parliamentary Committee has been set up to agitate for sanctions against China on behalf of
the "poor oppressed Uighurs" in China. Shedding buckets of tears over the lack of "yuman
rights." While supplying British sniper rifles to the Zionists to gun down Palestinian kids
with dum dum bullets and planes, cluster bombs and RAF advisors to slaughter kids in Yemen.
Trump imposed broader economic sanctions on Venezuela because;
*serious human rights abuses (by Maduro),
*antidemocratic actions, and,
*responsibility for the deepening humanitarian crisis. https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/IF10715.pdf
So definitely nothing to do with the oil, or international relations between Venezuela and
other powers that neocons are at war with (wars being conducted in the media, financial
markets and on the ground) while the phony who preceeded Trump (Obama) claimed Venezeula
posed an "unusual and extraordinary threat" to US national security (which is a bit like
Tyson Fury saying he is frightened by a 90 year old woman who is blind and only has one
leg). https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/12885
Isn't there just one soul at the Guardian who will stand up for what is really happening
here (as in all other parts of the world where the US has harmed so many people because of
its insatiable pursuit of oil and power) -- just one?
I must admit I am not getting my hopes up -- while the Guardian excels at drawing
attention to Maduros failings they seem to be deaf, dumb and blind to the geopolitical
context in which Venezuela is doing its utmost to escape the tentacles of US-backed neocons
in their endless quest for violent regime change.
In general those in the know loath the MSM because of the role they play in backing the
gangsters.
"Our own fate as Latin American writers is linked to the need for profound social
transformations. To narrate is to give oneself: it seems obvious that literature, as an
effort to communicate fully, will continue to be blocked so long as misery and illiteracy
exist, and so long as the possessors of power continue to carry on with impunity their policy
of collective imbecilization through the mass media. (Open veins of Latin America -- Eduardo
Galeano)
Ingwe, I started reading the Counter Punch, agreed it was not _only_ the oil so what were the
other motives for U$ Grand Theft Larceny Fraud with Violence? Got as far as this:
"It should be remembered that the Obama Administration had imposed sanctions against
Moscow in March 2014 over the Russian annexation of Crimea, and later involvement in the
civil war in Eastern Ukraine."
Could not read follow that, because I remember no such things as Russian annexation of
Crimea (at least, not since Catherine the Great), nor do I remember a civil war in Eastern
Ukraine (though quite aware that the U$-imposed Jewish Junta with their neo-Nazi stormtroops
are continually shelling Russian-speaking Eastern Ukraine).
vexarb, pity you didn't bother to read further for, if you did, you'd get a rather more
serious analysis than "USA bad and after the oil; Russia good and bringing enlightenment to
the world" .
I think the reason some of us still look at the Graun is that we can't quite believe how
appalling it's got, especially when, like me, you're old enough to remember the old newspaper
from the time when it had some principles and a lot of good writing. It has the sickly
fascination of something you know is really bad for you, like Nutella or reality TV shows.
You end up wallowing in its sheer awfulness, unlike, say, the Mail and the Sun, which you
always know from the start are going to be barking mad and have no element of surprise.
It's pretty obvious Anthony. Because the Guardian, like the BBC and C4 News, presents itself
as and is widely regarded to be an authorititative, non-biased news source. Hence it is
hugely influential in forming opinion in the corridors of power and in educated society.
Opinion that allow bad things to happen and ends up impacting lives. That is reality
regardless of comments dismissing these news sources on the internet. And it is why it is
appropriate for offguardian and others to try and highlight and expose the dangerous lies and
omissions of these wide-reaching propagandists.
It's good for cricket: the best paper in Canada for cricket news. Also for cycling. Since I
first began to read the Manchester Guardian for Neville Cardus's famous writing on cricket, I
stick with it.
As for foreign affairs, once it has been told by the Foreign Office, who the current enemies
are it goes for them. Those who recall the 'good old days' when Latin America and the Middle
East, including Palestine got reasonable coverage which sometimes was very good indeed, ought
to bear in mind that, in those Cold War days, the main enemy was the Soviet Union and it was
necessary to be equivocal about liberation struggles. After all, 'we' were pretending to be
desperately sorry about the sufferings of the Russian people, and those of eastern Europe, so
it was necessary to tone down the imperialist message.
Now the Establishment is dead set on recovering Latin America in toto, banishing alien
(Chinese Russian) influences and consolidating its base in the western hemisphere.
Here comes the Atlantic Treaty Organisation ATO.
The oft-used cliche of the kid (not brain washed yet) saying out loud that the emperor has
no clothes amongst a crowd propagandized, hypnotized and incentivized not to see and not to
know truth from falsehood.
The role of the MSM it seems is to perpetrate this mass denial. Thanks to kids like Kit
and those that support sites such as this other kids are catching on. But, alas we are just
kids after all and the grown ups have the power to spank us for such blasphemy. It is a risk
we kids take to speak the truth we see. When you see and when you know remaining silent can
make you sick (despair, anhedonia, addiction etc.). I'll take my chances with the spanking
and say as loud as I can that the emperor is a fucking war-mongering liar and thief.
I have uploaded various things to DTube and Steemit This film from the Guardian is very
good and relevant to Venezuela its on Bit CHute and survives on Youtube for now.
Thank you Kit (and others) for starting up OffGuardian. Its a very precious place to vent,
and to read the very enlightened, highly informative, and at times profound comments of all
the other commenters here. Have made numerous comments about the situation in Venezuela on
other recent stories here, so not going to keep repeating myself. Regards the state of the
World: surreal and orwellian and just plain bonkers much of the time seems to be the case. At
least Bolton was honest in stating the bleedin obvious, which anyone with even one eye open
already knew. Thanks for your work.
Indeed. I came across Off Guardian not long ago and I'm highly impressed by the quality. A
site to vent -- yes but that's just a small part of it. What is it now -- 3,000 articles
published in just nearly 4 years?. A level of committment by its founders not matched in many
places elsewhere that I can see.
What I like about this is the quality and depth of the articles -- and the fact each
attracts a large number of readers commenting.
I've been looking around various sites lately. It seems to be a mixture of those which
produce good articles but don't seem to have the following -- or at least there's a lack of
reader participation. Or sites where the analysis is not so good but attract a large volume
of comments not necessarily of great quality.
Off G seems to have struck a really good balance which I think means it has more potential
to grow further and build on its success.
I wonder (maybe this has been done before) if Off G thought about organising an event to
celebrate its next birthday. Might be a good way to raise funds and further interest.
I am surprised that the Guardian even mentioned oil and Venezuela in the same story. Did they
also say it has lots of gold, coltron, and many other natural resources. Neoliberals just
can't stand seeing all those profits going to "waste on the serfs".
Very likely McCain. Fortunately though, he already croaked. There was never a regime change
or war he did not support, or demand. The sooner his warmongering Fascist buddies follow him,
the better for mankind. I can imagine what "Bomb. bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" would have
said about Venezuela. As I said before, Venezuela is venomous to those who want to destroy
it. For all American sheeple to understand: The Bucket stops here. Exactly here.
Bolton's casual mention of U.S. oil corporations going into Venezuela and controlling
operation of the nation's oil sector, as if it's already a "done deal", goes right along with
Pompeo's focused use of the term "former president Maduro" in the psychological operation
aspect of the fully-mapped out coup's full court press. Someone famously described the
U.S.-led coup in Ukraine of February 2014 as the most blatant, obvious coup ever, but
amazingly this one involving Venezuela has even surpassed Ukraine in insane illegal boldness.
USA Inc.'s use of criminal aggressive war as a business tactic since false flag 9/11
resulted in the self-destruction of American reputation in the Middle East and North Africa
region. For that reason the attack on the Venezuelan people for their oil was not surprising.
Who will stand for peace? People might think creatively and act to prevent any repeat of
senseless violence and horror as experienced by people in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria,
Ukraine and Yemen.
For the record, the "USA Inc.'s use of criminal aggressive war as a business tactic since
false flag 9/11 resulted in the self-destruction of American reputation " Globally.
Sorry to correct you, but no matter where I go, my first test of any persons intellect is
"What do you think happened to WTC 7 ?" and until you get that sorted , the USA is the
laughing stock of the 'brave new world' outside Government & MSM >>> Fact ,
clearly "you cannot be serious", nor the Guardian nor the BBC nor Die Zeit nor Swiss national
Television, nor Le Monde &&& and the whole damn network of partners in deep state
crimes against innocent people , to further corporate goals.
to even contemplate something in Venezuela is so absurd , when US Governance is so
infiltrated with Deep State Dictators & actors, bolstered by Hollywood >>> get
own house in order , before becoming guests elsewhere. This clearly applies to Britain &
France , as well, indeed all NATO partners.
Trump is gonna' have a real tough time with Xi, coz' you don't get to insult the Chinese
in public & arrest CFO's for extradition , without some form of comeback &
consequence and Chinese & Russian Military towards region Panama seems almost assured and
the USS Fitzgerald warning ? how quickly people forget the 7 dead ! from just a container
ship, lol connect the 9 Dot line -- -- --
The world does not want and never needed policing by the U$A, nor their methods of
financial control & strangulation with credit on a scale far greater than Ponzi himself.
And as for WTC 7 , this made not only the USA a laughing stock in the minds of all
intelligent people, it dragged down & outed the very IN-credibility of every single
politician in the western world , who accepted the award winning WTC 7 TonyAndyPandy story
for CHILDREN !
it's time we got adults back into politics , coz' at present all we have, without
exception, is precisely what George Carlin described in 'a few cultural issues' "Garbage in
Garbage out" !
and we can be 100% sure that they are all GARBAGE, because they cannot even recognise a
controlled explosion, let alone cooking the history books >>> not even one !
The USA has YANKed all their strings, on behalf of Zion and corporate control >>>
fact, not one politician permitted to call a spade a spade or WTC 7 a controlled demolition
let alone MSM.
Long live the revolution & evolution of political conscience !
1. Switch payment for Venezuelan oil from yuan back to dollars.
2. Confiscate Chinese and Russian oil investments in Venezuela.
3. Privatise Venezuelan oil to Wall Street at knock down prices.
Or, as the Orange Baboon himself croaked like a two bit Mafia hood, "Grab the oil! Grab
the oil! Grab the oil!!"
This interview is a whitewash for the Venezuelan government. While I don't doubt that the
described sabotage and subversion orchestrated by the US the Chavistas are clearly
incompetent and corrupt.
They had 20 years to diversify the Venezuelan economy and failed completely. Instead of
decreasing the reliance on oil exports the increased it.
Most of what was left off the venezuelan agricultural sector got destroyed by handing it to
Chavez followers. Similar with almost all other economic sectors. Even the oil production is
much lower than it was in 1998 and this is not because of sanctions. They simply didn't
invest enough into replacing equipment that got worn out. They had 20 years to build
refineries for venezuelan oil in Venezuela, China or somewhere else out of US influence, they
didn't.
@Matthias Eckert Same goes for almost anything else. Why does Venezuela still have gold
deposited in the US and Britain? it's not like these never seized (not to say stole) foreign
assets before.
Just because the Chavistas are enemies of the American oligarchy doesn't mean the aren't
oligarchs themselves.
ps. That Anglo habit to start nationalities with a capital letter even when used as
adjective is an insult to logic
@Johnny Walker Read Natural resources get its value by the knowledge to create something
useful out of them. The economy is human activities, the way we create value by using our
knowledge and talents.
As Hudson say Chavez tried to create at mixed economy. Its not an easy task, something that
takes long time, e.g. raising the general educational level, infrastructure, health and so
on.
If Chavez and PSUV did approach this task good or bad I do not know.
As I understand are Venezuela a country riddled with enormous obstacles to achieve this. It
probably needs a high amount of social capital. Add on western hostility that third world
countries do this.
The prime example of success in fairly modern times are countries in Asia with national unity
and rather authoritarian government.
@Matthias Eckert "This interview is a whitewash for the Venezuelan government They had 20
years "
-- You are not a child, aren't you? How about the industrial base in the mighty US?
There is also the US infrastructure, the improvement of which requires some $4 trillion
"They" (the richest country in the world) had how many years?
Besides, the main point of the article is in a color graph showing % of votes /% of all
registered voters .
Look again at the graph, carefully. What are the numbers for Mr. Guaido? Have not we seen
enough of "democracy on the march" and other US-led "improvements" and "humanitarian
interventions" in Iraq, Libya, and Ukraine?
These pro-U.S. policies made Venezuela a typically polarized Latin American oligarchy.
Despite being nominally rich in oil revenue, its wealth was concentrated in the hands of a
pro-U.S. oligarchy that let its domestic development be steered by the World Bank and
IMF.
No amount of needle point proof can pop the balloon that is the collective brains of
Americans that have a CIA propaganda(via the media) myth inserted in their head that "it's
because of socialism!" Venezuela is in economic turmoil.
Other CIA created myths(that happen to work):
"They need democracy restored"
"They need our help"
"They have weapons of mass destruction"
"They harbor terrorists"
"They peddle fake news"
"They hack our elections"
Etc .
Collect your own, and trade them with your friends.
At least China and Russia can provide an alternative bank clearing mechanism to SWIFT,
so that Venezuela can bypass the U.S. financial system and keep its assets from being
grabbed at will by U.S. authorities or bondholders. And of course, they can provide
safe-keeping for however much of Venezuela's gold it can get back from New York and
London.
There's a good general rule here to keep independent country assets and financial
transactions away from the US – especially making them non- US dollar based.
This would confront U.S. financial strategists with a choice: if they continue to treat
the IMF, World Bank, ITO and NATO as extensions of increasingly aggressive U.S. foreign
policy, they will risk isolating the United States. Europe will have to choose whether to
remain a U.S. economic and military satellite, or to throw in its lot with Eurasia.
Europe would have to make this choice – and it looks like the European public is in
fact already starting to make it – which greatly troubles the US's elite European
collaborators.
Refusal of England and the U.S. to pay Venezuela means that other countries realize that
foreign official gold reserves can be held hostage to U.S. foreign policy, and even to
judgments by U.S. courts to award this gold to foreign creditors or to whoever might bring
a lawsuit under U.S. law against these countries.
True. Now is reflection time for any country that holds physical gold in New York or
London. Also time to think in general about reserves held in US dollars (Treasury bonds).
Being a Roman Catholic country, Venezuela might ask for papal support for a debt
write-down and an international institution to oversee the ability to pay by debtor
countries without imposing austerity, emigration, depopulation and forced privatization of
the public domain.
Whatever happens Venezuela is going to get austerity, but it could be a difficult self
respecting and self sufficient kind, excluding the US (the primary source of its problems)
and taking assistance from any friends that it may have.
Another Saker article that ignores the elephant in the room completely
Looking ahead, therefore, China, Russia, Iran and other countries need to set up a new
international court to adjudicate the coming diplomatic crisis and its financial and military
consequences. Such a court – and its associated international bank as an alternative to
the U.S.-controlled IMF and World Bank – needs a clear ideology to frame a set of
principles of nationhood and international rights with power to implement and enforce its
judgments.
A great idea but the world banks are NOT US controlled. They are run by the Rothschilds,
and until writers like Saker face up to this fact the problems will not be resolved.
Rothschild has to be dealt with, put out of business and closed down permanently.
What Mr Hudson's answers make clear is that Putin is increasingly bogged down in yet another
fight, a fight which Mr Hudson tacitly believes to be unwinnable.
@Michael Kenny Putin does not need to win, only impose more pain on the US than he
himself suffers. If Maduro stays in power, that is a big win for Russia and further proves
their ability to stand up the US of A.
Venezuela would prove Syria was not just luck but the start of a changing tide. If Guaido
eventually takes power, it will have costed the US much more now that Russia is there.
A couple old planes and 400 Russian special forces means that the US needed to put 5000
troops in Colombia.
When you stand up to a bully, you don't need to win, but to prove it's not worth going
after you in the future.
Which means that Maduro movement is isolated within is own continent.
Notable quotes:
"... Since there can be no intervention without the presence of force or threats of its use the actions taken and threats made against Venezuela constitute the crime of aggression under international law. ..."
"... The US and Canada are now threatening the use of armed force against Venezuela. John Bolton stated that all options are on the table and has even threatened Maduro with imprisonment in the US torture chambers of Guantanamo Bay. Britain has seized Venezuelan funds sitting in London banks, and the US and its flunkies are now trying to stop Venezuela and Turkey from dealing in Venezuelan gold, and, to add to their net, accuse them of sending the gold to Iran in violation of their illegal "sanctions." ..."
"... "All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State, or in any manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations." ..."
"... "refrain from any threats or acts, direct or indirect, aimed at impairing the freedom, independence or integrity of any State, or at fomenting civil strife and subverting the will of the people in any state."' ..."
"... "1. No State has the right to intervene, directly or indirectly, for any reason whatever, in the internal or external affairs of any other State. Consequently, armed intervention and all other forms of interference or attempted threats against the personality of the State or against its political, economic and cultural elements, are condemned.' ..."
"... "2. No State may use or encourage the use of economic, political or any other type of measures to coerce another state in order to obtain from it the subordination of the exercise of its sovereign rights or to secure from it advantages of any kind. Also, no state shall organize, assist, foment, finance, incite or tolerate subversive, terrorist or armed activities directed toward the violent overthrow of the regime of another State, or interfere in civil strife in another State." ..."
"... "refrain from armed intervention or the promotion or organization of subversion, terrorism or other indirect forms of intervention for the purpose of changing by violence the existing system in another State or interfering in civil strife in another State." ..."
"... "to refrain from organizing, instigating, assisting or participating in acts of civil strife or terrorist acts in another State or to allow such acts to be operated from its territory." ..."
"... Christopher Black is an international criminal lawyer based in Toronto. He is known for a number of high-profile war crimes cases and recently published his novel " Beneath the Clouds . He writes essays on international law, politics and world events, especially for the online magazine "New Eastern Outlook." https://journal-neo.org/2019/02/04/the-lima-group-international-outlaws/ ..."
The covert and overt interventions taking place against Venezuela by the United States and
its allies are a form of aggression and a violation of the fundamental principles of the United
Nations Charter making the nations involved international outlaws.
The attempted coup against President Maduro of Venezuela may have failed so far but the
jackals that instigated it have not given up their objective of forcing the majority of
Venezuelans benefiting from the Bolivarian revolution begun by President Chavez, back to the
misery the revolution is trying to save them from. The United States and its allied governments
and media, working with American military and civilian intelligence services, are pumping out a
constant flow of propaganda about the start of affairs in Venezuela to mislead and manipulate
their own peoples so that they support their aggression and to undermine Venezuelans support
for their revolution.
We have seen this type of propaganda before, the fake stories about "human rights" abuses,
economic conditions, the cries of "democracy," the propaganda about an "authoritarian" leader,
a "tyrant," "dictator", all labels they have used before against leaders of nations that they
have later murdered; President Arbenz, Allende, Torrijos, Habyarimana, Milosevic, Hussein,
Ghaddafi are examples that come quickly to mind, so that the same threats against Maduro are
not just propaganda but direct physical threats.
We see the same pretexts for military aggression used and same euphemisms being employed,
the same cries for "humanitarian intervention," which we now know are nothing more than modern
echoes of Hitler's pretexts for the invasion of Czechoslovakia, to "save the oppressed
Germans."
We see the same smug lies and hypocrisy about the rule of law as they openly brag about
their violation of international law with every step they take and talk as if they are gods
ruling the world.
The United States is the principal actor in all this but it has beside it among other
flunkey nations, perhaps the worst of them all, Canada, which has been an enthusiastic partner
in crime of the United States since the end of the Second World War. We cannot forget its role
in the aggression against North Korea, the Soviet Union, China, its secret role in the American
aggression against Vietnam, against Iraq, Rwanda, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Syria, Ukraine,
Haiti, Iran, and the past several years Venezuela.
Canada will take the lead in the aggression against Venezuela on Monday February 4
th when it hosts a meeting in Ottawa of a group of international war crime
conspirators, known as The Lima Group, a group of Latin American and Caribbean lackeys of the
United States, including Mexico and Canada which was set up by the United States at a meeting
in Lima, Peru on August 8, 2017 with the express purpose of overthrowing President Maduro.
Canada's harridan of foreign affairs, Chrystia Freeland, stated to the press recently that
"Canada needs to play a leading role in the Lima Group because the crisis in Venezuela is
unfolding in Canada's global backyard. This is our neighbourhood. We have a direct interest in
what happens in our hemisphere."
"In Canada's global backyard?" It's astonishing to read it. Canada regards the globe as its
backyard? She manages to reveal a severe case of megalomania and insult the rest of the nations
of the world at the same time. Her statement that Venezuela "is our neighbourhood" is almost a
direct adoption of the American claim to hegemony and "interventionism" in the western
hemisphere as if Canada completely identifies itself with the United States, that is, in terms
of foreign policy, has completely merged with the United States.
But, by doing so, the Canadian elite show themselves to be the enemies of progress and
economic and social justice; shows them to be the antihuman reactionaries that they are. They
also make themselves world outlaws.
Freeland claims that the Lima Group meeting will "address the political and economic crisis
in Venezuela," yet it is Canada that, along with the United States that has created the very
crisis they are using as a pretext to attack President Maduro. It is they that have tried to
topple both him and Chavez through assassination plots, threatened military invasion and
economic warfare that has the sole purpose of disrupting the social and economic life of
Venezuela, of making life as miserable as possible in order to foment unrest while conspiring
with internal reactionary forces.
The Lima Group, began its dirty work in 2017 by issuing statements condemning the Bolivarian
revolution, claimed that there was a break down of law and order in Venezuela and attempted to
cancel the elections just held which gave President Maduro a solid majority of 68% of the votes
in what all international elections observers judged free and fair.
Following the election of Maduro all of these nations withdrew their ambassadors from
Venezuela. They did all this while claiming that their actions were taken "with full respect
for the norms of international law and the principle of nonintervention" when they are plainly
violating all norms of international law and the principle of non-intervention. They are also
violating the UN Charter that prohibits any nation or group of nations from taken action
outside the framework of the UN Security Council against any other nation.
The Ottawa meeting is in fact a meeting of criminal conspirators that are intent on
committing acts of aggression, the supreme war crime against a sovereign nation and people.
Intervention is generally prohibited under international law because it violates the concept of
independent state sovereignty. All nations have the right to govern themselves as they deem fit
and that no nation could rightfully interfere in the government of another. Since there can
be no intervention without the presence of force or threats of its use the actions taken and
threats made against Venezuela constitute the crime of aggression under international
law.
The US and Canada are now threatening the use of armed force against Venezuela. John
Bolton stated that all options are on the table and has even threatened Maduro with
imprisonment in the US torture chambers of Guantanamo Bay. Britain has seized Venezuelan funds
sitting in London banks, and the US and its flunkies are now trying to stop Venezuela and
Turkey from dealing in Venezuelan gold, and, to add to their net, accuse them of sending the
gold to Iran in violation of their illegal "sanctions."
The hypocrisy hits you in the face especially when some of the same nations in the Lima Gang
recognised as far bas as 1826 at the Congress of Panama the absolute prohibition of
intervention by states in each other's internal affairs. In attendance, were the states of
Columbia, Central America, Mexico, and Peru. Led by Simon Bolivar, the Congress declared its
determination to maintain "the sovereignty and independence of all and each of the confederated
powers of America against foreign subjection."
At the Seventh International Conference of American States held in Montevideo in 1933, The
Convention on Rights and Duties of States, issued at the conclusion of the conference, to which
the U.S. was a signatory, declared that "no state has the right to intervene in the internal or
external affairs of another." The legal position of the doctrine of nonintervention was
solidified three years later at Buenos Aires with the adoption of the Additional Protocol
Relative to Non-Intervention. This document declared "inadmissible the intervention of any of
the parties to the treaty, directly or indirectly, and for whatever reason, in the internal or
external affairs of any other of the Parties." The U.S. government agreed to this treaty
without reservation as well.
The United Nations has become the primary source of the rules of International behavior
since World War II. The principle of nonintervention between states is everywhere implicit in
the Charter of the United Nations. Article 1 of the U.N. Charter sets out the four purposes of
the organization, one of which is "to maintain international peace and security," a task which
includes the suppression of "threats to the peace," "acts of aggression" and "other breaches of
the peace." Another is "to develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the
principle of equal rights and self-determination of people." Article 2(1) goes on to base the
organization on "the principle of the sovereign equality of all its members."Articles 2(3) and
2(4) require Member States to utilize peaceful means in the settlement of disputes and to
refrain from the use of force.
Article 2(4) states:
"All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of
force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State, or in any
manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations."
Thus, Article 2(4) prohibits the use of the economic and political pressures and the
indirect subversion which is an integral part of covert action.
That covert action is forbidden under the law of the U.N. is supported
by the numerous resolutions passed by the General Assembly which assert the right to
national sovereignty and the principle of nonintervention in general, while specifically
condemning particular tactics used in covert action.
At the risk of tiring the reader, I think it is worthwhile to reiterate what the General
Assembly of the United Nations has stated over and again beginning with Resolution 290 (iv) in
1949. Referred to as the "Essentials of Peace"
Resolution, this enactment called upon every nation to "refrain from any threats or
acts, direct or indirect, aimed at impairing the freedom, independence or integrity of any
State, or at fomenting civil strife and subverting the will of the people in any
state."'
Resolution 1236(XII)passed in 1957, declared that "peaceful and tolerant relations among
States" should be based upon "respect for each other's sovereignty,equality and territorial
integrity and nonintervention in one another's internal affairs.'
The first General Assembly resolution specifically prohibiting covert action was Resolution
213 1(XX). Entitled the "Declaration on the Inadmissibility of Intervention in the Domestic
Affairs of States and the Protection of Their Independence and Sovereignty," this resolution
was based on proposals made by the Soviet Union, nineteen Latin American States, and the United
Arab Republic, whose draft resolution
was co-sponsored by 26 other non-aligned countries. The declaration restated the aims and
purposes of the U.N. and noted the importance of recognizing State sovereignty and freedom to
self-determination in the current political atmosphere. The eighth preambular paragraph of
Resolution stated that, "direct intervention, subversion and all forms of indirect intervention
are contrary" to the principles of the U.N. and, "consequently,
constitute a violation of the Charter of the United Nations."' The operative portion of the
declaration consists of eight paragraphs, the first of which makes clear there can be no
"intervention as of right":
"1. No State has the right to intervene, directly or indirectly, for any reason
whatever, in the internal or external affairs of any other State. Consequently, armed
intervention and all other forms of interference or attempted threats against the personality
of the State or against its political, economic and cultural elements, are condemned.'
In another paragraph the Resolution precisely defined the scope of its prohibition against
intervention, demonstrating the illicit status of covert activities:
"2. No State may use or encourage the use of economic, political or any other type of
measures to coerce another state in order to obtain from it the subordination of the exercise
of its sovereign rights or to secure from it advantages of any kind. Also, no state shall
organize, assist, foment, finance, incite or tolerate subversive, terrorist or armed activities
directed toward the violent overthrow of the regime of another State, or interfere in civil
strife in another State."
Resolution 2225(XXI) reaffirmed the principles and rules ex-pressed in Resolution 2131 (XX),
and urged "the immediate cessation of intervention,in any form whatever, in the domestic or
external affairs of States," and condemned "all forms of intervention . . . as a basic source
of danger to the cause of world peace."
Finally, the Resolution called upon all states to, "refrain from armed intervention or
the promotion or organization of subversion, terrorism or other indirect forms of intervention
for the purpose of changing by violence the existing system in another State or interfering in
civil strife in another State."
By Resolution 2625 (XXV), the General Assembly adopted the "Declaration on Principles of
International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation among States in Accordance
with the Charter of the United Nations." The Declaration had its origins with the first meeting
of the Special Committee on the Principles of International Law held in 1964 in Mexico City.
This document asserted seven basic principles of international law, then elaborated how these
principles were to be realized. The seven principles embodied in the Declaration were: a) the
principle prohibiting the threat or use of force in international relations;b) the principle
requiring the peaceful settlement of disputes; c)the duty of nonintervention; d) the duty of
states to cooperate with each other; e) the principle of equal rights and self-determination of
all people;f) the principle of sovereign equality of states; and g) the good faith duty of
states to fulfill their obligations under the Charter.
In its discussion of the first principle – that states refrain from the threat or use
of force – the Declaration emphasizes the duty of each state "to refrain from organizing
or encouraging the organization of irregular forces or armed bands, including mercenaries, for
incursion into the territory of another state." In addition, the Declaration insists that every
state has a duty "to refrain from organizing, instigating, assisting or participating in
acts of civil strife or terrorist acts in another State or to allow such acts to be operated
from its territory."
I can go on listing other UN resolutions stating the same. Again and again the General
Assembly hammered home the importance of the principle of nonintervention as a central maxim of
international law.
Resolution 34/103 addressed the inadmissibility of the policy of "hegemonism" in
international relations and defined that term as the "manifestation of the policy of a State,
or a group of States, to control, dominate and subjugate, politically, economically,
ideologically or militarily, other States, peoples or regions of the world."' The
resolution,inter alia, called upon states to observe the principles of the Charter and the
principle of nonintervention. By this resolution it was declared that the General Assembly,
"Resolutely condemns policies of pressure and use or threat of use of force, direct or indirect
aggression,occupation and the growing practice of interference and intervention,overt or
covert, in the internal affairs of states."'
In 1981, the "Declaration on the Inadmissibility of Intervention and Interference in the
Internal Affairs of States" was adopted by the General Assembly through Resolution 36/103. One
of the duties imposed upon states by the Declaration was: "The duty of a State to refrain from
armed intervention, subversion, military occupation or any other form of intervention and
interference,overt or covert, directed at another State or group of States, or any act of
military, political or economic interference in the internal affairs of another State,
including acts of reprisal involving the use of force.' In addition, the Declaration called
upon states to refrain from any action which seeks to disrupt the unity or to undermine or
subvert the political order of other States, training and equipping mercenaries or armed bands,
hostile propaganda, and the use of "external economic assistance" programs or "transnational
and multinational corporations under its jurisdiction and control as instruments of political
pressure and control."'
So, there you have it; the law. The world can see that the Lima Gang, who like to use the
phrase "the rule of law" in their diktats to others, are committing egregious crimes under
international law and together these crimes are components of the supreme war crime of
aggression. The Lima Group therefore is a group of international criminal conspirators and the
every individual involved is a war criminal. So when the Lima conspirators issue their press
statement after the Ottawa meeting, planning aggression against Venezuela, calling for the
overthrow, for the head of President Maduro and dressing it up in the usual language of the
aggressor, of "human rights" and "democracy" and their fake and illegal doctrine of
"responsibility to protect" it will not be issued by nations interested in peace or who have
respect for international law but by a gang of criminals, of international outlaws.
"... Interview conducted by The Saker with Michael Hudson, a research professor of Economics at University of Missouri, Kansas City, and a research associate at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College. His latest book is ..."
"... . Cross-posted from Hudson's site . ..."
"... Maduro's defensive move is showing other countries the need to protect themselves from becoming "another Venezuela" by finding a new safe haven and paying agent for their gold, foreign exchange reserves and foreign debt financing, away from the dollar, sterling and euro areas. ..."
"... The Trump administration is destroying illusion more thoroughly than any anti-imperialist critic or economic rival could do! ..."
Interview conducted by The Saker with Michael Hudson, a
research professor of Economics at University of Missouri, Kansas City, and a research
associate at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College. His latest book is J is for
Junk Economics . Cross-posted
from Hudson's site .
1. Could you summarize the state of Venezuela's economy when Chavez came to power?
Venezuela was an oil monoculture. Its export revenue was spent largely on importing food and
other necessities that it could have produced at home. Its trade was largely with the United
States. So despite its oil wealth, it ran up foreign debt.
From the outset, U.S. oil companies have feared that Venezuela might someday use its oil
revenues to benefit its overall population instead of letting the U.S. oil industry and its
local comprador aristocracy siphon off its wealth. So the oil industry – backed by U.S.
diplomacy – held Venezuela hostage in two ways.
First of all, oil refineries were not built in Venezuela, but in Trinidad and in the southern
U.S. Gulf Coast states. This enabled U.S. oil companies – or the U.S. Government –
to leave Venezuela without a means of "going it alone" and pursuing an independent policy with
its oil, as it needed to have this oil refined. It doesn't help to have oil reserves if you are
unable to get this oil refined so as to be usable.
Second, Venezuela's central bankers were persuaded to pledge their oil reserves and all
assets of the state oil sector (including Citgo) as collateral for its foreign debt. This meant
that if Venezuela defaulted (or was forced into default by U.S. banks refusing to make timely
payment on its foreign debt), bondholders and U.S. oil majors would be in a legal position to
take possession of Venezuelan oil assets.
These pro-U.S. policies made Venezuela a typically polarized Latin American oligarchy.
Despite being nominally rich in oil revenue, its wealth was concentrated in the hands of a
pro-U.S. oligarchy that let its domestic development be steered by the World Bank and IMF. The
indigenous population, especially its rural racial minority as well as the urban underclass,
was excluded from sharing in the country's oil wealth. The oligarchy's arrogant refusal to
share the wealth, or even to make Venezuela self-sufficient in essentials, made the election of
Hugo Chavez a natural outcome.
2. Could you outline the various reforms and changes introduced by Hugo Chavez? What did he
do right, and what did he do wrong?
Chavez sought to restore a mixed economy to Venezuela, using its government revenue –
mainly from oil, of course – to develop infrastructure and domestic spending on health
care, education, employment to raise living standards and productivity for his electoral
constituency.
What he was unable to do was to clean up the embezzlement and built-in rake-off of income
from the oil sector. And he was unable to stem the capital flight of the oligarchy, taking its
wealth and moving it abroad – while running away themselves.
This was not "wrong". It merely takes a long time to change an economy's disruption –
while the U.S. is using sanctions and "dirty tricks" to stop that process.
3. What are, in your opinion, the causes of the current economic crisis in Venezuela –
is it primarily due to mistakes by Chavez and Maduro or is the main cause US sabotage,
subversion and sanctions?
There is no way that's Chavez and Maduro could have pursued a pro-Venezuelan policy aimed at
achieving economic independence without inciting fury, subversion and sanctions from the United
States. American foreign policy remains as focused on oil as it was when it invaded Iraq under
Dick Cheney's regime. U.S. policy is to treat Venezuela as an extension of the U.S. economy,
running a trade surplus in oil to spend in the United States or transfer its savings to U.S.
banks.
By imposing sanctions that prevent Venezuela from gaining access to its U.S. bank deposits
and the assets of its state-owned Citco, the United States is making it impossible for
Venezuela to pay its foreign debt. This is forcing it into default, which U.S. diplomats hope
to use as an excuse to foreclose on Venezuela's oil resources and seize its foreign assets much
as Paul Singer's hedge fund sought to do with Argentina's foreign assets.
Just as U.S. policy under Kissinger was to make Chile's "economy scream," so the U.S. is
following the same path against Venezuela. It is using that country as a "demonstration effect"
to warn other countries not to act in their self-interest in any way that prevents their
economic surplus from being siphoned off by U.S. investors.
4. What in your opinion should Maduro do next (assuming he stays in power and the USA does
not overthrow him) to rescue the Venezuelan economy?
I cannot think of anything that President Maduro can do that he is not doing. At best, he
can seek foreign support – and demonstrate to the world the need for an alternative
international financial and economic system.
He already has begun to do this by trying to withdraw Venezuela's gold from the Bank of
England and Federal Reserve. This is turning into "asymmetrical warfare," threatening what to
de-sanctify the dollar standard in international finance. The refusal of England and the United
States to grant an elected government control of its foreign assets demonstrates to the entire
world that U.S. diplomats and courts alone can and will control foreign countries as an
extension of U.S. nationalism.
The price of the U.S. economic attack on Venezuela is thus to fracture the global monetary
system. Maduro's defensive move is showing other countries the need to protect themselves
from becoming "another Venezuela" by finding a new safe haven and paying agent for their gold,
foreign exchange reserves and foreign debt financing, away from the dollar, sterling and euro
areas.
The only way that Maduro can fight successfully is on the institutional level, upping the
ante to move "outside the box." His plan – and of course it is a longer-term plan –
is to help catalyze a new international economic order independent of the U.S. dollar standard.
It will work in the short run only if the United States believes that it can emerge from this
fight as an honest financial broker, honest banking system and supporter of democratically
elected regimes. The Trump administration is destroying illusion more thoroughly than any
anti-imperialist critic or economic rival could do!
Over the longer run, Maduro also must develop Venezuelan agriculture, along much the same
lines that the United States protected and developed its agriculture under the New Deal
legislation of the 1930s – rural extension services, rural credit, seed advice, state
marketing organizations for crop purchase and supply of mechanization, and the same kind of
price supports that the United States has long used to subsidize domestic farm investment to
increase productivity.
Along with the USA there is a group La countries (and Canada) with the specific goal of "regime change" in Venezuela. Much
like multinational forces in Iraq. From Wikipedia: ... established following the Lima Declaration on 8 August 2017 in the Peruvian
capital of Lima, where representatives of 12 countries met in order to establish a peaceful exit to the crisis in Venezuela.[1]
Among other issues, the now 14-country group demands the release of political prisoners, calls for free elections, offers
humanitarian aid and criticizes the breakdown of democratic order in Venezuela under the Bolivarian Government of Venezuela.
Notable quotes:
"... Not everyone agreed that Guaido and his Popular Will party should be the one to be pushed forward as "Interim President" but the moment it happened, this forced the opposition to immediately unify behind him, based on the no turning back momentum created : ..."
"... The results of that fateful decision are still being played out in the streets, and on the international stage as countries line up for and against Maduro (China, Russia and Turkey among Maduro supporters, with the US and European countries backing Guaido as legitimate leader). ..."
"... However, the WSJ report closes with crucial bombshell information regarding what it took for the opposition to cross that line, and for Guaido to step out in confidence. What was the key factor in the final push? First, Canada and US allies in Latin America initiated something dramatic... ..."
"... But most importantly, Washington came calling at a key moment the opposition was fractured and still indecisive and divided , in what is a central revelation concerning the anti-Maduro movement's calculations : ..."
"... And there it is -- a stunning mainstream media admission that the political drama and crisis now unfolding in Venezuela, now quickly turning into a global geopolitical pressure spot and conflagration -- was pushed forward and given assistance directly from the White House from the very beginning . ..."
A new WSJ report asks what the Hell is going on? in Venezuela and provides new information
behind
How a Small Group Seized Control of Venezuela's Opposition to make the extremely risky move
of pushing forward 35-year old opposition leader and National Assembly head Juan Guaido to
declare himself "Interim President" -- precipitating the crisis that's seen the noose tighten
around President Nicolas Maduro's rule as over a dozen countries led by the US have declared
him "illegitimate".
For starters, the report paints current events as having started with a "big gamble" that
was largely unplanned and unexpected within even the political opposition itself, and which
further had the hidden hand of the White House and State Department behind it from the very
beginning, pushing the opposition forward at the most critical juncture . Outlining the past
difficulties of Venezuela's "notoriously fractious opposition" and the deep divide over the
question of whether to enter direct negotiations or take more aggressive action to undermine
Maduro,
the WSJ describes :
When Juan Guaidó declared himself Venezuela's interim president on Jan. 23 in front
of a crowd of 100,000 people under a broiling sun, some leading opposition figures had no
idea he would do so, say people who work with Mr. Guaidó and other top leaders . That
included a few standing alongside him. A stern look of shock crossed their faces. Some
quietly left the stage.
"What the hell is going on?" one member of a group of politicians wrote to the others in a
WhatsApp group chat. "How come we didn't know about this."
The plan was so risky -- especially to Guaido personally as he had been arrested and
briefly detained after his vehicle was rushed by secret police only less than two weeks
prior -- that the final decision of public confrontation with the Maduro regime was left
entirely up to him in the hours leading up to the Jan.23 rally.
Not everyone agreed that Guaido and his Popular Will party should be the one to be pushed
forward as "Interim President" but the moment it happened, this forced the opposition to
immediately unify behind him, based on the no turning back
momentum created :
Mr. Guaidó himself only agreed to act the day before he declared himself interim
president, his aides said. Some politicians -- including those in the traditional Democratic
Action Party, the largest opposition party -- weren't told of the plan .
"We didn't want them to mess it up," said one opposition leader who knew of the
strategy.
The results of that fateful decision are still being played out in the streets, and on the
international stage as countries line up for and against Maduro (China, Russia and Turkey among
Maduro supporters, with the US and European countries backing Guaido as legitimate leader).
The high stakes maneuver "was largely devised by a group of four opposition leaders -- two
in exile, one under house arrest and one barred from leaving the country" and was predictably
immediately denounced by Maduro "as part of a U.S.-backed coup to overthrow his government."
But as the WSJ concludes, "The act of political skulduggery paid off. The crowd reacted
ecstatically to Mr. Guaidó, and one nation after another recognized him within hours."
Among the "plotters" included Guaido's political mentor Leopoldo López, now under house
arrest in Caracas, and Edgar Zambrano, vice president of the National Assembly of power allied
opposition party Democratic Action.
Zambrano related to the WSJ that the risk was so high that
in the end the "final decision" to pull the trigger laid with Guaido:
Mr. Zambrano, one of the opposition leaders who appeared surprised on stage on Jan. 23,
said the possibility of Mr. Guaidó assuming the presidency had been discussed in the
weeks before, but that the final decision was in the hands of the young leader because of the
risks it entailed .
However, the WSJ report closes with crucial bombshell information regarding what it took for
the opposition to cross that line, and for Guaido to step out in confidence. What was the key factor in the final push? First, Canada and US allies in Latin America
initiated something dramatic...
A breakthrough came on Jan. 4, when the Lima Group of 14 Latin American countries and
Canada issued a letter calling on Mr. Maduro to hand over power to the National Assembly. The
near-bellicose nature of the letter surprised opposition leaders, reinforcing the idea they
should take action .
But most importantly, Washington came calling at a key moment the opposition was fractured
and still indecisive and divided , in what is a central revelation concerning
the anti-Maduro movement's calculations :
When Mr. Guaidó should try to assume the interim presidency was up for debate. Some
argued that it should happen before Mr. Maduro took the oath. Others proposed creating a
commission to challenge Mr. Maduro's claim to office.
As late as Jan. 22, the day before it happened, Mr. Guaidó wasn't fully convinced .
He came around after Vice President Mike Pence called to assure that, if he were to invoke
the Venezuelan constitution in being sworn in as the country's rightful leader, the U.S.
would back the opposition.
And there it is -- a stunning mainstream media admission that the political drama and crisis
now unfolding in Venezuela, now quickly turning into a global geopolitical pressure spot and
conflagration -- was pushed forward and given assistance directly from the White House from the
very beginning .
Guaido: "Gee I can't wait for all that Western oil money to fill up meh pockets.
EhhhrrMMMmm I can't wait to sell out the Venezuelan people to the FED, BoE and ECB. D'oh-
where'd my CIA handler go?"
Also, lol at the Journal for this gem " The act of political skulduggery paid off. The
crowd reacted ecstatically to Mr. Guaidó, and one nation after another recognized him
within hours. " Translation: "Wow- we're SO surprised that the Western vassal states all
followed their master's lead by kowtowing in quick succession! Gee whiz- mind BLOWN!"
The WSJ has provided the "House" plausible deniability, will the "House" take it, or will
the minions sabotage? Stay tuned folks, as we discover who's honorable, who's courageous, and
who's pragmatic...
Further proof this guy is a treasonous little bitch that needs to be arrested and
prosecuted by the Supreme Tribunal Court of Venezuela. He's a traitor to ALL Venezuelans by
colluding with foreign powers to overthrow his elected president.
Lets be honest, sending in the US military was the first choice and all the rest of this
has been setting the stage. It's been 2 years, time for Trump to start a war, by the
prevailing MIC schedule.
Oh please. Maduro the elected president? He won his election after blocking the opposition
parties to take part. Please read the Venezuelan Constitution before commenting. Not any
election is valid or democratic. Maduro should be in jail. Guaido is asking for new and fair
elections. ... OOOOH how undemocratic!!! I am against foreign intervention, but in this case
the 3 million Venezuelan real refugees (10% of the Venezuelan population and not organised
political caravans trying to reach the USA) in neighbour countries tips my view. Therefore I
support the constitutional president Guaido and any help the international community can give
him.
Idiot . The opposition boycotted the election as they couldn't win. International
observers (usa wouldn't come) say it was fairer than usa elections lol. Sure maduro isn't a
saint. He also gave out prizes to collect after voting . But that's not bribing people could
vote for anyone and still collect a few foods in a bag
That a boy Trumpy! You got the right FukWits on the job. Bibi and Sheldon are jumping for
joy with the addition of Abrams. Now you got your Zio dream team. BoltON, PompAss, and
Abram's. Just think what a murderous war mongering team for IsraHell you could have if ya
rolled **** Chenney in the mix. Now there's someone who won't **** around getting a Zio war
going.
Cheney , the virtue less, honor less, 2 time OUI conviction,electricians apprentice , went
as far as helping to murder 3,000 Americans . All so he could impress his societal status
ambitious wife . A Rumsfeld ass kissing loser . Spineless goy are 50% of the problem .
Guaido is obviously an agent of the CIA. This fact does not absolve Maduro of his crimes.
But it does show that the US is balls deep in the Venezuela problem.
@50 bobzibub... your link doesn't bring me to the article, but i suspect it is more then just
crystallix - the canuck gold mining company - that are pushing for a change in power in
venezuala.. as i understand it, there are a number of canuck mining and oil related interests
where they would like to exploit venezuala and can't seem to get around the democractically
elected gov't of maduros..
looks like
this might be related, or the article you were trying to post? an american judge says
crystallex can have citgo, lol....
" Second, Venezuela's central bankers were persuaded to pledge their oil reserves and all
assets of the state oil sector (including Citgo) as collateral for its foreign debt. This
meant that if Venezuela defaulted (or was forced into default by U.S. banks refusing to make
timely payment on its foreign debt), bondholders and U.S. oil majors would be in a legal
position to take possession of Venezuelan oil assets."
Solid proof that it was the empire who invented the practice of "debt trap" and is still
flourishing with it.
hunor, February 7, 2019 at 6:24 am GMT
Thank you ! Made it very clear. Perfect reflection of the " Values of Western Civilization ".
Reaching to grab the whole universe, with no holds barred . And never show of any interest for the " truth". They are not
even pretending anymore , awakening will be very painful for some.
Reuben Kaspate, February 7, 2019 at 2:38 pm GMT • 100 Words
Why would the U. S. based White-Protestant aristocracy care a hoot about the Brown-Catholic elites in the far off land?
They don't! The comprador aristocracy in question isn't what it seems It's the same group that plagues the Americans.
The rootless louts, whose only raison d'ę·tre is to milk everything in sight and then retire to coastal cities, i.e. San
Francisco, if you are a homosexual or New York City and State, if you are somewhat religious.
Poor Venezuelans don't stand a chance against the shysters!
"... Qatar's ambassador in Mauritania allegedly offered his Syrian counterpart an advance payment of US$1 million and a monthly salary of $20,000 over 20 years, trying to convince the diplomat to defect and voice support for the opposition. ..."
"... All they need is a couple of snipers to kill protesters and the Mighty Wurlitzer of propaganda will supply the war, to paraphrase William Randolph Hearst. ..."
"... Elliot Abrams seems to be having trouble getting this coup off the ground. He must wonder what happened to the good old days of death squads and contras.... ..."
A day after the U.S. coup attempt in Venezuela the
U.S. game plan was already quite obvious:
The opposition in Venezuela will probably use access to that 'frozen' money to buy weapons
and to create an army of mercenaries to fight a 'civil' war against the government and its
followers. Like in Syria U.S. special forces or some CIA 'contractors' will be eager to
help. The supply line for such a war would most likely run through Colombia. If, like 2011
in Syria, a war on the ground is planned it will likely begin in the cities near that
border.
The U.S. is using the pretext of 'delivering humanitarian aid' from Columbia to Venezuela
to undermine the government and to establish a supply line for further operations. It is
another attempt to pull
the military onto the coup plotter's side:
[I]f the trucks do get across, the opposition can present itself as an answer to
Venezuela's chronic suffering, while Mr. Maduro will appear to have lost control of the
country's borders. That could accelerate defections from the ruling party and the military.
Dimitris Pantoulas, a political scientist in Caracas, called the opposition's aid
delivery plan a high-stakes gamble.
...
"This is 99 percent about the military and one percent about the humanitarian aspects," he
said. "The opposition is testing the military's loyalty, raising their cost of supporting
Maduro. Are they with Maduro, or no? Will they reject the aid? If the answer is no, then
Maduro's hours are numbered."
A New York Times op-ed by a right-wing former foreign minister of Mexico, Jorge
G. Castañeda, details the
escalation potential :
According to Mr. Guaidó and other sources, $20 million in American medicines and
food will be unloaded this week just outside Venezuelan territory in Cúcuta,
Colombia; Brazil, and on a Caribbean island -- either Aruba or Curaçao -- near the
Venezuelan coast.
Venezuelan military officials and troops in exile will then move these supplies into
Venezuela, where if all goes well, army troops still loyal to Mr. Maduro will not stop
their passage nor fire upon them. If they do, the Brazilian and Colombian governments may
be willing to back the anti-Maduro soldiers.
The threat of a firefight with their neighbors
might just be the incentive the Venezuelan military need to jettison Mr. Maduro, making the
reality of combat unnecessary.
This escalation strategy is unlikely to work unless some additional provocation is
involved. The Venezuelan government blocked the border bridge between Cúcuta in
Colombia and San Cristobal in Venezuela. Its military stands ready to stop any violation of
the country's border.
The U.S. responded to the blocking of the road with a sanctimonious tweet:
The Venezuelan people desperately need humanitarian aid. The U.S. & other countries
are trying to help, but #Venezuela's military under Maduro's orders is blocking aid with
trucks and shipping tankers. The Maduro regime must LET THE AID REACH THE STARVING PEOPLE.
#EstamosUnidosVE
The U.S. government, which actively helps to starve the people of Yemen into submission,
is concerned about Venezuela where so far no one has died of starvation? The lady ain't gonna
believe that.
The Venezuelan military has shown no sign of interest to change its loyalty. The fake aid
will be rejected.
The government of Venezuela does not reject aid that comes without political interference.
Last year it accepted modest UN
aid which consisted mostly of medical supplies from which Venezuela had been cut off due
to U.S. sanctions. The UN claimed that around 12 percent of Venezuelans are undernourished.
But such claims have been made for years while reports from Venezuela (vid) confirmed only some
scarcity of specific products. There is no famine in Venezuela that would require immediate
intervention.
The International Red Cross, the Catholic church's aid organization Caritas and
the United Nations rejected U.S. requests to help deliver the currently planned 'aid'
because it is so obviously politicized:
"Humanitarian action needs to be independent of political, military or other objectives,"
UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters in New York on Wednesday.
...
"What is important is that humanitarian aid be depoliticised and that the needs of the
people should lead in terms of when and how humanitarian aid is used," Dujarric added.
Rejecting aid out of political reasons is not unusual. When the hurricane Katrina in 2005
caused huge damage along the U.S. gulf coast, a number of countries offered humanitarian and
technical aid. U.S. President Bush accepted help from some countries, but rejected aid from
other ones
:
An offer of aid from the Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez, which included two
mobile hospital units, 120 rescue and first aid experts and 50 tonnes of food, has been
rejected, according to the civil rights leader, Jesse Jackson.
Mr Jackson said the offer from the Venezuelan leader, whom he recently met, included 10
water purification plants, 18 power generation plants and 20 tonnes of bottled water.
The U.S. intent to establish a 'humanitarian aid' supply line into Venezuela has a
secondary purpose. Such aid is the ideal cover for weapon supplies. In the 1980s designated
'humanitarian aid' flights for Nicaragua were filled with weapons . The
orders for those flights were given by Elliot Abrams who is now Trump's special envoy for
Venezuela.
While the trucks from Colombia are blocked at the border other 'humanitarian aid' from the
United States
reached the country .
Officials in Venezuela have accused the US of sending a cache of high-powered rifles and
ammunition on a commercial cargo flight from Miami so they would get into the hands of
President Nicolás Maduro's opponents.
Members with the Venezuelan National Guard [GNB] and the National Integrated Service of
Customs and Tax Administration [SENIAT] made the shocking discovery just two days after the
plane arrived at Arturo Michelena International Airport in Valencia.
Inspectors found 19 rifles, 118 magazines and 90 wireless radios while investigating the
flight which they said arrived Sunday afternoon. Monday's bust also netted four rifle
stands, three rifle scopes and six iPhones.
The pictures show
sufficient equipment for an infantry squad. Fifteen AR-15 assault rifles (5.56), one
squad automatic weapon (7.62) with a drum magazine, and a Colt 7.62 sniper gun as well as
accessory equipment. What is missing is the ammunition.
Where one such weapon transport is caught multiple are likely to go through. But to run a
war against the government pure weapon supplies are not enough. The U.S. will have to
establish a continuous supply line for heavy and bulky ammunition. That is where
'humanitarian aid' convoys come in.
Unless a large part of the Venezuelan military changes sides, any attempt to overthrow the
Venezuelan government by force is likely doomed to fail. The U.S. could use its full military
might to destroy the Venezuelan army. But the U.S. Senate is already quarreling about the potential use of U.S.
forces in Venezuela. The Democrats strongly reject that.
A Senate resolution to back Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido, once expected to get
unanimous support, has been torpedoed by a disagreement over the use of military force,
according to aides and senators working on the issue.
...
"I think it's important for the Senate to express itself on democracy in Venezuela,
supporting interim President Guaido and supporting humanitarian assistance. But I also
think it should be very clear in fact that support stops short of any type of military
intervention," [Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J.] told NBC News.
It is unlikely that Trump would order a military intervention without bipartisan
support.
The a clandestine insertion of a mercenary 'guerrilla' force into Venezuela is surely
possible. Minor supply lines can be established by secret means. But, as the war on Syria
demonstrates, such plans can not be successful unless the people welcome the anti-government
force.
Under the current government most people in Venezuela are still better off than under the
pre-Chavez governments. This lecture and this thread explain the
economic history of Venezuela and the enormous progress that was made under Chavez and
Maduro. The people will not forget that even when the economic
situation will become more difficult. They know who is
pulling the strings behind the Random Guy Guaido who now claims the presidency. They know
well that these rich people are unlikely to better their plight.
U.S. politicians are making the same mistakes with regards to Venezuela as they made with
the regime change wars on Iraq and Syria. They believes that all people are as corrupt and
nihilistic as they are. They believe that others will not fight for their own believes and
their own style of life. They will again be proven wrong.
Never Mind the
Bollocks , Feb 7, 2019 2:20:56 PM |
link
US now has enough bootlickers signed up to the project that there will be no move against
the US at the UNGA. 'Protecting' its diplomats will be a big enough fig leaf for the Trump
admin.
thanks b, for this and all the links to read... i liked your line here "The U.S. government,
which actively helps to starve the people of Yemen into submission, is concerned about
Venezuela where so far no one has died of starvation?" indeed and as you note in the last
paragraph - "U.S. politicians are making the same mistakes with regards to Venezuela as they
made with the regime change wars on Iraq and Syria. They believes that all people are as
corrupt and nihilistic as they are. They believe that others will not fight for their own
believes and their own style of life. They will again be proven wrong."
all these people preaching this kind of crap, must be getting good returns from who is
paying them... the other person in the usa, europe and etc - don't believe this b.s.
anymore..
Bulletin Bulletin Bulletin. This just posted on RT. According to geography challenged (!!!!!)
Pompous Pompeo = Hezbollah is now in Zenezuela. Yes. You read that right. And further more
it's an Iranian Hezbollah. Look out.
Here's the money quote: "People don't recognize that Hezbollah has active cells -- the
Iranians are impacting the people of Venezuela and throughout South America," adding that "We
have an obligation to take down that risk for America."
He also is now referring to Guido-chump as "the duly elected president of Zenezuela."
Transmutation Does exist. Amazing.
"throughout South America" Wow. A population explosion!
Is this guy Pompous Pompeo very very very confused?
Thanks for the ongoing reporting of this spinning plate of late empire.
It is encouraging to read that others are standing up to empire in their own little ways
that all add up.
From reading comments here and on other sites I am also happy to be reading less BS about
Trump being some sort of hidden savior as compared to Clinton II. He is a front for the elite
just like Clinton II is/would have been.
"Indeed ,the more America began to lose its hold on its noncommunist allies, the closer
America
and the Soviet Union drew together, precisely to threaten Europe and Asia with what
Henry Kissinger called a new condominium, that is, joint imperialism of America and
Russia against their respective satellites."
This is what Kissinger and Trump are now trying to do.
Trumps friendliness toward Russia has nothing to do with peace and goodness and
everything to do with US domination of Asia and Europe.
@mauisurfer #9: The reason your link breaks the page is that it does not have enough hyphens
in it. So it stretches the page until there's a hyphen (between "michael" and "hudson"),
whereupon the link finally wraps to the next line. This is not the first time you are ruining
the page. In fact, we've talked about this quite recently. I will repeat what I wrote then:
press "Preview" button before posting, check that everything looks right, only then press
"Post". Please respect other posters.
Bloody Canada: Cheerleading the Lima Group's Plot to Overthrow the Government of
Venezuela
by Maria Paez Victor
(María Páez Victor, Ph.D. is a Venezuelan born sociologist living in Canada).
Guaidó, a son of Spanish immigrants, is a useful idiot, a thug who will be thrown
into the trashcan of history for his treason. He does not command any type of institution,
not one policeman, not one ministry, no official agency of any sort. He is a president in
his own mind and that of the USA Embassy where he is holed out.
Are there any bounds to indecency and intellectual bankruptcy of these people? Is there a
line, however desperate, they will not cross in order to achieve their goal? the answer is
NO. This is a lost country morally, socially and economically. US is a country that needs a
direct military intervention.......by all.
At Hudson's website, he gave the interview with Saker this
title : "Venezuela as the pivot for New Internationalism?" Spread out in answer to
Saker's questions are Hudson's suggestions for the institutions and mechanisms for such a new
internationalism:
"The only way that Maduro can fight successfully is on the institutional level, upping the
ante to move "outside the box." His plan – and of course it is a longer-term plan
– is to help catalyze a new international economic order independent of the U.S.
dollar standard. It will work in the short run only if the United States believes that it
can emerge from this fight as an honest financial broker, honest banking system and supporter
of democratically elected regimes. The Trump administration is destroying illusion more
thoroughly than any anti-imperialist critic or economic rival could do!...
"Looking ahead, therefore, China, Russia, Iran and other countries need to set up a new
international court to adjudicate the coming diplomatic crisis and its financial and military
consequences. Such a court – and its associated international bank as an
alternative to the U.S.-controlled IMF and World Bank – needs a clear ideology to
frame a set of principles of nationhood and international rights with power to implement and
enforce its judgments.
"This hostage-taking [of gold and other assets] now makes it urgent for other countries
to develop a viable alternative , especially as the world de-dedollarizes and a
gold-exchange standard remains the only way of constraining the military-induced balance of
payments deficit of the United States or any other country mounting a military
attack."...
"Given the fact that the EU is acting as a branch of NATO and the U.S. banking system,
that alternative would have to be associated with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization,
and the gold would have to be kept in Russia and/or China ."...
"The best thing neighboring Latin American countries can do is to join in creating a
vehicle to promote de-dollarization and, with it, an international institution to oversee the
writedown of debts that are beyond the ability of countries to pay without imposing austerity
and thereby destroying their economies .
" An alternative also is needed to the World Bank that would make loans in domestic
currency, above all to subsidize investment in domestic food production so as to protect
the economy against foreign food-sanctions – the equivalent of a military siege to
force surrender by imposing famine conditions. This World Bank for Economic Acceleration
would put the development of self-reliance for its members first , instead of promoting
export competition while loading borrowers down with foreign debt that would make them prone
to the kind of financial blackmail that Venezuela is experiencing."...
" Two international principles are needed. First, no country should be obliged to pay
foreign debt in a currency (such as the dollar or its satellites) whose banking system acts
to prevent payment .
" Second, no country should be obliged to pay foreign debt at the price of losing its
domestic autonomy as a state: the right to determine its own foreign policy, to tax and to
create its own money, and to be free of having to privatize its public assets to pay foreign
creditors . Any such debt is a "bad loan" reflecting the creditor's own irresponsibility
or, even worse, pernicious asset grab in a foreclosure that was the whole point of the loan."
[Emphasis mine to highlight Hudson's suggestions.]
It ought to be clear that Hudson's proposing a new international financial and
political/judicial system to ultimately replace the UN and Bretton Woods created
institutions. This is certainly the minimum requirement since the Outlaw US Empire has
completely trashed the post WW2 system itself designed. Unfortunately, there's still the
issue of containing and disciplining the Outlaw US Empire and subduing it so it cannot
threaten the newly established institutions.
According to the German newspaper Junge Welt the border bridge between Cúcuta in
Colombia and San Cristobal in Venezuela, which you mentioned, has not been closed, since it
has never been open. The article says, the alleged closure of the bridge is fake news to
support the coup.
https://www.jungewelt.de/artikel/348717.kampf-um-venezuela-no-pasar%C3%A1n.html
Nevertheless, thank you for your thoughts and information and please keep up the good work!
Couldn't agree more - we are such a US flunky. Also, the cbc has become increasingly
pathetic and irrelevant - they're getting a good rogering on other sites such as Babble for
their extraordinarily biased coverage of everything imperial.
In case no one has linked to it, here's a letter sent to the EU re May 20 elections in
Venezuela:
"They know well that these rich people are unlikely to better their plight."
This is certainly correct but a terrible understatement. It should read: 'They know only to
well out of experience, that the Venezuelan Sucker class will take bloody revenge if they
succeed to gain power again.'
hope you are right, b. We will see how resilient the government is when the first public
massacre of demonstrators happen which appears to be imminent as we all have seen this so
many times.
to Zanon. # 7 Yes of course they are allies. However, you must, I hope, admit that the idea
of Hezbollah "cells" all over south america is a wee bit comical. The fact that the two
countries are allies does not necessarily translate to "we must take them down." The way His
Pomposity puts it, those cells are just sprouting up every where. It's a bit ridiculous.
B, don't forget the regime change playbook also involves bribing public officials to come
over to their side. Here's any example of how it was done Syria:
Qatar's ambassador in Mauritania allegedly offered his Syrian counterpart an advance
payment of US$1 million and a monthly salary of $20,000 over 20 years, trying to convince the
diplomat to defect and voice support for the opposition.
All they need is a couple of snipers to kill protesters and the Mighty Wurlitzer of
propaganda will supply the war, to paraphrase William Randolph Hearst. You would think that the propaganda receivers would learn by now, with the same propaganda
used time after time, year after year, war after war.
You would be wrong. I am losing sympathy for the people of the imperial countries, and their
inability to learn from experience.
@40 wagelaborer. Therein lies the challenge. Will Humanity keep listening to Ole Wurly's tune
til the end or will it learn from its mistake and abandon the old schemes? In other words,
will Man (and Woman, or course) become sovereign or will he/she stay a slave? Recent
developments in Ukraine and especially Syria give hope that Homo Sapiens Ethicus is
emerging..
According to military expert Yuri Liamin Venezuela has S-300VM Antey-2500 and Buk-M2E
long range air defenses, and Pechora-2M middle range air defenses. T-72B1V, BMP-3,
BTR-80A,
SAU Msta-S tanks. Noah-SVK, MLRS Grad and Smerch automatic propulsion arms. Su-30MK2
fighters.
Well trained ground troops with Igla-S MANPADS and ZU-23 / 30m1-4.
And thousands of armed and well trained militias, expected to grow
to over a million strong ( as per Fidel Castro instructions, haha)
Elliot Abrams seems to be having trouble getting this coup off the ground. He must wonder
what happened to the good old days of death squads and contras....
>Elliott Abrams, who leads the Trump administration's special envoy to Venezuela, said
on Thursday that several countries have offered to take in Venezuelan dictator Nicolás
Maduro.
"I think it is better for the transition to democracy in Venezuela that he be outside the
country," Abrams said. "And there are a number of countries who are willing to accept
him." "Which ones?" Bloomberg reporter Nick Wadhams asked. "He's got friends in places like Cuba and Russia," Abrams said. "And there are some other
countries actually, that have come to us privately and said they would be willing to take
members of the current illegitimate regime, if it would help the transition." "Can you name any?" Wadhams asked. "No," Abrams responded.<
Nice
graphic to support fact that "Unlike UK and most of EU - and contrary to BBC repetition -
'the international community' has not fallen into line behind Trump on Venezuela."
Victor J @44--
Pepe
Escobar posits there're "arguably 15,000 Cubans who are in charge of security for the
Maduro government; Cubans have demonstrated historically they are not in the business of
handing over power." They're likely well versed in the use of those Russian armaments. It's
also likely that there's a Russian or Chinese satellite in geosync orbit above the region
using its sophisticated sensors to detect infiltration attempts, something Central Americans
lacked during the Contra-Terror.
The embarassment of being associated with Trump must now be getting through even
to the most fanatical fascists such as Freeland. And the Europeans.
From a PR point of view statements such as Abrams' "The time to negotiate
with Maduro is long past." Or the original ultimatum demanding elections within 8 days!
Are completely over the top. And likely to be seen as such. Sanctioning members of the
Constituent Assembly- the elections to which were uncontroversial-also indicates that
what the opposition and the United States want is war, they will continue to turn down
peremptorily all offers to mediate or compromise.
If they don't end things soon they will be completely discredited everywhere outside
the political caste. Even the MSM are going to find it hard to keep up looking the other
way and pretending not to know the most elementary facts.
Yes, the corrupt Trump and his administration will be proven wrong as were Obama's and Bush's
administrations, but unfortunately Venezuelans, and perhaps Iranians soon, will be used as
pawns, and people will suffer, their lives will be destroyed as hell is being unleashed on
their lives. Meanwhile the media, damn them as well, are useful tools for the Administration,
spouting regime-change humanitarian propaganda, just like they did with the Syrian
Observatory's reports and White Helmet footage.
Debunking this avalanche of bull is what you do best as demonstrated with this article.
Let's not forget that alongside the proxy regime change civil war, a propaganda and mass
deception war is waged on the minds of Venezuelans deprived by sanctions and on all of us
sick and tired, weary, of the AZ Empire's successive wars. So pull down on to your
anti-bullshet visor cause it's just starting again, the worst is yet to come, and so far
Russia's hardly around to help with the pushback.
(I see someone unwittingly mucked up this thread misusing tags with an excessively long
link making it impossible to read comments. It's even difficult to comment. 😕)
@ bevin - i agree with @49 psychohistorian.. the msm is a huge part of the problem.. here in
canada, our national outlet - cbc - are a disgrace.. here) is
today's fluff piece on guaido and hit piece on maduro... the cbc have become so predictable
for carrying water for the empire, that many are getting ready turned off by them.. for a
national news outlet paid for by canuck taxpayers, it is truly pathetic.. they need to do hit
pieces on this fascist freeland, but instead want to turn reality upside down..
on a positive note, i am quite sure when the federal election happens in oct of this year,
as memory serves - the liberals will not remain in power and Freeland can get back to writing
George Soros memoirs..
"... There are also three or four books written by Anna Lilia Perez with regard to the sacking of PEMEX by the previous 4 presidents. She names Blackrock, the Carlyle Group and numerous Banks in the conspiracy. 60% of Mexican oil was being loaded on Tankers and sold in the Black Market. Google her name and you can get a list of her books. ..."
"... New York Times Article: Mexico could press bribery charges, it just hasn't https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/11/world/americas/mexico-odebrecht-investigation.html ..."
The US has been working to get to the point of invading Venezuela for a while now. They just
needed to wait for 2 things to fall into place. The election of Duque in Colombia and
Bolsanado in Brazil. Now that they have these two ultraright wing leaders to provide the
brunt of the invasion force, they can begin to execute their plan. There's a youtuber in
Florida that has been on top of this plan for a while now, informing his followers.
Here's a
link to his Florida Maquis site:
10 steps to understand what really happened in Venezuela
... ... ...
I'll attach a couple more links about Chavez talking about the Jews and the Assasination
of Chavez.
Shocking! Netanyahu
... ... ...
The Assasination of Hugo Chavez
... ... ...
Blackstone Intelligence has an interesting video that focuses on articles from The
Economists. I will also attach:
How NeoCons are helping the Bankers take over Venezuela
... ... ...
There are also three or four books written by Anna Lilia Perez with regard to the sacking
of PEMEX by the previous 4 presidents. She names Blackrock, the Carlyle Group and numerous
Banks in the conspiracy. 60% of Mexican oil was being loaded on Tankers and sold in the Black
Market. Google her name and you can get a list of her books. There is so much information in
her books, information she had to fight in court to get copies. She had to move to Germany
because of threats she received.
Today the new president shut down 26 of the 56 shell companies created under another shell
company of PEMEX, PEMEX International. The government is having a hard time investigating
these company's books because they claim to be private companies. They found a refinery in
Texas that they didn't even know existed, that is half owned by Royal Dutch Shell. 200
million dollars a year in business and none of it is shown on PEMEX's books.
Anyone with a brain always knew that Maduro is more legitimate than Trump, May, Sanchez, or
Macron. Now we have the numbers confirming that. Anyone with a brain knew that the Guaido
personage is no more than the puppet of the Empire, a nonentity with zero legitimacy.
But key point is, the US actions against Venezuela are not about legitimacy, they are
about oil and money. A robber takes your valuables not because you are not legitimate enough,
but because he is a robber. That's the whole point, the rest is hot air.
Guaido's party Voluntad Popular (VP), is the most violent and right wing opposition party
in Venezuela. One of its leaders, Maria Corina Machado was interviewed on the public Canadian
Broadcasting Company (CBC) on Feb. 1. She has openly, repeatedly, shamelessly and in front of
numerous TV and radio cameras, urged mobs to violence and she has most recently publicly
threatened the life of President Maduro. She has also been invited to speak with Ottawa
politicians.
Guaidó and his party carried out the terrible street violence of 2014, which they
named "La Salida" (The Exit). It resulted in 114 innocent people being killed. Several young
men were burned alive suspected of being "Chavistas". This was the worst street violence ever
seen on the streets of Venezuela. The leader of the party, Leopoldo López was jailed,
after a long and fair trial with the best lawyers money can buy, sentenced for his
responsibility for unleashing this terror and the ensuing 114 deaths.
Guaidó, a son of Spanish immigrants, is a useful idiot, a thug who will be thrown
into the trashcan of history for his treason. He does not command any type of institution,
not one policeman, not one ministry, no official agency of any sort. He is a president in his
own mind and that of the USA Embassy where he is holed out.
Exxon Mobil wants the oil. The international banks want the gold. Colombia wants to
control or possess the eastern oil rich area next to its border. Brazil wants carte blanche
for its big energy corporation. Guyana wants the Esequivo region on the eastern border handed
to them – that is, to Exxon Mobil, and Paraguay wants the huge debt it owes to
Venezuela to quietly disappear. And it is not a wild guess to think that Canada obtained its
recent Free Trade deal with Trump as a quid-pro-quo: lead the charge against Venezuela and
you get your deal. And the oil producers in Canada (mostly USA owned) will shed no tears over
the destruction of Venezuelan crude production. Make no mistake about it, these are the
modern carpetbaggers.
Just the kind of thing I come to Unz to read, and get a glimmer at the man behind the
curtain.
I'll share an anecdote, for what it's worth. Some years back I went into the local bank.
The (young and attractive) gal who helped me out, was -- it turned out, from Venezuela.
This was when Chavez was still alive, and after he had mocked the chimp at the UN, talking
about the smell of sulfur. I remember being impressed by his antics, and thinking 'wow,
there's a guy who not only hates Dubya almost as much as I do, but has the cajones to call
the bitch out in front of the whole world.
So I was curious what this pretty (many of them are) Venezuelan girl thought of Chavez,
and I asked her.
She did not like him. No effn' way. It turns out her father was a hard working schlep who
came from nothing, but had worked his arse off his entire life, to build a second home, and
to rent the first one out, as a retirement income of sorts.
Well, according to this gal, the Chavez regime had confiscated the rental home because it
was exploitation in their view. So I had to re-think my opinion of this guy, if her story is
true. Why don't these commies ever go after the One Percent's wealth? Why do they always go
after the working and middle class?
Just an anecdote for what it's worth.
Also glad someone posted the Economic Hit Man video.
The last sentence of this article, (in particular) made me think of that video.
But folks thinking we have designs on Venezuela are just nuts
the first thing that's necessary is to define who "we" are.
Because there are two Americas, and we should make the distinction.
First there is the America of the American people. Poor, working class, middle class, and
somewhat well-off upper-middle class. These are the "we" that had nothing whatsoever to do
with the wars, except to vote relentlessly for politicians to end them, and are always
betrayed.
Which brings us to the other "we". The Deepstate scumfucks who bomb and loot nations, when
they aren't looting the American working and middle class to fund their Eternal Wars, or
selecting cannon fodder from the working class or poor, to act as their Janissaries for
globo-domination and rapine.
Joe the Plumber is the poster boy for the first "we", and yes, there are lots and lots of
butt-hurt arseholes who would like to pin it all on Joe. He's white, CIS, American and the
perfect scapegoat for butt-hurt loser's (of all stripes) hate.
John McBloodstain in the perfect (if rotting) poster boy for the other "we". The Deepstate
scumfucks who are just as much the enemy of the American people as they are the enemy of all
who don't bow down to the Fiend.
So there are two very separate and very distinct "we"s.
The reason we can be sure the problems being caused in Venezuela are being done so by the
Deepstate 'Americans', is because Trump appointed one of the worst Deepstate scumfucks to
look after "our" interests down there; Eliot Abrams – a scumfuck of the highest order,
and an existential enemy of Joe the Plumber and all Americans of good will.
It would be good if this distinction between the two "we"s, could be made more routinely.
IMHO
"... Nixon and Kissinger, according to the notes kept by CIA Director Richard Helms, wanted to 'make the economy scream' in Chile; they were 'not concerned [about the] risks involved'. War was acceptable to them as long as Allende's government was removed from power. The CIA started Project FUBELT, with $10 million as a first installment to begin the covert destabilisation of the country. ..."
"... Emboldened by Western domination, monopoly firms act with disregard for the law. ..."
"... Unable to raise money from commodity sales, hemmed in by a broken world agricultural system and victim of a culture of plunder, countries of the Global South have been forced to go hat in hand to commercial lenders for finance. ..."
"... Impossible to raise funds, trapped by the fickleness of international finance, governments are forced to make deep cuts in social spending. Education and health, food sovereignty and economic diversification – all this goes by the wayside. International agencies such as the IMF force countries to conduct 'reforms', a word that means extermination of independence. Those countries that hold out face immense international pressure to submit under pain of extinction, as the Communist Manifesto (1848) put it. ..."
"... The migration out of Venezuela is not unique to that country but is now merely the normal reaction to the global crisis. Migrants from Honduras who go northward to the United States or migrants from West Africa who go towards Europe through Libya are part of this global exodus. ..."
"... Venezuela has faced harsh US sanctions since 2014, when the US Congress started down this road. The next year, US President Barack Obama declared Venezuela a 'threat to national security'. The economy started to scream. ..."
"... This is what the US did to Iran and this is what they did to Cuba. The UN says that the US sanctions on Cuba have cost the small island $130 billion. Venezuela lost $6 billion for the first year of Trump's sanctions, since they began in August 2017 ..."
On 15 September 1970, US President Richard Nixon and National Security Advisor Henry
Kissinger authorised the US government to do everything possible to undermine the incoming
government of the socialist president of Chile, Salvador Allende. Nixon and Kissinger,
according to the notes kept by CIA Director Richard Helms, wanted to 'make the economy scream'
in Chile; they were 'not concerned [about the] risks involved'. War was acceptable to them as
long as Allende's government was removed from power. The CIA started Project FUBELT, with $10
million as a first installment to begin the covert destabilisation of the country.
CIA memorandum on Project FUBELT, 16 September 1970.
... ... ...
US business firms, such as the telecommunication giant ITT, the soft drink maker Pepsi Cola
and copper monopolies such as Anaconda and Kennecott, put pressure on the US government once
Allende nationalised the copper sector on 11 July 1971. Chileans celebrated this day as the Day
of National Dignity (Dia de la Dignidad Nacional). The CIA began to make contact with sections
of the military seen to be against Allende. Three years later, on 11 September 1973, these
military men moved against Allende, who died in the regime change operation. The US 'created
the conditions' as US National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger put it, to which US President
Richard Nixon answered, 'that is the way it is going to be played'. Such is the mood of
international gangsterism.
Phone Call between Richard Nixon (P) and Henry Kissinger (K) on 16 September 1973.
... ... ...
Chile entered the dark night of a military dictatorship that turned over the country to US
monopoly firms. US advisors rushed in to strengthen the nerve of General Augusto Pinochet's
cabinet.
What happened to Chile in 1973 is precisely what the United States has attempted to do in
many other countries of the Global South. The most recent target for the US government –
and Western big business – is Venezuela. But what is happening to Venezuela is nothing
unique. It faces an onslaught from the United States and its allies that is familiar to
countries as far afield as Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The formula is
clichéd. It is commonplace, a twelve-step plan to produce a coup climate, to create a
world under the heel of the West and of Western big business.
Step One: Colonialism's
Traps.
Most of the Global South remains trapped by the structures put in place by colonialism.
Colonial boundaries encircled states that had the misfortune of being single commodity
producers – either sugar for Cuba or oil for Venezuela. The inability to diversify their
economies meant that these countries earned the bulk of their export revenues from their
singular commodities (98% of Venezuela's export revenues come from oil). As long as the prices
of the commodities remained high, the export revenues were secure. When the prices fell,
revenue suffered. This was a legacy of colonialism. Oil prices dropped from $160.72 per barrel
(June 2008) to $51.99 per barrel (January 2019). Venezuela's export revenues collapsed in this
decade.
Step Two: The Defeat of the New International Economic Order.
In 1974, the countries of the Global South attempted to redo the architecture of the world
economy. They called for the creation of a New International Economic Order (NIEO) that would
allow them to pivot away from the colonial reliance upon one commodity and diversify their
economies. Cartels of raw materials – such as oil and bauxite – were to be built so
that the one-commodity country could have some control over prices of the products that they
relied upon. The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), founded in 1960, was a
pioneer of these commodity cartels. Others were not permitted to be formed. With the defeat of
OPEC over the past three decades, its members – such as Venezuela (which has the world's
largest proven oil reserves) – have not been able to control oil prices. They are at the
mercy of the powerful countries of the world.
Step Three: The Death of Southern
Agriculture.
In November 2001, there were about three billion small farmers and landless peasants in the
world. That month, the World Trade Organisation met in Doha (Qatar) to unleash the productivity
of Northern agri-business against the billions of small farmers and landless peasants of the
Global South. Mechanisation and large, industrial-scale farms in North America and Europe had
raised productivity to about 1 to 2 million kilogrammes of cereals per farmer. The small
farmers and landless peasants in the rest of the world struggled to grow 1,000 kilogrammes of
cereals per farmer. They were nowhere near as productive. The Doha decision, as
Samir Amin wrote , presages the annihilation of the small farmer and landless peasant. What
are these men and women to do? The production per hectare is higher in the West, but the
corporate take-over of agriculture (as Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research Senior
Fellow P. Sainath shows) leads to increased hunger as it pushes peasants off their land and
leaves them to starve.
Step Four: Culture of Plunder.
Emboldened by Western domination, monopoly firms act with disregard for the law. As
Kambale Musavuli and I write of the Democratic Republic of Congo, its annual budget of $6
billion is routinely robbed of at least $500 by monopoly mining firms, mostly from Canada
– the country now leading the charge against Venezuela. Mispricing and tax avoidance
schemes allow these large firms (Canada's Agrium, Barrick and Suncor) to routinely steal
billions of dollars from impoverished states.
Step Five: Debt as a Way of Life.
Unable to raise money from commodity sales, hemmed in by a broken world agricultural system
and victim of a culture of plunder, countries of the Global South have been forced to go hat in
hand to commercial lenders for finance. Over the past decade, debt held by the Global South
states has increased, while debt payments have ballooned by 60%. When commodity prices rose
between 2000 and 2010, debt in the Global South decreased. As commodity prices began to fall
from 2010, debts have risen.
The IMF points out that of the 67 impoverished countries that they
follow, 30 are in debt distress, a number that has doubled since 2013. More than 55.4% of
Angola's export revenue is paid to service its debt. And Angola, like Venezuela, is an oil
exporter. Other oil exporters such as Ghana, Chad, Gabon and Venezuela suffer high debt to GDP
ratios. Two out of five low-income countries are in deep financial distress.
Step Six:
Public Finances Go to Hell.
With little incoming revenue and low tax collection rates, public finances in the Global
South has gone into crisis. As the UN Conference on Trade and Development points out, 'public
finances have continued to be suffocated'. States simply cannot put together the funds needed
to maintain basic state functions. Balanced budget rules make borrowing difficult, which is
compounded by the fact that banks charge high rates for money, citing the risks of lending to
indebted countries.
Step Seven: Deep Cuts in Social Spending .
Impossible to raise funds, trapped by the fickleness of international finance, governments
are forced to make deep cuts in social spending. Education and health, food sovereignty and
economic diversification – all this goes by the wayside. International agencies such as
the IMF force countries to conduct 'reforms', a word that means extermination of independence.
Those countries that hold out face immense international pressure to submit under pain of
extinction, as the Communist Manifesto (1848) put it.
Step Eight: Social Distress Leads
to Migration.
The total number of migrants in the world is now at least 68.5 million. That makes the
country called Migration the 21st largest country in the world after Thailand and ahead of the
United Kingdom. Migration has become a global reaction to the collapse of countries from one
end of the planet to the other. The migration out of Venezuela is not unique to that country
but is now merely the normal reaction to the global crisis. Migrants from Honduras who go
northward to the United States or migrants from West Africa who go towards Europe through Libya
are part of this global exodus.
Step Nine: Who Controls the Narrative?
The monopoly corporate media takes its orders from the elite. There is no sympathy for the
structural crisis faced by governments from Afghanistan to Venezuela. Those leaders who cave to
Western pressure are given a free pass by the media. As long as they conduct 'reforms', they
are safe. Those countries that argue against the 'reforms' are vulnerable to being attacked.
Their leaders become 'dictators', their people hostages. A contested election in Bangladesh or
in the Democratic Republic of Congo or in the United States is not cause for regime change.
That special treatment is left for Venezuela.
Step Ten: Who's the Real President?
Regime change operations begin when the imperialists question the legitimacy of the
government in power: by putting the weight of the United States behind an unelected person,
calling him the new president and creating a situation where the elected leader's authority is
undermined. The coup takes place when a powerful country decides – without an election
– to anoint its own proxy. That person – in Venezuela's case Juan Guaidó
– rapidly has to make it clear that he will bend to the authority of the United States.
His kitchen cabinet – made up of former government officials with intimate ties to the US
(such as Harvard University's Ricardo Hausmann and Carnegie's Moisés Naím)
– will make it clear that they want to privatise everything and sell out the Venezuelan
people in the name of the Venezuelan people.
Step Eleven: Make the Economy Scream.
Venezuela has faced harsh US sanctions since 2014, when the US Congress started down this
road. The next year, US President Barack Obama declared Venezuela a 'threat to national
security'. The economy started to scream. In recent days, the United States and the United
Kingdom brazenly stole billions of dollars of Venezuelan money, placed the shackles of
sanctions on its only revenue generating sector (oil) and watched the pain flood through the
country.
This is what the US did to Iran and this is what they did to Cuba. The UN says that
the US sanctions on Cuba have cost the small island $130 billion. Venezuela lost $6 billion for
the first year of Trump's sanctions, since they began in August 2017. More is to be lost as the
days unfold. No wonder that the United Nations Special Rapporteur Idriss Jazairy says that
'sanctions which can lead to starvation and medical shortages are not the answer to the crisis
in Venezuela'. He said that sanctions are 'not a foundation for the peaceful settlement of
disputes'. Further, Jazairy said, 'I am especially concerned to hear reports that these
sanctions are aimed at changing the government of Venezuela'. He called for 'compassion' for
the people of Venezuela.
Step Twelve: Go to War.
US National Security Advisor John Bolton held a yellow pad with the words 5,000 troops in
Colombia written on it. These are US troops, already deployed in Venezuela's neighbour. The US
Southern Command is ready. They are egging on Colombia and Brazil to do their bit. As the coup
climate is created, a nudge will be necessary. They will go to war.
None of this is inevitable. It was not inevitable to Titina Silá, a commander of the
Partido Africano para a Independència da Guiné e Cabo Verde (PAIGC) who was
murdered on 30 January 1973. She fought to free her country. It is not inevitable to the people
of Venezuela, who continue to fight to defend their revolution. It is not inevitable to our
friends at CodePink: Women for Peace, whose Medea Benjamin walked into a meeting of the
Organisation of American States and said – No!
The country is in deep economic crisis with rampant inflation and high unemployment rate. As such it is an easy target for color
revolutions...
Venezuela has around 32 Million population. unemployment is around total: 14.6% (2015 est.) Growth rate is negative -14% (2017 est.)
-16.5% (2016 est.). -6.2% (2015 est.) . Inflation rate is 254.4% (2016 est.) Exchange rate is 3,345 bolivars per dollar (2017 est.).
University professor salary is around US$ 27,449. The cost of living is three times lower then in the USA.
Venezuela was one of three countries that emerged from the collapse of Gran Colombia in 1830 (the others being Ecuador and New
Granada, which became Colombia). For most of the first half of the 20th century, Venezuela was ruled by generally benevolent military
strongmen who promoted the oil industry and allowed for some social reforms. Democratically elected governments have held sway since
1959. Under Hugo CHAVEZ, president from 1999 to 2013, and his hand-picked successor, President Nicolas MADURO, the executive branch
has exercised increasingly authoritarian control over other branches of government. In 2016, President MADURO issued a decree to
hold an election to form a "Constituent Assembly." A 30 July 2017 poll approved the formation of a 545-member Constituent Assembly
and elected its delegates, empowering them to change the constitution and dismiss government institutions and officials. The US Government
does not recognize the Assembly, which has generally used its powers to rule by decree rather than to reform the constitution. Simultaneously,
democratic institutions continue to deteriorate, freedoms of expression and the press are curtailed, and political polarization has
grown. The ruling party's economic policies have expanded the state's role in the economy through expropriations of major enterprises,
strict currency exchange and price controls that discourage private sector investment and production, and overdependence on the petroleum
industry for revenues, among others. Current concerns include human rights abuses, rampant violent crime, high inflation, and widespread
shortages of basic consumer goods, medicine, and medical supplies.
Location
: Northern South America, bordering the Caribbean Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean, between Colombia and Guyana
Geographic coordinates
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territorial sea: 12 nm exclusive economic zone: 200 nm contiguous zone: 15 nm continental shelf: 200-m depth or to the depth
of exploitation Climate
: tropical; hot, humid; more moderate in highlands
Terrain.
Andes Mountains and Maracaibo Lowlands in northwest; central plains (llanos); Guiana Highlands in southeast
Elevation: 450 m elevation extremes: 0 m lowest point: Caribbean Sea 4978 highest point: Pico Bolivar
Natural resources
: This entry lists a country's mineral, petroleum, hydropower, and other resources of commercial importance, such as rare earth
elements (REEs). In general, products appear only if they make a significant contribution to the economy, or are likely to do so
in the future. petroleum, natural gas, iron ore, gold, bauxite, other minerals, hydropower, diamonds
Land use
: This
entry contains the percentage shares of total land area for three different types of land use: agricultural land, forest, and other;
agricultural land is further divided into arable land - land cultivated for crops like wheat, maize, and rice that are replanted
after each harvest, permanent crops - land cultivated for crops like citrus, coffee, and rubber that are not replanted after each
harvest, and includes land under flowering shrubs, fruit trees, nut trees, and vines, and permane . . .
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Population distribution
: most of the population is concentrated in the northern and western highlands along an eastern spur at the northern end of the
Andes, an area that includes the capital of Caracas
Natural hazards
: This entry lists potential natural disasters. For countries where volcanic activity is common, a volcanism subfield highlights
historically active volcanoes.
subject to floods, rockslides, mudslides; periodic droughts
Environment - current
issues Acidification - the lowering of soil and water pH due to acid precipitation and deposition usually through
precipitation; this process disrupts ecosystem nutrient flows and may kill freshwater fish and plants dependent on more neutral or
alkaline conditions (see acid rain). Acid rain - characterized as containing harmful levels of sulfur dioxi . . .
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sewage pollution of Lago de Valencia; oil and urban pollution of Lago de Maracaibo; deforestation; soil degradation; urban and
industrial pollution, especially along the Caribbean coast; threat to the rainforest ecosystem from irresponsible mining operations
Environment - international
agreements : This entry separates country participation in international environmental agreements into two levels - party to
and signed, but not ratified. Agreements are listed in alphabetical order by the abbreviated form of the full name.
party to: Antarctic Treaty, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol, Desertification, Endangered Species,
Hazardous Wastes, Marine Life Conservation, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution, Tropical Timber 83, Tropical Timber 94, Wetlands
signed, but not ratified: none of the selected agreements
Geography - note
: This entry includes miscellaneous geographic information of significance not included elsewhere.
note 1: the country lies on major sea and air routes linking North and South America
note 2: Venezuela has some of the most unique geology in the world; tepuis are massive table-top mountains of the western Guiana
Highlands that tend to be isolated and thus support unique endemic plant and animal species; their sheer cliffsides account for some
of the most spectacular waterfalls in the world including Angel Falls, the world's highest (979 m) that drops off Auyan Tepui
Birth rate
18.5 births/1,000 population (2018 est.) country comparison to the world:
Death rate
5.3 deaths/1,000 population (2018 est.) country comparison to the world:
187
Social investment in Venezuela during the CHAVEZ administration reduced poverty from nearly 50% in 1999 to about 27% in 2011,
increased school enrollment, substantially decreased infant and child mortality, and improved access to potable water and sanitation
through social investment. "Missions" dedicated to education, nutrition, healthcare, and sanitation were funded through petroleum
revenues. The sustainability of this progress remains questionable, however, as the continuation of these social programs depends
on the prosperity of Venezuela's oil industry. In the long-term, education and health care spending may increase economic growth
and reduce income inequality, but rising costs and the staffing of new health care jobs with foreigners are slowing development.
While CHAVEZ was in power, more than one million predominantly middle- and upper-class Venezuelans are estimated to have emigrated.
The brain drain is attributed to a repressive political system, lack of economic opportunities, steep inflation, a high crime rate,
and corruption. Thousands of oil engineers emigrated to Canada, Colombia, and the United States following CHAVEZ's firing of over
20,000 employees of the state-owned petroleum company during a 2002-03 oil strike. Additionally, thousands of Venezuelans of European
descent have taken up residence in their ancestral homelands. Nevertheless, Venezuela has attracted hundreds of thousands of immigrants
from South America and southern Europe because of its lenient migration policy and the availability of education and health care.
Venezuela also has been a fairly accommodating host to Colombian refugees, numbering about 170,000 as of year-end 2016. However,
since 2014, falling oil prices have driven a major economic crisis that has pushed Venezuelans from all walks of life to migrate
or to seek asylum abroad to escape severe shortages of food, water, and medicine; soaring inflation; unemployment; and violence.
As of October 2018,an estimate 3 million Venezuelans were refugees or migrants worldwide, with 2.4 million in Latin America and the
Caribbean (notably Colombia, Brazil, Mexico, Panama, Chile, Guyana, the Dominican Republic, Aruba, and Curacao).
Asylum applications
increased significantly in the US and Brazil in 2016 and 2017. Several receiving countries are making efforts to increase immigration
restrictions and to deport illegal Venezuelan migrants - Ecuador and Peru in August 2018 began requiring valid passports for entry,
which are difficult to obtain for Venezuelans. Nevertheless, Venezuelans continue to migrate to avoid economic collapse at home.
Age structure
: This entry provides the distribution of the population according to age. Information is included by sex and age group as follows:
0-14 years (children), 15-24 years (early working age), 25-54 years (prime working age), 55-64 years (mature working age), 65 years
and over (elderly). The age structure of a population affects a nation's key socioeconomic issues. Countries with young populations
(high percentage under age 15) need to invest more in schools, while countries with older population . . .
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urban population: 88.2% of total population (2018) rate of urbanization: 1.28% annual rate of change (2015-20 est.)
Major urban areas
- population : 2.935 million CARACAS (capital), 2.179 million Maracaibo, 1.734 million Valencia, 1.178 million Maracay, 1.189 million Barquisimeto
(2018) Sex ratio
: This entry includes the number of males for each female in five age groups - at birth, under 15 years, 15-64 years, 65 years
and over, and for the total population. Sex ratio at birth has recently emerged as an indicator of certain kinds of sex discrimination
in some countries. For instance, high sex ratios at birth in some Asian countries are now attributed to sex-selective abortion and
infanticide due to a strong preference for sons. This will affect future marriage patterns and fertilit . . .
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Life expectancy
at birth Total population: 76.2 years (2018 est.) male: 73.2 years (2018 est.) female: 79.3 years (2018 est.) country comparison to the
world: 93
Total fertility
rate : 2.3 children born/woman (2018 est.) country comparison to the world:
87
Unemployment, youth
ages 15-24 : total: 14.6% (2015 est.) male: NA (2015 est.) female: NA (2015 est.) country comparison to the world:
92
Economy - overview
: Venezuela remains highly dependent on oil revenues, which account for almost all export earnings and nearly half of the government's
revenue, despite a continued decline in oil production in 2017. In the absence of official statistics, foreign experts estimate that
GDP contracted 12% in 2017, inflation exceeded 2000%, people faced widespread shortages of consumer goods and medicine, and the central
bank's international reserves dwindled. In late 2017, Venezuela also entered selective default on some of its sovereign and state
oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A., (PDVSA) bonds. Domestic production and industry continues to severely underperform and
the Venezuelan Government continues to rely on imports to meet its basic food and consumer goods needs.
Falling oil prices since 2014 have aggravated Venezuela's economic crisis. Insufficient access to dollars, price controls, and
rigid labor regulations have led some US and multinational firms to reduce or shut down their Venezuelan operations. Market uncertainty
and PDVSA's poor cash flow have slowed investment in the petroleum sector, resulting in a decline in oil production.
Under President Nicolas MADURO, the Venezuelan Government's response to the economic crisis has been to increase state control
over the economy and blame the private sector for shortages. MADURO has given authority for the production and distribution of basic
goods to the military and to local socialist party member committees. The Venezuelan Government has maintained strict currency controls
since 2003. The government has been unable to sustain its mechanisms for distributing dollars to the private sector, in part because
it needed to withhold some foreign exchange reserves to make its foreign bond payments. As a result of price and currency controls,
local industries have struggled to purchase production inputs necessary to maintain their operations or sell goods at a profit on
the local market. Expansionary monetary policies and currency controls have created opportunities for arbitrage and corruption and
fueled a rapid increase in black market activity.
GDP (purchasing
power parity) : $381.6 billion (2017 est.) $443.7 billion (2016 est.) $531.1 billion (2015 est.) note: data are in 2017 dollars country comparison
to the world: 47
GDP - real growth
rate : -14% (2017 est.) -16.5% (2016 est.) -6.2% (2015 est.) country comparison to the world:
222
GDP - per capita
(PPP) : This entry shows GDP on a purchasing power parity basis divided by population as of 1 July for the same year.
$12,500 (2017 est.) $14,400 (2016 est.) $17,300 (2015 est.) note: data are in 2017 dollars country comparison to the world:
126
Gross national saving
: 12.1% of GDP (2017 est.) 8.6% of GDP (2016 est.) 31.8% of GDP (2015 est.) country comparison to the world:
150
GDP - composition,
by end use : household consumption: 68.5% (2017 est.) government consumption: 19.6% (2017 est.) investment in fixed capital: 13.9% (2017 est.)
investment in inventories: 1.7% (2017 est.) exports of goods and services: 7% (2017 est.) imports of goods and services: -10.7% (2017
est.)
GDP - composition,
by sector of origin : agriculture: 4.7% (2017 est.) industry: 40.4% (2017 est.) services: 54.9% (2017 est.)
Agriculture - products
: This entry is an ordered listing of major crops and products starting with the most important.
corn, sorghum, sugarcane, rice, bananas, vegetables, coffee; beef, pork, milk, eggs; fish
Labor force
: 14.21 million (2017 est.) country comparison to the world:
40
Unemployment rate
: This entry contains the percent of the labor force that is without jobs. Substantial underemployment might be noted.
27.1% (2017 est.) 20.6% (2016 est.) country comparison to the world:
199
Central bank discount
rate : This entry provides the annualized interest rate a country's central bank charges commercial, depository banks for loans
to meet temporary shortages of funds.
29.5% (2015) country comparison to the world:
1 Commercial bank
prime lending rate : This entry provides a simple average of annualized interest rates commercial banks charge on new loans,
denominated in the national currency, to their most credit-worthy customers.
21.1% (31 December 2017 est.) 20.78% (31 December 2016 est.) country comparison to the world:
12 Stock of narrow
money : This entry, also known as "M1," comprises the total quantity of currency in circulation (notes and coins) plus demand
deposits denominated in the national currency held by nonbank financial institutions, state and local governments, nonfinancial public
enterprises, and the private sector of the economy, measured at a specific point in time. National currency units have been converted
to US dollars at the closing exchange rate for the date of the information. Because of exchange rate moveme . . .
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$149.8 billion (31 December 2017 est.) $163.3 billion (31 December 2016 est.) country comparison to the world:
29 Stock of broad money
: This entry covers all of "Narrow money," plus the total quantity of time and savings deposits, credit union deposits, institutional
money market funds, short-term repurchase agreements between the central bank and commercial deposit banks, and other large liquid
assets held by nonbank financial institutions, state and local governments, nonfinancial public enterprises, and the private sector
of the economy. National currency units have been converted to US dollars at the closing exchange r . . .
more
Exports - partners
: US 34.8%, India 17.2%, China 16%, Netherlands Antilles 8.2%, Singapore 6.3%, Cuba 4.2% (2017)
Exports - commodities
: This entry provides a listing of the highest-valued exported products; it sometimes includes the percent of total dollar value.
petroleum and petroleum products, bauxite and aluminum, minerals, chemicals, agricultural products
Imports : This
entry provides the total US dollar amount of merchandise imports on a c.i.f. (cost, insurance, and freight) or f.o.b. (free on board)
basis. These figures are calculated on an exchange rate basis, i.e., not in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms.
$11 billion (2017 est.) $16.34 billion (2016 est.) country comparison to the world:
100 Imports - commodities
: This entry provides a listing of the highest-valued imported products; it sometimes includes the percent of total dollar value.
agricultural products, livestock, raw materials, machinery and equipment, transport equipment, construction materials, medical
equipment, petroleum products, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, iron and steel products
Imports - partners
: This entry provides a rank ordering of trading partners starting with the most important; it sometimes includes the percent
of total dollar value. US 24.8%, China 14.2%, Mexico 9.5% (2017)
"... There is a great deal of controversy about the true shape of the Venezuelan economy and whether Hugo Chavez' and Nicholas Maduro's reform and policies were crucial for the people of Venezuela or whether they were completely misguided and precipitated the current crises. Anybody and everybody seems to have very strong held views about this. But I don't simply because I lack the expertise to have any such opinions. So I decided to ask one of the most respected independent economists out there, Michael Hudson, for whom I have immense respect and whose analyses (including those he co-authored with Paul Craig Roberts ) seem to be the most credible and honest ones you can find. In fact, Paul Craig Roberts considers Hudson the " best economist in the world "! ..."
"... I am deeply grateful to Michael for his replies which, I hope, will contribute to a honest and objective understanding of what really is taking place in Venezuela. ..."
"... : Could you summarize the state of Venezuela's economy when Chavez came to power? ..."
"... : Could you outline the various reforms and changes introduced by Hugo Chavez? What did he do right, and what did he do wrong? ..."
"... : What are, in your opinion, the causes of the current economic crisis in Venezuela – is it primarily due to mistakes by Chavez and Maduro or is the main cause US sabotage, subversion and sanctions? ..."
"... : What in your opinion should Maduro do next (assuming he stays in power and the USA does not overthrow him) to rescue the Venezuelan economy? ..."
"... What about the plan to introduce a oil-based crypto currency? Will that be an effective alternative to the dying Venezuelan Bolivar? ..."
"... Trade, Develpoment and Foreign Debt ..."
"... : How much assistance do China, Russia and Iran provide and how much can they do to help? Do you think that these three countries together can help counter-act US sabotage, subversion and sanctions? ..."
"... : Venezuela kept a lot of its gold in the UK and money in the USA. How could Chavez and Maduro trust these countries or did they not have another choice? Are there viable alternatives to New York and London or are they still the "only game in town" for the world's central banks? ..."
"... Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire ..."
"... : What can other Latin American countries such as Bolivia, Nicaragua, Cuba and, maybe, Uruguay and Mexico do to help Venezuela? ..."
"... : Thank you very much for taking the time to reply to my questions! ..."
Introduction: There is a great deal of controversy about the true shape of the Venezuelan economy and whether Hugo Chavez'
and Nicholas Maduro's reform and policies were crucial for the people of Venezuela or whether they were completely misguided and
precipitated the current crises. Anybody and everybody seems to have very strong held views about this. But I don't simply because
I lack the expertise to have any such opinions. So I decided to ask one of the most respected independent economists out there,
Michael Hudson, for whom I have immense respect and whose analyses (including those he
co-authored with Paul Craig Roberts
) seem to be the most credible and honest ones you can find. In fact, Paul Craig Roberts considers Hudson the "
best economist in
the world "!
I am deeply grateful to Michael for his replies which, I hope, will contribute to a honest and objective understanding
of what really is taking place in Venezuela.
The Saker
The Saker : Could you summarize the state of Venezuela's economy when Chavez came to power?
Michael Hudson : Venezuela was an oil monoculture. Its export revenue was spent largely on importing food and other necessities
that it could have produced at home. Its trade was largely with the United States. So despite its oil wealth, it ran up foreign debt.
From the outset, U.S. oil companies have feared that Venezuela might someday use its oil revenues to benefit its overall population
instead of letting the U.S. oil industry and its local comprador aristocracy siphon off its wealth. So the oil industry – backed
by U.S. diplomacy – held Venezuela hostage in two ways.
First of all, oil refineries were not built in Venezuela, but in Trinidad and in the southern U.S. Gulf Coast states. This enabled
U.S. oil companies – or the U.S. Government – to leave Venezuela without a means of "going it alone" and pursuing an independent
policy with its oil, as it needed to have this oil refined. It doesn't help to have oil reserves if you are unable to get this oil
refined so as to be usable.
Second, Venezuela's central bankers were persuaded to pledge their oil reserves and all assets of the state oil sector (including
Citgo) as collateral for its foreign debt. This meant that if Venezuela defaulted (or was forced into default by U.S. banks refusing
to make timely payment on its foreign debt), bondholders and U.S. oil majors would be in a legal position to take possession of Venezuelan
oil assets.
These pro-U.S. policies made Venezuela a typically polarized Latin American oligarchy. Despite being nominally rich in oil revenue,
its wealth was concentrated in the hands of a pro-U.S. oligarchy that let its domestic development be steered by the World Bank and
IMF. The indigenous population, especially its rural racial minority as well as the urban underclass, was excluded from sharing in
the country's oil wealth. The oligarchy's arrogant refusal to share the wealth, or even to make Venezuela self-sufficient in essentials,
made the election of Hugo Chavez a natural outcome.
The Saker : Could you outline the various reforms and changes introduced by Hugo Chavez? What did he do right, and what did
he do wrong?
Michael Hudson : Chavez sought to restore a mixed economy to Venezuela, using its government revenue – mainly from oil, of course
– to develop infrastructure and domestic spending on health care, education, employment to raise living standards and productivity
for his electoral constituency.
What he was unable to do was to clean up the embezzlement and built-in rake-off of income from the oil sector. And he was unable
to stem the capital flight of the oligarchy, taking its wealth and moving it abroad – while running away themselves.
This was not "wrong". It merely takes a long time to change an economy's disruption – while the U.S. is using sanctions and "dirty
tricks" to stop that process.
The Saker : What are, in your opinion, the causes of the current economic crisis in Venezuela – is it primarily due to mistakes
by Chavez and Maduro or is the main cause US sabotage, subversion and sanctions?
Michael Hudson : There is no way that Chavez and Maduro could have pursued a pro-Venezuelan policy aimed at achieving economic
independence without inciting fury, subversion and sanctions from the United States. American foreign policy remains as focused on
oil as it was when it invaded Iraq under Dick Cheney's regime. U.S. policy is to treat Venezuela as an extension of the U.S. economy,
running a trade surplus in oil to spend in the United States or transfer its savings to U.S. banks.
By imposing sanctions that prevent Venezuela from gaining access to its U.S. bank deposits and the assets of its state-owned Citco,
the United States is making it impossible for Venezuela to pay its foreign debt. This is forcing it into default, which U.S. diplomats
hope to use as an excuse to foreclose on Venezuela's oil resources and seize its foreign assets much as Paul Singer hedge fund sought
to do with Argentina's foreign assets.
Just as U.S. policy under Kissinger was to make Chile's "economy scream," so the U.S. is following the same path against Venezuela.
It is using that country as a "demonstration effect" to warn other countries not to act in their self-interest in any way that prevents
their economic surplus from being siphoned off by U.S. investors.
The Saker : What in your opinion should Maduro do next (assuming he stays in power and the USA does not overthrow him) to
rescue the Venezuelan economy?
Michael Hudson : I cannot think of anything that President Maduro can do that he is not doing. At best, he can seek foreign support
– and demonstrate to the world the need for an alternative international financial and economic system.
ORDER IT NOW
He already has begun to do this by trying to withdraw Venezuela's gold from the Bank of England and Federal Reserve. This is turning
into "asymmetrical warfare," threatening to de-sanctify the dollar standard in international finance. The refusal of England and
the United States to grant an elected government control of its foreign assets demonstrates to the entire world that U.S. diplomats
and courts alone can and will control foreign countries as an extension of U.S. nationalism.
The price of the U.S. economic attack on Venezuela is thus to fracture the global monetary system. Maduro's defensive move is
showing other countries the need to protect themselves from becoming "another Venezuela" by finding a new safe haven and paying agent
for their gold, foreign exchange reserves and foreign debt financing, away from the dollar, sterling and euro areas.
The only way that Maduro can fight successfully is on the institutional level, upping the ante to move "outside the box." His
plan – and of course it is a longer-term plan – is to help catalyze a new international economic order independent of the U.S. dollar
standard. It will work in the short run only if the United States believes that it can emerge from this fight as an honest financial
broker, honest banking system and supporter of democratically elected regimes. The Trump administration is destroying illusion more
thoroughly than any anti-imperialist critic or economic rival could do!
Over the longer run, Maduro also must develop Venezuelan agriculture, along much the same lines that the United States protected
and developed its agriculture under the New Deal legislation of the 1930s – rural extension services, rural credit, seed advice,
state marketing organizations for crop purchase and supply of mechanization, and the same kind of price supports that the United
States has long used to subsidize domestic farm investment to increase productivity.
The Saker: What about the plan to introduce a oil-based crypto currency? Will that be an effective alternative to the dying
Venezuelan Bolivar?
Michael Hudson : Only a national government can issue a currency. A "crypto" currency tied to the price of oil would become a
hedging vehicle, prone to manipulation and price swings by forward sellers and buyers. A national currency must be based on the ability
to tax, and Venezuela's main tax source is oil revenue, which is being blocked from the United States. So Venezuela's position is
like that of the German mark coming out of its hyperinflation of the early 1920s. The only solution involves balance-of-payments
support. It looks like the only such support will come from outside the dollar sphere.
The solution to any hyperinflation must be negotiated diplomatically and be supported by other governments. My history of international
trade and financial theory, Trade, Develpoment and Foreign Debt , describes the German reparations problem and how its hyperinflation
was solved by the Rentenmark.
Venezuela's economic-rent tax would fall on oil, and luxury real estate sites, as well as monopoly prices, and on high incomes
(mainly financial and monopoly income). This requires a logic to frame such tax and monetary policy. I have tried to explain how
to achieve monetary and hence political independence for the past half-century. China is applying such policy most effectively. It
is able to do so because it is a large and self-sufficient economy in essentials, running a large enough export surplus to pay for
its food imports. Venezuela is in no such position. That is why it is looking to China for support at this time.
The Saker : How much assistance do China, Russia and Iran provide and how much can they do to help? Do you think that these
three countries together can help counter-act US sabotage, subversion and sanctions?
Michael Hudson : None of these countries have a current capacity to refine Venezuelan oil. This makes it difficult for them to
take payment in Venezuelan oil. Only a long-term supply contract (paid for in advance) would be workable. And even in that case,
what would China and Russia do if the United States simply grabbed their property in Venezuela, or refused to let Russia's oil company
take possession of Citco? In that case, the only response would be to seize U.S. investments in their own country as compensation.
At least China and Russia can provide an alternative bank clearing mechanism to SWIFT, so that Venezuela can by pass the U.S.
financial system and keep its assets from being grabbed at will by U.S. authorities or bondholders. And of course, they can provide
safe-keeping for however much of Venezuela's gold it can get back from New York and London.
Looking ahead, therefore, China, Russia, Iran and other countries need to set up a new international court to adjudicate the coming
diplomatic crisis and its financial and military consequences. Such a court – and its associated international bank as an alternative
to the U.S.-controlled IMF and World Bank – needs a clear ideology to frame a set of principles of nationhood and international rights
with power to implement and enforce its judgments.
This would confront U.S. financial strategists with a choice: if they continue to treat the IMF, World Bank, ITO and NATO as extensions
of increasingly aggressive U.S. foreign policy, they will risk isolating the United States. Europe will have to choose whether to
remain a U.S. economic and military satellite, or to throw in its lot with Eurasia.
However, Daniel Yergin reports in the Wall Street Journal (Feb. 7) that China is trying to hedge its bets by opening a back-door
negotiation with Guaido's group, apparently to get the same deal that it has negotiated with Maduro's government. But any such deal
seems unlikely to be honored in practice, given U.S. animosity toward China and Guaido's total reliance on U.S. covert support.
The Saker : Venezuela kept a lot of its gold in the UK and money in the USA. How could Chavez and Maduro trust these countries
or did they not have another choice? Are there viable alternatives to New York and London or are they still the "only game in town"
for the world's central banks?
Michael Hudson : There was never real trust in the Bank of England or Federal Reserve, but it seemed unthinkable that they would
refuse to permit an official depositor from withdrawing its own gold. The usual motto is "Trust but verify." But the unwillingness
(or inability) of the Bank of England to verify means that the formerly unthinkable has now arrived: Have these central banks sold
this gold forward in the post-London Gold Pool and its successor commodity markets in their attempt to keep down the price so as
to maintain the appearance of a solvent U.S. dollar standard.
Paul Craig Roberts has described how this system works. There are forward markets for currencies, stocks and bonds. The Federal
Reserve can offer to buy a stock in three months at, say, 10% over the current price. Speculators will by the stock, bidding up the
price, so as to take advantage of "the market's" promise to buy the stock. So by the time three months have passed, the price will
have risen. That is largely how the U.S. "Plunge Protection Team" has supported the U.S. stock market.
The system works in reverse to hold down gold prices. The central banks holding gold can get together and offer to sell gold at
a low price in three months. "The market" will realize that with low-priced gold being sold, there's no point in buying
more gold and bidding its price up. So the forward-settlement market shapes today's market.
The question is, have gold buyers (such as the Russian and Chinese government) bought so much gold that the U.S. Fed and the Bank
of England have actually had to "make good" on their forward sales, and steadily depleted their gold? In this case, they would have
been "living for the moment," keeping down gold prices for as long as they could, knowing that once the world returns to the pre-1971
gold-exchange standard for intergovernmental balance-of-payments deficits, the U.S. will run out of gold and be unable to maintain
its overseas military spending (not to mention its trade deficit and foreign disinvestment in the U.S. stock and bond markets). My
book on Super-Imperialism explains why running out of gold forced the Vietnam War to an end. The same logic would apply today to
America's vast network of military bases throughout the world.
Refusal of England and the U.S. to pay Venezuela means that other countries realize that foreign official gold reserves can be
held hostage to U.S. foreign policy, and even to judgments by U.S. courts to award this gold to foreign creditors or to whoever might
bring a lawsuit under U.S. law against these countries.
This hostage-taking now makes it urgent for other countries to develop a viable alternative, especially as the world de-dedollarizes
and a gold-exchange standard remains the only way of constraining the military-induced balance of payments deficit of the United
States or any other country mounting a military attack. A military empire is very expensive – and gold is a "peaceful" constraint
on military-induced payments deficits. (I spell out the details in my Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire
(1972), updated in German as Finanzimperium (2017).
The U.S. has overplayed its hand in destroying the foundation of the dollar-centered global financial order. That order has enabled
the United States to be "the exceptional nation" able to run balance-of-payments deficits and foreign debt that it has no intention
(or ability) to pay, claiming that the dollars thrown off by its foreign military spending "supply" other countries with their central
bank reserves (held in the form of loans to the U.S. Treasury – Treasury bonds and bills – to finance the U.S. budget deficit and
its military spending, as well as the largely military U.S. balance-of-payments deficit.
Given the fact that the EU is acting as a branch of NATO and the U.S. banking system, that alternative would have to be associated
with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and the gold would have to be kept in Russia and/or China.
The Saker : What can other Latin American countries such as Bolivia, Nicaragua, Cuba and, maybe, Uruguay and Mexico do to
help Venezuela?
Michael Hudson : The best thing neighboring Latin American countries can do is to join in creating a vehicle to promote de-dollarization
and, with it, an international institution to oversee the writedown of debts that are beyond the ability of countries to pay without
imposing austerity and thereby destroying their economies.
An alternative also is needed to the World Bank that would make loans in domestic currency, above all to subsidize investment
in domestic food production so as to protect the economy against foreign food-sanctions – the equivalent of a military siege to force
surrender by imposing famine conditions. This World Bank for Economic Acceleration would put the development of self-reliance for
its members first, instead of promoting export competition while loading borrowers down with foreign debt that would make them prone
to the kind of financial blackmail that Venezuela is experiencing.
Being a Roman Catholic country, Venezuela might ask for papal support for a debt write-down and an international institution to
oversee the ability to pay by debtor countries without imposing austerity, emigration, depopulation and forced privatization of the
public domain.
Two international principles are needed. First, no country should be obliged to pay foreign debt in a currency (such as the dollar
or its satellites) whose banking system acts to prevents payment.
Second, no country should be obliged to pay foreign debt at the price of losing its domestic autonomy as a state: the right to
determine its own foreign policy, to tax and to create its own money, and to be free of having to privatize its public assets to
pay foreign creditors. Any such debt is a "bad loan" reflecting the creditor's own irresponsibility or, even worse, pernicious asset
grab in a foreclosure that was the whole point of the loan.
The Saker : Thank you very much for taking the time to reply to my questions!
As the US strives to overthrow the democratic and independent Venezuelan government, the
historical record regarding the short, middle and long-term consequences are mixed.
We will proceed to examine the consequences and impact of US intervention in Venezuela over
the past half century.
We will then turn to examine the success and failure of US 'regime changes' throughout Latin
America and the Caribbean.
Venezuela: Results and Perspectives 1950-2019
During the post WWII decade, the US, working through the CIA and the Pentagon, brought to
power authoritarian client regimes in Venezuela, Cuba, Peru, Chile, Guatemala, Brazil and
several other countries.
In the case of Venezuela, the US backed a near decade long military dictatorship (Perez
Jimenez ) roughly between 1951-58. The dictatorship was overthrown in 1958 and replaced by a
left-center coalition during a brief interim period. Subsequently, the US reshuffled its
policy, and embraced and promoted center-right regimes led by social and christian democrats
which alternated rule for nearly forty years.
In the 1990's US client regimes riddled with corruption and facing a deepening
socio-economic crises were voted out of power and replaced by the independent, anti-imperialist
government led by President Chavez.
The free and democratic election of President Chavez withstood and defeated several US led
'regime changes' over the following two decades.
Following the election of President Maduro, under US direction,Washington mounted the
political machinery for a new regime change. Washington launched, in full throttle, a coup by
the winter of 2019.
The record of US intervention in Venezuela is mixed: a middle term military coup lasted less
than a decade; US directed electoral regimes were in power for forty years; its replacement by
an elected anti-imperialist populist government has been in power for nearly 20 years. A
virulent US directed coup is underfoot today.
The Venezuela experience with 'regime change' speaks to US capacity to consummate long-term
control if it can reshuffle its power base from a military dictatorship into an electoral
regime, financed through the pillage of oil, backed by a reliable military and 'legitimated' by
alternating client political parties which accept submission to Washington.
US client regimes are ruled by oligarchic elites, with little entrepreneurial capacity,
living off of state rents (oil revenues).
Tied closely to the US, the ruling elites are unable to secure popular loyalty. Client
regimes depend on the military strength of the Pentagon -- but that is also their weakness.
Regime Change in Regional-Historical Perspective
Puppet-building is an essential strategic goal of the US imperial state.
The results vary over time depending on the capacity of independent governments to succeed
in nation-building.
US long-term puppet-building has been most successful in small nations with vulnerable
economies.
The US directed coup in Guatemala has lasted over sixty-years – from 1954 -2019. Major
popular indigenous insurgencies have been repressed via US military advisers and aid.
Similar successful US puppet-building has occurred in Panama, Grenada, Dominican Republic
and Haiti. Being small and poor and having weak military forces, the US is willing to directly
invade and occupy the countries quickly and at small cost in military lives and economic
costs.
In the above countries Washington succeeded in imposing and maintaining puppet regimes for
prolonged periods of time.
The US has directed military coups over the past half century with contradictory
results.
In the case of Honduras, the Pentagon was able to overturn a progressive liberal democratic
government of very short duration. The Honduran army was under US direction, and elected
President Manual Zelaya depended on an unarmed electoral popular majority. Following the
successful coup the Honduran puppet-regime remained under US rule for the next decade and
likely beyond.
Chile has been under US tutelage for the better part of the 20th century with a brief
respite during a Popular Front government between 1937-41 and a democratic socialist government
between 1970-73. The US military directed coup in 1973 imposed the Pinochet dictatorship which
lasted for seventeen years. It was followed by an electoral regime which continued the
Pinochet-US neo-liberal agenda, including the reversal of all the popular national and social
reforms. In a word, Chile remained within the US political orbit for the better part of a
half-century.
Chile's democratic-socialist regime (1970-73) never armed its people nor established
overseas economic linkage to sustain an independent foreign policy.
It is not surprising that in recent times Chile followed US commands calling for the
overthrow of Venezuela's President Maduro.
Contradictory Puppet-Building
Several US coups were reversed, for the longer or shorter duration.
The classical case of a successful defeat of a client regime is Cuba which overthrew a
ten-year old US client, the Batista dictatorship, and proceeded to successfully resist a CIA
directed invasion and economic blockade for the better part of a half century (up to the
present day).
Cuba's defeat of puppet restorationist policy was a result of the Castro leadership's
decision to arm the people, expropriate and take control of hostile US and multinational
corporations and establish strategic overseas allies – USSR , China and more recently
Venezuela.
In contrast, a US military backed military coup in Brazil (1964) endured for over two
decades, before electoral politics were partially restored under elite leadership.
Twenty years of failed neo-liberal economic policies led to the election of the social
reformist Workers Party (WP) which proceeded to implement extensive anti-poverty programs
within the context of neo-liberal policies.
After a decade and a half of social reforms and a relatively independent foreign policy, the
WP succumbed to a downturn of the commodity dependent economy and a hostile state (namely
judiciary and military) and was replaced by a pair of far-right US client regimes which
functioned under Wall Street and Pentagon direction.
The US frequently intervened in Bolivia, backing military coups and client regimes against
short-term national populist regimes (1954, 1970 and 2001).
In 2005 a popular uprising led to free elections and the election of Evo Morales, the leader
of the coca farmers movements. Between 2005 – 2019 (the present period) President Morales
led a moderate left-of-center anti imperialist government.
ORDER IT NOW
Unsuccessful efforts by the US to overthrow the Morales government were a result of several
factors: Morales organized and mobilized a coalition of peasants and workers (especially miners
and coca farmers). He secured the loyalty of the military, expelled US Trojan Horse "aid
agencies' and extended control over oil and gas and promoted ties with agro business.
The combination of an independent foreign policy, a mixed economy , high growth and moderate
reforms neutralized US puppet-building.
Not so the case in Argentina. Following a bloody coup (1976) in which the US backed military
murdered 30,000 citizens, the military was defeated by the British army in the Malvinas war and
withdrew after seven years in power.
The post military puppet regime ruled and plundered for a decade before collapsing in 2001.
They were overthrown by a popular insurrection. However, the radical left lacking cohesion was
replaced by center-left (Kirchner-Fernandez) regimes which ruled for the better part of a
decade (2003 – 15).
The progressive social welfare – neo-liberal regimes entered in crises and were ousted
by a US backed puppet regime (Macri) in 2015 which proceeded to reverse reforms, privatize the
economy and subordinate the state to US bankers and speculators.
After two years in power, the puppet regime faltered, the economy spiraled downward and
another cycle of repression and mass protest emerged. The US puppet regime's rule is tenuous,
the populace fills the streets, while the Pentagon sharpens its knives and prepares puppets to
replace their current client regime.
Conclusion
The US has not succeeded in consolidating regime changes among the large countries with mass
organizations and military supporters.
Washington has succeeded in overthrowing popular – national regimes in Brazil, and
Argentina . However, over time puppet regimes have been reversed.
While the US resorts to largely a single 'track' (military coups and invasions)in
overwhelming smaller and more vulnerable popular governments, it relies on 'multiple tracks'
strategy with regard to large and more formidable countries.
In the former cases, usually a call to the military or the dispatch of the marines is enough
to snuff an electoral democracy.
In the latter case, the US relies on a multi-proxy strategy which includes a mass media
blitz, labeling democrats as dictatorships, extremists, corrupt, security threats, etc.
As the tension mounts, regional client and European states are organized to back the local
puppets.
Phony "Presidents" are crowned by the US President whose index finger counters the vote of
millions of voters. Street demonstrations and violence paid and organized by the CIA
destabilize the economy; business elites boycott and paralyze production and distribution
Millions are spent in bribing judges and military officials.
If the regime change can be accomplished by local military satraps, the US refrains from
direct military intervention.
Regime changes among larger and wealthier countries have between one or two decades
duration. However, the switch to an electoral puppet regime may consolidate imperial power over
a longer period – as was the case of Chile.
Where there is powerful popular support for a democratic regime, the US will provide the
ideological and military support for a large-scale massacre, as was the case in Argentina.
The coming showdown in Venezuela will be a case of a bloody regime change as the US will
have to murder hundreds of thousands to destroy the millions who have life-long and deep
commitments to their social gains , their loyalty to the nation and their dignity.
In contrast the bourgeoisie, and their followers among political traitors, will seek revenge
and resort to the vilest forms of violence in order to strip the poor of their social advances
and their memories of freedom and dignity.
It is no wonder that the Venezuela masses are girding for a prolonged and decisive struggle:
everything can be won or lost in this final confrontation with the Empire and its puppets.
Did you know this information? January 18, 2019 The US Has Military Forces in Over 160
Countries, but the Pentagon Is Hiding the Exact Numbers
The US has 95% of the world's foreign military bases, with personnel in more than 160
countries. But the Pentagon is leaving hundreds of outposts out of its official reports.
The U.S. and its allies have decided to throw their weight behind yet another coup attempt
in Venezuela. As usual, they claim that their objectives are democracy and freedom. Nothing
could be farther from the truth...
On January 23rd, 2019 Venezuela's opposition leader Juan Guaidó declared himself
acting president, and called on the armed forces to disobey the government. Very few had ever
heard of this man -- he had never actually run for president. Guaidó is the head of
Venezuela's national assembly; a position very similar to speaker of the house.
Within minutes of this declaration U.S. president Donald Trump took to twitter and
recognized Guaidó as interim president of Venezuela; writing off the administration of
Nicolas Maduro as "illegitimate". U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo followed by urging
Venezuela's military to "restore democracy", affirming that the US would back Mr Guaidó
in his attempts to establish a government. They also promised
20 million dollars in "humanitarian" aid . To put this into context, Trump is on record
saying he was " Not
Going to Rule Out a Military Option " in Venezuela.
This is roughly the equivalent of Nancy Pelosi or Mitch Mcconnell declaring themselves
president, calling on the military to overthrow Trump, and having China pledge to fund and
assist the effort.
Now if you happen to be in the camp that wouldn't actually mind seeing Donald Trump forcibly
removed from office, I would encourage you to imagine replacing Trump's name with Obama, Bush,
Merkel or Macron.
You know there have been a lot of protests in France, and the Yellow Vests have demanded
that Macron step down Why don't we restore democracy in Paris?
Let's get this straight. Trump is an illegitimate president and should be removed from
office (because of Russian interference), but you're perfectly comfortable with that same
illegitimate president toppling foreign governments via twitter?
Though support for Guaidó was quickly parroted by Washington's most dependable
allies, and lauded by virtually every western media outlet, the Venezuelan military responded
by condemning the coup, and reconfirmed
their loyalty to Maduro .
That same day Pompeo announced that Elliott Abrams -- the man who oversaw regime change wars
in Nicaragua and El Salvador , was
deeply involved in the Iran Contra scandal, and who was an architect of both the Iraq war and
the 2002 coup attempt in Venezuela (which culminated in the kidnapping of Maduro's predecessor
Hugo Chavez) -- would be in charge of the effort to "restore democracy and prosperity to their
country".
So why do you suppose Washington really wants regime change in Venezuela? You'd have to be
pretty naive to buy the "democracy and prosperity" drivel.
They talk about how the Venezuelan economy is in shambles, but by their own admission (
and according to the U.N. ) U.S. sanctions have played a significant role in creating that
situation.
"With respect to Libya I'm interested in Libya if we take the oil. If we don't take the
oil no interest. We have to have Look, if we have wars, we have to win the war. What we do is
take over the country and hand the keys to people who don't like us. I'll tell you what Iraq,
100% Iran takes over Iraq after we leave, and what really happens with Iraq is they want the
oil fields. And I have it on very good authority that Iran probably won't even be shooting a
bullet because they are getting along better with the Iraqi leaders better than we are. After
all of those lives, and after all of the money we spent. And if that's going to happen we
take the oil."
Maduro's predecessor Hugo Chavez nationalized the oil industry and used the proceeds to fund
his socialist vision for the country. Now you could make the case that this vision was flawed,
and horribly mismanaged, however he had strong public support for this mandate; so much support
in fact, that when U.S. backed coup plotters kidnapped Hugo Chavez in 2002 crowds took to the
streets en mass and he was quickly reinstated.
Which brings us back to Juan Guaidó. There's not much information available on Mr.
Guaidó, but if you look up the man who tapped him to lead the opposition party Voluntad
Popular you'll find Washington's fingerprints all over the place. Leopoldo Lopez, the founder
of Voluntad Popular,
orchestrated the protests in 2002 that led up to the kidnapping of Hugo Chavez .
Compared to who? Which paragon of good governance will we refer to as the model? Trump?
Theresa May? Angel Merkel? Macron? Take your time.
This isn't democracy, it's a neo-colonial power grab. Juan Guaidó never ran for the
office he claimed, and the fact that he directly colluded with a foreign nation to overthrow
the man who was elected president marks him as a traitor.
Juan Guaidó is a puppet. If installed, he will serve the interests who bought his
ticket. Venezuela's oil industry will be privatized, and the profits will be sucked out of the
country by western corporations.
What's happening in Venezuela right now is a replay of the 1973 U.S. backed coup in Chile,
where the democratically elected president of Chile, Salvador Allende, was overthrown, and
replaced with the military dictatorship of Pinochet. Pinochet murdered over 3000 political
opponents during his rule, and tortured over 30,000, but he was friendly to American business
interests so Washington looked the other way.
One could make the case that Maduro is incompetent. One could make the case that his
economic theories are trash. (The same can be said for the haircuts in suits calling for his
removal.) But the reality of the matter is that unless you happen to be a Venezuelan citizen,
how Venezuela is governed is actually none of your business.
Given how things turned out in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, and Ukraine you'd think
people would get the hint. When it comes to spreading democracy, you suck. U.S. regime change
operations have left nothing but chaos, death and destruction in their wake. If you want to
make the world a better place, maybe, just maybe, you should start at home.
Venezuelan officials have announced the seizure of a large shipment of American weapons
which they say were bound for anti-Maduro "terrorist groups" . This comes following US national
security advisor John Bolton's pledge to deliver "humanitarian aid" into the country, covertly
if need be, despite embattled President Nicolas Maduro's vow to prevent such unauthorized
shipments from entering.
Sanctions without an approval by UN are criminal and represent a war crime.
Notable quotes:
"... Russia shows no signs of abandoning its increasingly beleaguered and isolated ally. Mr. Putin has called Mr. Maduro to relay his support for the regime, and Russian officials reacted angrily to President Trump's suggestion Sunday that U.S. military action was an option to resolve the crisis. ..."
"... "The international community's goal should be to help [ Venezuela ], without destructive meddling from beyond its borders," Alexander Shchetinin, head of the Russian Foreign Ministry's Latin American department, told the Interfax news agency Monday. ..."
"... Russia has repeatedly opposed U.S. suggestions of foreign intervention to install opposition leader Juan Guaido as Venezuela 's interim president, and supported Mr. Maduro 's calls for mediation on the crisis. ..."
"... But with Mr. Maduro defying calls to step down, the Russian mission may be more extensive than reported, said John Marulanda, a U.S.-trained intelligence officer and adviser to conservative Colombian President Ivan Duque, an opponent of Mr. Maduro . Mr. Marulanda said the recent Russian arrivals are special forces -- Spetsnaz -- who are being embedded among Venezuela 's elite military units to better resist any U.S. intervention or internal coup against Mr. Maduro . ..."
Under anti-U.S. populist leader Hugo Chavez, Mr. Maduro 's late predecessor and
political mentor, Russia became one of Venezuela 's strongest allies with
economic ties including crude oil, loans and arms sales. That helps explain why Moscow has emerged as one of Mr. Maduro 's most
vocal defenders and one of the biggest critics of the pressure campaign waged by Washington and a number of
countries in Latin America.
The pressure grew Monday as France, Germany, Britain and 13 other European countries
announced that they were withdrawing their recognition of Mr. Maduro and called for new
national elections as soon as possible. The EU powers held off in joining the U.S. pressure
campaign to see whether Venezuela would agree to new
elections. "We are working for the return of full democracy in Venezuela : human rights, elections and
no more political prisoners," Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez told reporters in Madrid on
Monday.
But Russia shows
no signs of abandoning its increasingly beleaguered and isolated ally. Mr. Putin has called Mr. Maduro to relay his support for
the regime, and Russian officials reacted angrily to President Trump's suggestion Sunday that
U.S. military action was an option to resolve the crisis.
"The international community's goal should be to help [ Venezuela ], without destructive meddling
from beyond its borders," Alexander Shchetinin, head of the Russian Foreign Ministry's Latin
American department, told the Interfax news agency Monday.
Russia has
repeatedly opposed U.S. suggestions of foreign intervention to install opposition leader Juan
Guaido as Venezuela 's interim president, and
supported Mr.
Maduro 's calls for mediation on the crisis.
The arrival of 400 Russian military contractors after Mr. Trump's Jan. 23 recognition of Mr.
Guaido, the head of the National Assembly, triggered speculation that Moscow was reinforcing Mr. Maduro 's personal security
or even preparing his evacuation.
But with Mr.
Maduro defying calls to step down, the Russian mission may be more extensive than reported,
said John Marulanda, a U.S.-trained intelligence officer and adviser to conservative Colombian
President Ivan Duque, an opponent of Mr. Maduro . Mr. Marulanda said the
recent Russian arrivals are special forces -- Spetsnaz -- who are being embedded among
Venezuela 's
elite military units to better resist any U.S. intervention or internal coup against Mr. Maduro .
The strong support for Venezuela has another motive for
Moscow , analysts
say: to increase the diplomatic, economic and military cost of any campaign by Washington to oust
Mr. Maduro
.
Joseph Humire, a lecturer for the U.S. Army's 7th Special Forces Group, said in an interview
that Russia wants to
"draw the U.S. into a quagmire," which Mr. Maduro has warned that would be
"worse than Vietnam."
Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino recently announced that he was inviting Russian
combat pilots who fought in Syria's civil war to "share their experience" with Venezuela's air
force. Playing the long game
Mr. Marulanda said Moscow is playing a long-term game aimed at
pressuring the U.S. along its southern borders to counter NATO moves along Russia 's border with the Baltic states
and Ukraine. Recent visits to Venezuela by nuclear-capable Tupolev 106
strategic bombers represented a clear show of force and support.
" Russia wants to
at least have a 'symbolic involvement' in Latin America as payback for U.S. intervention in the
[Russian] 'Near Abroad,'" Vladimir Rouvinski, a foreign policy analyst at Icesi University in
Colombia, recently told the Al Jazeera news website.
Then there's the money aspect.
Venezuela ,
with the world's largest proven oil reserves helping fill government coffers, is Russia 's second-biggest arms
client after India, the Pentagon said. U.S. analysts calculate that Caracas has purchased more
than $11 billion in Russian hardware over the past decade.
Acquisitions include high-performance Sukhoi Su-30 fighter jets equipped with cruise-type
BrahMos missiles; Mi-35m attack helicopters; surface-to-air SS-200 and Pechorev missile
batteries; T-72 tanks; and production plants for AK-103 rifles.
Russia is also
building a cyberwarfare base on the island of Orchila off Venezuela 's northern coast operated by
Cuban technicians. Through military leverage, Russia has gained major oil concessions in
mainly offshore drilling blocs between Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago.
Russia is interested
in keeping Venezuelan oil production at reduced levels to maintain high world prices for its
own oil, energy analysts say.
Russian companies also have been using Venezuela to penetrate the U.S. and other
energy markets closed off to them by sanctions. Russia 's main state oil company, Rosneft,
has lent $6 billion to Venezuela in recent years through
negotiations in which Venezuela 's state-owned oil firm, PDVSA,
offered its U.S. subsidiary, Citgo, as collateral, according to U.S. intelligence sources.
The Trump administration has tried
to head off such maneuvers by placing PDVSA's U.S.-based assets under control of the
alternative government that Mr. Guaido is trying to form.
Some say the Kremlin isn't looking for a "win" in Venezuela so much as it is trying to
entangle the Trump administration in
another long, grinding foreign policy crisis with no resolution in sight.
"It would demonstrate the failure of the American strategy of unlawful regime change and the
success of the Russian line of supporting legitimate power," Vladimir Frolov, a Russian foreign
policy analyst, wrote in a recent commentary on the Republic.ru news website.
Mr. Marulanda said Russia is building an anti-U.S. "tripod" in
the Caribbean region linking leftist governments in Venezuela , Cuba and Nicaragua. The strategy is unlikely
to please military planners in Washington .
" Russia has
taken a big gamble," said Evan Ellis, a Latin America specialist with the U.S. Army War
College.
"If Maduro falls, Moscow 's position in the Western
Hemisphere would collapse, as its other allies would soon be equally pressured by democratic
revolts."
This reminds me EuroMaydan. Poland, Sweden and Germany were very active promoters of opposition.
Notable quotes:
"... Imposing some decisions or trying to legitimize an attempt to usurp power, in our view, is both direct and indirect interference in the internal affairs of Venezuela," ..."
The UK, France, Spain, Austria, Denmark, Sweden, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Netherlands,
Germany, Portugal,among a number of countries, have announced their recognition of Juan Guaido
as Venezuela's interim president Domino effect ensues as EU leaders line up to recognise
Venezuela's Guaido
Europe has begun turning its back on Venezuela's incumbent president, Nicolas Maduro, after
he missed his Sunday deadline to call for presidential elections to take place. One by one, European leaders publicly announced their recognition of National Assembly chief,
Juan Guaido, as the country's interim president. But according to Reuters , diplomatic sources said Italy blocked a joint EU position to
recognise Guido as the interim leader, as the government in Rome is deeply divided over the
issue.
Italy
vetoed EU recognition of Venezuelan opposition leader Guaido
4 Feb, 2019
Rome has effectively derailed an EU statement meant to recognize
Juan Guaido as Venezuela's interim leader if President Nicolas Maduro fails to set up snap
elections, a Five Star Movement source confirmed to RT. Italy announced the veto at an informal
meeting of EU foreign ministers that started on January 31 in Romania, the source said. The
statement, which was supposed to be delivered by EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini
recognized Guaido as interim president if snap elections were not held.
EU states' recognition of Guaido is 'direct interference' in Venezuela's affairs –
Kremlin
Moscow slammed EU states for trying to legitimize "an attempt to usurp power" in
Venezuela after a number of key European countries recognized opposition figure Juan Guaido as
interim president. " Imposing some decisions or trying to legitimize an attempt to usurp
power, in our view, is both direct and indirect interference in the internal affairs of
Venezuela," Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, told the media
on Monday, while commenting on the recognition of Guaido.
The freezing of Venezuelan gold by the Bank of England is a signal to all countries out of
step with US interests to withdraw their money, according to economist and co-founder of
Democracy at Work, Professor Richard Wolff. He told RT America that Britain and its central
bank have shown themselves to be "under the thumb of the United States."
"That is a signal to every country that has or may have difficulties with the US, [that
they had] better get their money out of England and out of London because it's not the safe
place as it once was," he said.
"... Many of us, actually most of us, were pleased with candidate Trump's declared intent to end our involvement in endless foreign interventions. He would put America first and refrain from sending our troops where they don't belong. Once elected, his record was mixed. ..."
"... PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: [W]e spent a fortune on building this incredible base. We might as well keep it. And one of the reasons I want to keep it is because I want to be looking a little bit at Iran because Iran is a real problem. ..."
"... There also appears to be an effort to keep the Rojava Kurds as a proxy force after our troops withdraw to Iraq. We continue sending combat and engineering equipment into Rojava and fully intend to continue providing air support to the YPG. We just can't let it go. ..."
"... I see a confrontation in our future, especially with all the Iraqi PMS units in western Iraq. ..."
Many of us, actually most of us, were pleased with candidate Trump's declared intent to end our involvement in endless foreign
interventions. He would put America first and refrain from sending our troops where they don't belong. Once elected, his record was
mixed.
We launched an ineffective volley of cruise missiles at a Syrian airbase in response to a trumped up gas attack, but we never
sought to establish a no fly zone and risk war with Russia. For a while we were well on our way to establish an enduring client state
in east Syria. We assumed this was all the doing of the cabal of manipulating neocons that Trump surrounded himself with. His call
for immediate withdrawal of troops from Syria surely proved this true. Finally Trump was allowed to be Trump. He was even seeking
a way out of Afghanistan, after a literal lifetime of war in that godforsaken land.
The neocons are fighting back bigly. The pace of withdrawal from Syria was slowed and there is no indication we would ever
give up our outpost on the Baghdad-Damascus highway at Tanf. Why? I think Trump laid out HIS thoughts on the matter during the traditional
pre-super bowl presidential interview.
-- -- -- --
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We have to protect Israel. We have to protect other things that we have...
MARGARET BRENNAN: But you want to keep troops there [Iraq] now?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: [W]e spent a fortune on building this incredible base. We might as well keep it. And one of the
reasons I want to keep it is because I want to be looking a little bit at Iran because Iran is a real problem.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Whoa, that's news. You're keeping troops in Iraq because you want to be able to strike in Iran?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: No, because I want to be able to watch Iran. All I want to do is be able to watch. We have an unbelievable
and expensive military base built in Iraq. It's perfectly situated for looking at all over different parts of the troubled Middle
East rather than pulling up. And this is what a lot of people don't understand. We're going to keep watching and we're going to
keep seeing and if there's trouble, if somebody is looking to do nuclear weapons or other things, we're going to know it before
they do.
-- -- -- --
So, We are staying in Iraq to keep an eye on Iran and we are doing this to protect Israel. It was not any of the neocons who said
this. It was Trump himself. So much for America first. There also appears to be an effort to keep the Rojava Kurds as a proxy force
after our troops withdraw to Iraq. We continue sending combat and engineering equipment into Rojava and fully intend to continue
providing air support to the YPG. We just can't let it go.
However, Baghdad has thrown a monkey wrench into this developing Trump doctrine. Iraqi President Barham Salih has told Trump to
slow his roll.
-- -- -- --
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi President Barham Salih said on Monday that President Donald Trump did not ask Iraq's permission for
U.S. troops stationed there to "watch Iran."
Speaking at a forum in Baghdad, Salih was responding to a question about Trump's comments to CBS about how he would ask troops
stationed in Iraq to "watch" Iran. U.S. troops in Iraq are there as part of an agreement between the two countries with a specific
mission of combating terrorism, Salih said, and that they should stick to that. (Reuters)
-- -- -- --
I see a confrontation in our future, especially with all the Iraqi PMS units in western Iraq.
This was true in 2015 for Syria. Now this is true for Venezuela... So one can expect iether chemical attack opposition from Madura
government or "Snipergate" in EuroMaydan style. Or may some some more sophisticated, more nasty "false flag" operation in British style
like Skripal poisoning.
It will be interesting if Madura manage to survive despite the pressute...
Notable quotes:
"... Sorry but you're wrong. The funding a training of rebel forces by the west has done exactly what is was intended to do, mainly destabilise an entire region, sell billions in extra arms, introduce extra anti-terrorism laws in the west, create more fear and panic, then destabilise Europe through the mass-migration. This was the plan and it worked! ..."
"... To the great disappointment of those of us who voted for Obama, the first time out of hope for change, and the second time out of fear for someone even worse, he is a weak and chameleonic leader whose policies are determined by the strongest willed person in the room. Recall that he was also "talked into" bombing Libya! ..."
"... This isn't Bay of Pigs; its a bloated military trying to figure out what to do with its extra cash. Financially, it doesn't matter if the program is a failure. The cost is minuscule for the budget they have. ..."
"... Bush reached the Oval Office not because he was bright, for indeed he was not, he reached the Oval Office because he was dumb enough not to realise he was clearly easily manipulated, believed in neoliberalism and was rich and rich backers and a rich Dad. ..."
"... In Iran, we have a saying which says; take off a Mullah's turban and you will find the words "Made in England" stamped on his head. ..."
"... ISIS/ISIL is a creation of the US in an attempt to remove Assad. The long-term goal being to isolate Iran before going in there for the natural resources. ..."
"... The White House statement specifically refers to the "Syrian opposition". That's the term we use to describe anti-government forces. This recruitment and training programme has gone awry because the people originally recruited would have been anti-Assad. Now the Obama administration has tried to change the same people to fighting to ISIS instead. No wonder there's only "four to five" left. This is one big fustercluck! ..."
"... The CIA has probably been the greatest destabalising force in the world since the second world war and seem like more a subsidiary of the weapons trade than a government department. ..."
Why does the US continually send deadly weapons to the Middle East, make things even more chaotic than they were before and expect
better results the next time?
As pretty much everyone who was paying attention predicted, the $500m program to train and arm "moderate"
Syrian rebels is an unmitigated, Bay of Pigs-style disaster, with the head of US central command
admitting to Congress this week that the year-old
program now only has "four or five" rebels fighting inside Syria, with dozens
more killed or captured.
Even more bizarre, the White House is
claiming little to do with it. White House spokesman Josh Earnest attempted to distance Obama from the program, claiming that
it was actually the president's "critics" who "were wrong." The
New York Times reported, "In effect, Mr Obama is arguing that he reluctantly went along with those who said it was the way to
combat the Islamic State, but that he never wanted to do it and has now has been vindicated in his original judgment."
This bizarre "I was peer pressured into sending more weapons into the Middle East" argument by the president is possibly the most
blatant example of blame shifting in recent memory, since he had every opportunity to speak out against it, or veto the bill. Instead,
this is what
Obama said at the time: "I am pleased that Congress...have now voted to support a key element of our strategy: our plan to train
and equip the opposition in Syria."
But besides the fact that he clearly did support the policy at the time, it's ridiculous for another reason: years before Congress
approved the $500m program to arm the Syrian rebels, the CIA had been running its own separate Syrian rebel-arming program since
at least 2012. It was
reported prominently by the New York Times
at the time and approved by the president.
In fact, just before Congress voted, Senator Tom Udall
told Secretary of State
John Kerry, who was testifying in front of the foreign relations committee, "Everybody's well aware there's been a covert operation,
operating in the region to train forces, moderate forces, to go into Syria and to be out there, that we've been doing this the last
two years." In true Orwellian fashion, Kerry responded
at the time: "I
hate to do this. But I can't confirm or deny whatever that's been written about and I can't really go into any kind of possible program."
Also conveniently ignored by Congress and those advocating for arming the rebels was a
classified
study the CIA did at the time showing that arming rebel factions against sitting governments almost always ends in disaster or
tragedy.
You'd think whether or not the current weapons-running program was effective – or whether any similar program ever was – would
have been a key factor in the debate. But alas, the CIA program is never mentioned, not by politicians, and not by journalists. It's
just been conveniently forgotten.
It is true that perhaps the best advocate for why we never should've armed the Syrian rebels to begin with came from President
Obama himself. He told the
New Yorker in early 2014 that "you have an opposition that is disorganized, ill-equipped, ill-trained and is self-divided. All
of that is on top of some of the sectarian divisions." Critically,
he cited that same above-mentioned
classified study:
Very early in this process, I actually asked the CIA to analyze examples of America financing and supplying arms to an insurgency
in a country that actually worked out well. And they couldn't come up with much.
He didn't mention the CIA's already-active weapons-running program. Why he didn't stick to his guns since he supposedly was weary
of getting the US military involved in yet another quagmire
it could not get out of is beyond anyone's comprehension. Instead, he supported Congress's measure to create yet another program
that sent even more weapons to the war-torn region.
Per usual, Republicans are taking the entirely wrong lessons from this disaster, arguing that if only there was more force then
everything would've worked out. Marco Rubio exclaimed
during the GOP presidential debate on Wednesday that if we armed the rebels earlier – like he allegedly wanted, before
voting against arming them when he had the chance – then the program would've worked out. Like seemingly everyone else in this
debate, Rubio has decided to ignore the actual facts.
Sadly, instead of a debate about whether we should continue sending weapons to the Middle East at all, we'll probably hear arguments
that we should double down in Syria in the coming days and get US troops more cemented into a war we can call our own (that still
to this day has not been authorized by Congress). There are already reports that there are
US special operations forces on the ground in Syria
now, assisting Kurdish forces who are also fighting Isis.
When the vicious and tragic cycle will end is anyone's guess. But all signs point to: not anytime soon.
Oliver2014 19 Sep 2015 21:27
" Why does the US continually send deadly weapons to the Middle East, make things even more chaotic than they were before and
expect better results the next time? "
Because the US doesn't understand the culture of the people it meddles with.
The US goes in with a messianic belief in the righteousness of its objective. This objective is framed in naive terms to convince
itself and the people that it's motives are benevolent - such as "we must fight communism" or "we will bring democracy to Iraq"
or "Saddam Hussein is an evil man who uses chemical weapons on his own people and hence must be ousted" or "Assad is an evil man
who is fighting a civil war with his own people".
As a superpower it feels compelled to interfere in conflicts lest it be seen as impotent. When it does not interfere, as in
WW2, things do indeed get out of control. So it's damned if it does and damned if it doesn't.
The CIA did not understand Afghan history of fighting off invaders when it was arming the Mujaheddin and that after the Soviets
were defeated it would perceive the Americans as invaders and not as liberators who were there to bring them democracy and teach
them that growing poppy was bad. (Like alcohol in the 1930s, a national addiction problem cannot be solved on the supply side
- as the CIA and DEA learnt in South America.)
Bush Sr. was right when he left Saddam alone after bloodying his nose for invading Kuwait because he understood that Saddam
was playing a vital Tito-esque role in keeping his country and the neighborhood in check. He had no WMDs but wanted his adversaries
in the region to believe otherwise. If Saddam were alive today we wouldn't have an Iraq problem, an ISIS problem, an Iran problem
and a Syria problem.
Smedley Butler 19 Sep 2015 21:12
"Why he didn't stick to his guns since he supposedly was weary of getting the US military involved in yet another quagmire
it could not get out of is beyond anyone's comprehension."
Maybe it's because he hasn't stuck to his guns on anything during the entire time he's been President. He always takes the
path of least resistance, the easy way out, and a "conservative-lite" position that tries to satisfy everyone and actually satisfies
no one.
What an utter disappointment.
DavidEG 19 Sep 2015 20:01
The Machiavellian machinations of the empire become less relevant with every passing day. It's Europeans now who are eating
sweet fruits of "mission accomplished". And they may rebel, and kick out last remnants of their "unity", and sacred NATO alliance
alongside.
PamelaKatz AndyMcCarthy 19 Sep 2015 18:33
Obama said the US would take 10,000 Syrian refugees. When I heard this, I thought surely a zero must be missing from this figure.
And what no one has publicly mentioned is the immigration process for these few will require at least a year of investigative
background checks.
PamelaKatz jvillain 19 Sep 2015 18:15
The largest manufacturers and global distributors of weaponry are the US, the UK, France, Russia and China, in that order.......
also known as the 5 permanent members of the UN Security Council. One should read the UN Charter, which states the purpose and
parameters for forming this international organization. The word 'irony' comes to mind.
ID108738 19 Sep 2015 17:36
Saddam Hussein was a friend while he gassed the Iranians, then he invaded Kuwait; as long as Bin Laden fought the Russians,
he was tolerated and funded; now there's Syria. The only thing needed to take the strategy to new levels of idiocy was a compliant
nincompoop as prime minister in Britain. Will they ever learn?
Toi Jon 19 Sep 2015 17:27
The US understands how to create a market for their military hardware industry but has never understood how their interference
in the Middle East creates mass human misery.
Samantha Stevens 19 Sep 2015 17:09
Quite simply the US is breaking international law by doing this. Every time they do it the world ends up with another shit
storm. If they cannot behave responsibly they should be removed from the security council of the UN. Same goes for the Russians
and any other power abusing their position.
Syria may not have been the epitome of humanity before being destabilised but it is certainly worse now. The same is true of Iraq.
In fact have the US successfully overturned any government they deem un-American (LOL) without it leading to a civil war?
Andy Freeman 19 Sep 2015 17:06
Sorry but you're wrong. The funding a training of rebel forces by the west has done exactly what is was intended to do,
mainly destabilise an entire region, sell billions in extra arms, introduce extra anti-terrorism laws in the west, create more
fear and panic, then destabilise Europe through the mass-migration. This was the plan and it worked!
People will call for a solution, the solution will be tighter integration in Europe, the abolition of national governments,
the removal of cash to stop payments to "terrorists", more draconian spying laws, less from and eventually compulsory registration
and ID for all Europeans.
Meanwhile, we'll have a few more false flag attacks supposedly caused by the refugees and more fear in the news. Open your
eyes
Laurie Calhoun 19 Sep 2015 16:49
"Why he didn't stick to his guns..." Not the most felicitous metaphor in this case, but here is the answer to your question:
To the great disappointment of those of us who voted for Obama, the first time out of hope for change, and the second time
out of fear for someone even worse, he is a weak and chameleonic leader whose policies are determined by the strongest willed
person in the room. Recall that he was also "talked into" bombing Libya!
Sad but true. For more details on how this works, read Daniel Klaidman's book Kill or Capture: The war on terror and the soul
of the Obama presidency.
after the libya disaster the US should have abandoned plans for regim change in syria.
and the US missed a golden opportunity to recitfy what had already become a syria disaster by allowing turkey and the ludicrous
SNC to so thoroughly undermine the Geneva talks.
The U.S and U.K's commitment should be to those in Iraq. Secure, rebuild and invest in helping that Nation come with the
best solution to a, rid itself of ISIS, b, be able to stay that way, c have a government that is inclusive to the needs of
the Sunni's, Shia's and Kurds
Just as I thought that you can not surpass yourself in writing stupid comments, and you are immediately reassured me.
Thus, the US and the UK spent nearly ten years in Iraq and failed to make any of this what you write, but but the whole mess practically
they themselves have created. And now you're saying that if the US and UK troops returned again to Iraq they will be able to fix
everything that they had previously screwed and to create an "inclusive society" of Iraq. So, if the US and UK troops set foot
again on the soil of Iraq, it will be the strongest reason for Iraqi Sunnis to reject the inclusion in the Iraqi society. Iraqi
officials themselves are aware of this very well, and for that reason they are the first to oppose such an intervention.
BAGHDAD - Iraq's prime minister strongly rejected the idea of the U.S. or other nations sending ground forces to his country
to help fight the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, saying Wednesday that foreign troops are "out of the question."...
Al-Abadi, a Shiite lawmaker who faces the enormous task of trying to hold Iraq together as a vast array of forces threaten
to rip it apart, welcomed the emerging international effort, but stressed that he sees no need for other nations to send troops
to help fight ISIS.
"Not only is it not necessary," he said, "We don't want them. We won't allow them. Full stop."
"The only contribution the American forces or the international coalition is going to help us with is from the sky," al-Abadi
said. "We are not giving any blank check to the international coalition to hit any target in Iraq."
He said that the Iraqi military will choose and approve targets, and that the U.S. will not take action without consulting
with Baghdad first. Failure to do so, he warned, risks causing civilian casualties like in Pakistan and Yemen, where the U.S.
has conducted drone strikes for years.
Well, Well, whether i notice here distrust even of Iraqi Shiites toward the US Air Force. On the other hand, they want to strengthen
friendship with neighboring governments in Syria and Iran: ;
Al-Abadi,
however, said that Iraq doesn't have the luxury of testy relations with Damascus, and instead pushed for some sort of coordination.
"We cannot afford to fight our neighbor, even if we disagree on many things," al-Abadi said. "We don't want to enter into
problems with them. For us sovereignty of Syria is very important." The two countries, both of which are allies of Iran, appear
to already be coordinating on some level, and Iraq's national security adviser met Tuesday with Assad in the Syrian capital,
where the two agreed to strengthen cooperation in fighting "terrorism," according to Syria's state news agency.
The U.S. hopes to pull together a broad coalition to help defeat the extremist group, but has ruled out cooperating with
neighboring Iran or Syria, both of which also view ISIS as a threat. Both countries were excluded from a conference this week
in Paris that brought the U.S., France and other allies together to discuss how to address the militant threat.
Al-Abadi said that excluding Damascus and Tehran was counterproductive.
So, it is obvious that the Iraqi government is not against inclusion, but they're for such inclusion, which will exclude the US
and UK of interfering in their internal affairs. I think it is a good step towards reconciliation with their Sunni brothers because
they also seem to support such a thing. And if they managed to do it, maybe Ukrainians will also draw some lesson from it and
be able to reconcile with their brothers Russians.
Ieuan ytrewq 19 Sep 2015 14:04
ytrewq said: "USSR and China supplied a lot of support and material to N. Vietnam."
Very true.
However the Viet Minh were formed and initially supplied by OSS (later called the CIA) forces from the US. In fact Ho Chi Min
had a naive hope that the US would support him in his struggle against foreign occupation of the country after the war (French
colonialism) and made several appeals to President Truman for help (all of which were ignored).
Instead of which, the US supported the French, so Ho asked around and got help from the Russians and Chinese. The rest we know.
marginline AndyMcCarthy 19 Sep 2015 13:54
The UK and France [...], they destroyed Libya.
The causality of which led to an Islamic terror attack on June 26th, 2015 ten kilometers north of the city of Sousse, Tunisia,
where thirty-eight people; thirty of whom were British - were murdered.
sashasmirnoff JoJo McJoJo 19 Sep 2015 13:40
The US is always wrong, and always responsible for every bad thing that happens on Earth.
They are always wrong, and are indeed responsible for almost every geopolitical disaster, usually a result of overthrowing
governments and installing their own tyrant, or else leaving a vacuum that Islamists fill.
Zaarth 19 Sep 2015 13:34
This $500m program cost less than 0.1% of the US annual defense budget. When you're dealing with sums of money as obscenely
large as the US spends on its military, its inevitable that huge quantities will be wasted because you've passed the point where
there's worthwhile things to spend it on. This isn't Bay of Pigs; its a bloated military trying to figure out what to do with
its extra cash. Financially, it doesn't matter if the program is a failure. The cost is minuscule for the budget they have.
In recent years the right has been very concerned with balancing the national budget and shrinking debt. They're willing to
cut spending for social programs and research, but god forbid you take money away from the military. It just wouldn't be patriotic.
marginline -> GeneralMittens 19 Sep 2015 13:14
Great summary GeneralMittens. You have expressed in layman's terms the facts eluded to by journalist Mehdi Hasan when he quantified
the depth of the strategic disaster the Iraq war actually was – or, as the Conservative minister Kenneth Clarke put it back in
a 2013 BBC radio discussion...
the most disastrous foreign policy decision of my lifetime [ ] worse than Suez
The invasion and occupation of Iraq undermined the moral standing of the western powers; empowered Iran and its proxies; heightened
the threat from al-Qaeda at home and abroad; and sent a clear signal to 'rogue' regimes that the best (the only?) means of deterring
a preemptive, US-led attack was to acquire weapons of mass destruction. [ ] Iraq has been destroyed and hundreds of thousands
of innocent people have lost their lives, as the direct result of an unnecessary, unprovoked war that, according to the former
chief justice Lord Bingham, was a...
serious violation of international law
This leads me to the conclusion and I apologies for flogging this dead horse yet again BUT...why are Bush and Bliar not being
detained at The Hague?
Ieuan 19 Sep 2015 12:45
" I actually asked the CIA to analyze examples of America financing and supplying arms to an insurgency in a country that actually
worked out well."
Well, they (the OSS at the time) supplied arms and training to the Viet Minh. When they were fighting the Japanese. Which worked
out well, when they were only fighting the Japanese.
But when they used their expertise (and the arms they had left over) to carry on fighting the French, and later the Americans
themselves, it worked out very well for the Viet Minh, not so well for the French and Americans.
GangZhouEsq 19 Sep 2015 12:27
The first President Bush, who decided not to topple President Saddam Hussein after routing his military forces out of Kuwait,
and instead to leave him in power for the sake of the Middle East stability is, in retrospect, probably the wisest foreign policy
decision ever made by the 41st President, thanks not only to his own personal judgment but also to his foreign policy aides' wisdom.
Though it is now too late for the son to learn from his father, it is still not too late for the present administration to learn
a thing or two from the former senior President Bush.
twoheadednightingale 19 Sep 2015 12:25
Nice to read an article coming at the war from this angle, seems like people are finally starting to question the effectiveness
US foreign policy - ie bombing for peace. However the article is fairly nieve in places - like who actually believes the president
of the US has control over all its intelligence agencies? JFK told the world in april '61, not long after the CIA had set him
up over the bay of pigs and months before being assassinated exactly that. So enough of the 'blame the president' bullshit, it
doesn't get to the root of the problem
GangZhouEsq 19 Sep 2015 12:17
The last major armament, including heavy guns, tanks and armored personnel carriers, as sent by the United States to the now
notoriously incompetent Iraqi military forces is now reportedly in the hands of ISIS after these US-trained Iraqi military personnel
simply abandoned their posts of defense and deserted for their own dear lives, thus leaving the centuries-old, formerly safe haven
of Mosul for Iraqi Christians to the mercy of ISIS. See "60 Minutes", Sunday, September 13, 2015, "Iraq's Christians", at
http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/iraqs-christians-the-shooting-at-chardon-high-king-of-crossfit.
pfox33 19 Sep 2015 12:04
The fact that Putin is coming to Assad's aid is a game-changer that the US was unprepared for. For one thing, it's highlighted
how inconsequential US efforts to bolster "moderate" rebels and degrade ISIS capabilities have been.
From the time it was reported that the Russians were upgrading an airbase at Latakia to the time that it was reported that
they had dispatched helicopters and jets and that the Syrians had started to take the fight to ISIS in Raqqah and Palmyra was
only a matter of weeks. The CIA's program, after a year, had produced five soldiers at a cost of 500 million.
Previously the US had free reign over Syrian skies as did Israel who would bomb what they deemed to be convoys of military
supplies for Hezbollah. Things aren't so free and easy now with the Russians in town. And both the Americans and Israelis now
realize they have to check in with them before them they make sorties over northern Syria.
It's fairly obvious, to me anyway, that the US and Israel's only endgame was the fall of Assad and that ISIS had their tacit
approval. Assad's good relations with Iran and Hezbollah meant he was a marked man. Putin, as is his wont, has complicated their
plans and the results are yet to be seen.
BradfordChild TastySalmon 19 Sep 2015 11:58
"Iraq, Libya, Syria. What do/did these countries have in common? Unfriendly leaders who want nothing to do with the US."
Actually, Gaddafi had shown an interest in engaging with the West-- happened under Bush, but was never really followed up on.
Still, it was headed in a more positive direction until Obama rather arbitrarily decided that Gaddafi had to go.
The real net effect of US intervention in the Middle East has been to destabilize Europe.
Tony Page bravo7490 19 Sep 2015 11:32
I would agree but, as a former intelligence professional, I'd remind you that there's always a story behind the story. Not
that it's a "good" story! But more must be going on there...
ByThePeople 19 Sep 2015 11:12
"Why does the US continually send deadly weapons to the Middle East, make things even more chaotic than they were before and
expect better results the next time?"
It depends on how you define better. To think that these ops take place with the intent to solve an issue is naive, they don't.
You state yourself that the CIA freely admits it's never worked.
The reason the United States funds and arms groups in the Middle East is that 9 times out of 10, these same groups are then
later labeled 'terrorists' and a new US war campaign is justified.
It's not about solving problems - unless the problem being solved is: How do we create more opportunities to half-ass justify
engaging in another war effort so the US coffers can be continuously raped.
Iraq is the perfect example of succeeding in achieving this goal. Years before the Iraq war ever began, US war planners knew
that a power vacuum, attracting the likes of Al-Qaeda and or ISIS would subsequently result. Thus, providing a for a second war,
derived from the first seemingly pointless invasion. The Iraq plan worked fabulously as not only did the newly created enemy materialize,
they also became a much more formidable enemy once they conveniently came into possession of all the military equipment we let
behind.
Point is, they wouldn't continue implementing all these operations if the goal wasn't being achieved.
I will add too - McCain and Co. clamored so hard to arm the al-Assad opposition McCain might as well have claimed that if we
did not, then America would be blown up in its entirety in 48 hours the same as all the other fear mongering done in a effort
to continue the war efforts. Who knows, maybe he did, I try not to listen to him anymore - he needs to be put out to pasture.
TastySalmon 19 Sep 2015 11:10
Iraq, Libya, Syria. What do/did these countries have in common? Unfriendly leaders who want nothing to do with the US.
To suggest that funding radicals to overthrow these governments is a "whoops" or something that will never work is completely
wrong. The plan has worked exactly as planned: destabilize the region by promoting dissent, covertly arm and fund "rebels" through
back-channels (Saudi, UAE, Turkey, etc.), create a new boogeyman (ISIS), and reforge alliances with enemies (AQ) who will then
turn on us again in the future.
The goal is to flatten Syria, and it seems to be working out very well. When you consider what the ultimate outcome will be,
it starts becoming fairly clear: push Russia into a corner militarily and economically, open new LNG pipelines, appease allied
caliphates, and put billions of dollars into the pockets of the wealthiest people.
Their policy is chaotic and consists of repeating the same thing over and over again hoping to get different results, which
is, as we all know, the definition of madness.
I think the problem may well be the bloated MIC in the US. Too many strategic game plans for to many, often contradictory ends.
There are no doubt there are intelligence analysts in the US MIC who have a genuine interest in collecting actual information
and present it honestly. The numerous leaks show us this.
The problem is, this often good information, once it's been spun through political/economic vested interests, think tanks,
cold war jar head imperialists and so forth, it (foreign policy) ends up complete fubar.
To the point where, as you rightly say imo, their foreign policy looks like nothing more than "malicious wily manipulators,
deliberately buggering up the world to make money out of the consequences."
david wright 19 Sep 2015 10:49
For a full century now, from the Balfour Declaration and the secret Sykes-Picot arrangement, the currently-top 'Western' dog
(UK; then US) has been meddling and futzing around in the Middle East, notionally in someone's 'National Interest.'
Oil, access to Empire (route to India etc) and 'national prestige' have been the usual excuses. The result has been unmitigated
disaster.
Ignoring everything up to Gulf 1 (1991) we've a quarter century century of determined scoring of own-goals. This shows no sign
of changing. This is a helter-skelter race to destruction, greatly presently aided and abetted by Asad. So far, it's lasted two-and-a-half
times longer than the combined lengths of both World Wars.
One conclusion is that by any rational assessment, we don't deserve to 'win', whatever that would constitute, any more than
did one side or the other in the 16th -17th century's European religious wars. An equally rational assessment is that we neither
have, nor can. The final rational conclusion, that we find a way to disengage - remarkably simply, by stopping doing all the things
we have been - is a fence refused by the relevant horses - again, mainly US and (as very eager, jr partner indeed) UK.All apart
from the monstrous outcomes for the people in the region, we destabilize our own security then make things worse by tightening
our own internal 'security' at the expense of civil liberties. This gives away, at no gain, the slow and scrabbling accretion
of these, over centuries. And Cameron and co remain sufficiently delusional to want to keep on bombing, but whatever toys they
have, whatever seems a good idea on the day. How can we win? the war isn't on 'terror', but ion logic. Ours. |Neither the US nor
UK governments have ever shown much interest in the fates of the millions of people their casual actions have ended, or made hell.
Of the multiple ironies (shall I count the ways?) attending all this is that Saddam, while a murderous thug, and no friend to
his own people, was doing for us, for free, what we've been unable to do for ourselves - keep Iraq al-Quaida free. AS to his murderous
propensities, clearly far fewer of his people (alone) would have been killed had we not intervened, than we have directly or indirectly
killed. Much of this stems from the fact that during the same recent period (1991 on) there has been no effective counter to Western
power and inclination, which has simply projectile-vomited its baneful influence. Ironic too that the reason we armed and greatly
helped create al-Quaida was to destabilize Russia by getting it bogged down in Afghanistan. Thus the only real fear which limited
US action, was removed when that policy was successful. We removed the brakes as the train was beginning to accelerate down the
incline. Wheeee!
teaandchocolate smifee 19 Sep 2015 10:47
Bush reached the Oval Office not because he was bright, for indeed he was not, he reached the Oval Office because he was
dumb enough not to realise he was clearly easily manipulated, believed in neoliberalism and was rich and rich backers and a rich
Dad.
As to "not having a serious mark against his name", forgive me if I laugh hysterically while crying with pain.
The least said about the moron Reagan and his jolly pal Thatcher the better. Oh how well their unregulated market shenanigans
have turned out.
Crackpots the lot of them.
LethShibbo AndyMcCarthy 19 Sep 2015 10:35
Doing nothing and minding your own business is kinda the same thing.
And the civil war in Syria isn't purely a result of what happened in neighbouring Iraq.
What you're essentially saying is 'America, you've started this fire. Now let it burn.'
pansapians DrDrug 19 Sep 2015 10:28
Well of course ISIS were miffed that the U.S. was paying lip service to not arming ISIS. If you think there was ever any serious
difference between the FSA and ISIS then I hear that the Queen having to sell Buckingham palace due to losses gambling on corgi
races and I can get you a good deal for a cash sale
IrateHarry Havingalavrov 19 Sep 2015 10:17
Make Iraq work first..
ROFLMFAO...
Iraq has been so thoroughly screwed over by the UKUSA clusterfuck, there is no chance of it working ever again.
AndyMcCarthy LethShibbo 19 Sep 2015 10:12
Sorry, the US doesn't HAVE to make a choice, do nothing or bomb. All the US needs to do is mind it's own business.
We wouldn't be having this refugee crises if the US hadn't invaded Iraq.
Tomasgolfer 19 Sep 2015 10:10
For a little insight, see "The Red Line and the Rat Line", by Seymour M. Hersh. Published in the
London Review of Books
The US (and the UK and France for that matter) has been openly arming and training the "rebels". The US had a vote in congress
to openly do just that last year. Covertly, they've been doing it since 2012, again this has been well reported and admitted to.
The problem for the US is their so called "moderates" don't exist. They either switch allegiance once back in Syria or end
up captured or killed just as quickly.
Your user name seems somewhat of a parody.
ArtofLies richardoxford 19 Sep 2015 10:00
How does that compute ?
it computes once one answers this slightly naive question from the article
Why does the US continually send deadly weapons to the Middle East, make things even more chaotic than they were before
and expect better results the next time?
surely at some point people have to realise that chaos is the result the US is looking for.
IrateHarry 19 Sep 2015 09:56
Why does the US continually send deadly weapons to the Middle East
Because that is the backbone business of America - making and selling deadly weapons. Deadlier the better, and no matter whom
they are supplied to. If foreign governments don't buy, does not matter, just supply it to "rebels", and they will be paid for
by the tax payers across the west (not just the American ones, NATO has been set up as the mechanism to tap into European tax
payers as well).
The rest of the bullshit like democracy, freedom, etc are marketeers' crap.
No wonder there's only "four to five" left. This is one big fustercluck!
There was a report in the NY Times last year by a reporter who was kidnapped by the FSA (his mission was to find them and find
out who they were) and handed straight over to Al-Nusra. Twice. He was imprisoned and tortured by them.
In his revealing report, talking of the couple of days he spent back with the "FSA", his release having been negotiated by
the west, he asked the "FSA" fighters about the training they received from the US in Jordan. The reporter put it to the fighters
that the training was to fight AN/IS. Their response? "We lied to the Americans about that".
The WSJ also recently reported that the CIA mission to arm/train "moderates/FSA" had gone totally tits up. Most of them reported
as defecting to one of the number of more extreme groups, some having been captured or killed.
It's been clear for about 2 years now that these so called "moderates" only exist in the deluded minds of western policy makers.
JacobHowarth MushyP8 19 Sep 2015 09:51
ISIS do not control that large a number of people. Many Kurds are fleeing because of IS, that's true, but for the most part
the civil war is a horror show from both sides and Syrians are - rightly - getting the hell out of there.
Or are all of those 'taking advantage of the opportunity to move to Europeans [sic] countries' proposing to do so by going
to Lebanon and Jordan?
The suspiciously unasked questions as to motives of all parties at Benghazi, by all twelve (12) members of the Select Committee,
suggests collaboration to question Hillary Clinton to make her appear responsible only for bungling security and rescue, for the
sole purpose of diverting attention from Hillary Clinton's role in the CIA and the CIA operative Ambassador Stevens' arming of
terrorists. The obvious question to ask would have gone to motives: "What activities were Stevens and the CIA engaged in, when
they were attacked at Benghazi?"
GreenRevolution 19 Sep 2015 09:10
The use of religion(Islam specifically) in politics was first employed by the British in the Middle East in the early parts
of the 20th century. In Iran, we have a saying which says; take off a Mullah's turban and you will find the words "Made in
England" stamped on his head.
nnedjo 19 Sep 2015 09:09
Even more bizarre, the White House is claiming little to do with it. White House spokesman Josh Earnest attempted to distance
Obama from the program, claiming that it was actually the president's "critics" who "were wrong."
Yes, it seems that it has become a tradition of US presidents to boast with the fact that "they do not interfere much in their
own job".
For example, in the last campaign for the GOP candidate for the US president, Jeb Bush defended his brother George for a false
pretext for war in Iraq in the form of non-existent WMD, claiming that everyone else would bring the same decision on the start
of the war, if the same false intelligence would be presented to him.
Thus, the president of the United States can not be held accountable for its decisions if the CIA deliver him false intelligence,
or deliberately conceal the true intelligence. On the other hand, since no one has heard of any person from the CIA which is held
responsible for the wrong war in Iraq, it turns out that nobody is responsible for this war.
And, to us, mere mortals, it remains only to conclude that the most powerful war machine in the world moves "without a driver",
or maybe it is "driven by some automatic pilot".
So, how tragic it is, and yet we can not help laughing. :-)
mikiencolor 19 Sep 2015 09:06
It was obvious to anyone with a modicum of sense from the beginning that the "moderate" rebel training programme would be an
utter disaster. But if the lessons you are taking is that nothing should be done at all, I'd submit you are taking the wrong lessons
from the debacle. Doing nothing at all would have condemned tens of thousands more to genocide. Doing something saved thousands
of Yezidi and saved Rojava.
Wherever the Kurds have been supported they have proved capable, trustworthy and have created functional civil societies. To
broadly and undiscerningly dismiss "sending weapons to the Middle East" is disingenuous. Something must be done, and things can
be done to help rather than harm if there is a sensible policy maker, and doing nothing certainly can be more immoral and evil
than doing something - as I thought we'd learned from Nazi Germany.
The reality is one that neither right wing nor left wing hardliners are willing to face: the Sunni Arab jihadis are the source
of most of the problems and the reason is entirely to do with their noxious genocidal and imperialistic ideology and culture.
They are a source of instability, enmity and fear, and not just in the Middle East either. And they are being supported and bankrolled
by Western allies in the Gulf. The world is a big place with many peoples and ways of thought, and many disagreements - but we
nearly all of us seem able to find a way to coexist in this new globalised technological human civilisation. The jihadis are a
barbarian throwback, a movement of violent primitivists. There is no place for jihadism in the future and they are a threat to
everyone in the world.
ID0020237 -> teaandchocolate 19 Sep 2015 09:01
Insanity I believe, not madness, but what's the difference. The CIA may get it right, but after political interference and
manipulation, they change their conclusions. We've seen this with the Iraq debacle and elsewhere. Just as political interference
in military operations, Viet Nam for example, causes imminent failure, so it is with intelligence ignored.
GeneralMittens 19 Sep 2015 09:01
So basically America invades and bombs the shit out of everywhere and the europeans have to clean up the mess and deal with
the resulting refugee crisis?
At some point America should be held accountable for their actions in the middle east. Whether thats taking their fair share
of refugees from syria or footing the bill for this clusterfuck.
At the very least, other countries should stop enabling their warmongering.
LittleGhost 19 Sep 2015 08:58
US foreign policy in the ME proves Einstein's maxim
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
GreenRevolution 19 Sep 2015 08:57
It has been 14 years since 911 and Bush's so called "war on terror". Not only barbaric wahabi terror has not been defeated
it has grown its barbarism to magnitudes unimaginable previously. Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey have been allowed to arm them
to the teeth by the very states who claim to be waging "war on terror". Since Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey are close allies
of the west and one is a member of NATO, it follows that the west is in fact arming the wahabi terrorists who have turned the
Middle East into a wasteland murdering and looting at will. Millions are now refugees, countries laid to waste and yet Mr Kerry
and Hammond talk as if they have done such magnificent jobs and Russian involvement would only "complicate" things.
teaandchocolate 19 Sep 2015 08:56
I don't think they have the brightest people working in the CIA and the military in the USA. They are probably bullies, relics
from the Cold War, jar-heads, devout 6000-year-old-world Christians, neocons and fruitcakes. Their policy is chaotic and consists
of repeating the same thing over and over again hoping to get different results, which is, as we all know, the definition of madness.
smifee 19 Sep 2015 08:52
To be honest, I don't see any confusion.
Obama comes across as a (comparatively) humane person, and I am sure that his personal preference would be for there to be
no violence in the middle east. As President of the USA, however, he has to set aside his personal preferences and act in the
wider interests of his country.
The US set out to realign the political make up of the middle east. No doubt, they want to make sure Islam will never again
be able attack US interests.
Successive Administrations have controlled the funding and arming of various factions within the Middle East to ensure that
Muslims kill each other and weaken social structures. The US will fill the ensuing political vacuum and economic waste-land with
local leaders loyal to 'freedom, democracy and the American Way'. The next Administration will continue to stoke up the violence,
and the one after, and the one after that until the US is satisfied it has achieved its objective.
It seems almost all of us have to contain our personal views if we want to succeed in our place of work. Even the P of the
USA.
GoldMoney -> celloswiss 19 Sep 2015 08:51
True, in a democracy, moderates don't need bombs and assault weapons.
Consider this - how would you feel if foreign governments were arming and funding the IRA in Northern Ireland?
What if foreign governments recognised the IRA as a legitimate opposition to the Belfast government and gave them bombs to
take over the country?
MichaelGuess 19 Sep 2015 08:46
Who are the real terrorists, the group that bombs indiscriminately, the group that sells arms to both sides, the group that's
lies to its "coalition" partners, the group that spies on all its friends, the group that is happy to be starting wars everywhere
and then blame other parties for their lack of support.
These are the real terrorists.
MushyP8 19 Sep 2015 08:46
ISIS/ISIL is a creation of the US in an attempt to remove Assad. The long-term goal being to isolate Iran before going
in there for the natural resources.
Assad won 89% of the vote in a 74% turnout, how many world leaders have 65% of the population supporting them, hence why Assad
hasn't fallen. Naturally the US refuted this alongside its lapdogs, the EU and the UK, as it disproves all the propaganda they've
been feeding the west. RT news did an interview with Assad which was very insightful.
Putin seems to be the only one who's got his head screwed on in this situation, which is of course leading to hissy fits by
the US because he's proving a stumbling block. More nations need to get behind Putin and Assad, although of course the US wont.
GoldMoney DrDrug 19 Sep 2015 07:52
Moderates do, when the simple act of protesting against the mutilation of children detained by the states secret police
are met with a volley of snipers.
No such evidence has been bought to the UN security council. Even the chemical attack that the media claimed from day one was
Assad's forces doing turned out to be IS rebels actions. The two human rights groups operating in Syria are western funded NGO's
- hardly a neutral point of view given the US's long stated aim of removing Assad (even before 2011).
geedeesee 19 Sep 2015 07:25
This $500 million from June 2014 was for recruiting Syrian rebels seeking to oust President Bashar al-Assad - not to fight
iSIS.
The White House said at the time:
"This funding request would build on the administration's longstanding efforts to empower the moderate Syrian opposition,
both civilian and armed, and will enable the Department of Defense to increase our support to vetted elements of the armed
opposition."
The White House statement specifically refers to the "Syrian opposition". That's the term we use to describe anti-government
forces. This recruitment and training programme has gone awry because the people originally recruited would have been anti-Assad.
Now the Obama administration has tried to change the same people to fighting to ISIS instead. No wonder there's only "four to
five" left. This is one big fustercluck!
kingcreosote 19 Sep 2015 07:12
The CIA has probably been the greatest destabalising force in the world since the second world war and seem like more a
subsidiary of the weapons trade than a government department.
@Bill Instead of looking at this issue using a microscope, reading history about how
Empires fall lends wisdom and insight. Arrighi's book, (I believe) is called "The Long
Twentieth Century." He details how empires and huge trading giants rise and fall.
He details the rise of Italy's banking system during the Middle Ages as well as Spain's
Empire, the Dutch trading hegemonies and most enlightening how the British Empire rose and
fell.
We are seeing tell-tale symptoms of a US that's in trouble with a slow erosion of the US
$$ hegemony. The financial growth of China has begun degrading the US market with hi-tech and
other products. Thusly, you see Tim Cook of Apple apoplectic over China's Huwaii (sp?)
flooding the European market with less expensive computers, cellulars, notebooks, etc.
We see the practical nature of Exxon Mobile that views the short geographic distance
between the US (its military) to Venezuela's oil and mineral-rich soil. An easy pick, rather
than becoming further embroiled in the Middle East.
Targeting Venezuela suggests a geopolitical shift away from the Middle East (and Israel)
to countries that are less expensive to plunder yet with vast resources to be stolen. A
telling sign in the slow deteriorating US Hegemony.
Anglo Zionists have been working this scheme to take Venezuela for many years --
The Chávez Plan to Steal Venezuela's Presidential Election: What Obama Should
Do
September 19, 2012
Ray Walser
Former Senior Policy Analyst
Ray is the former Senior Policy Analyst
Abstract: On October 7, 2012, Venezuela's Hugo Chávez will stand for re-election
against opposition candidate Henrique Capriles. The Venezuelan presidential election
matters to the U.S.: Venezuela is a major oil supplier to the U.S.; Chávez's
anti-American worldview has led to alliances with Iran, Syria, and Cuba; and Chávez
offers safe havens to FARC and Hezbollah. Chávez also works to weaken democratic
governance throughout the Americas. Under the Obama Administration, the U.S. has offered no
comprehensive strategy or policy for dealing with the man who continuously demonstrates his
ruthlessness in implementing an anti-American, socialist, Bolivarian Revolution across the
Americas, but there is still time for the U.S. to support democratic freedoms before the
election. [becuz zio-bolshies luvs them their "democratic freedoms," and if that doesn't
work, bump off Chavez. Cancer. Poor guy. Prolly caught it from Arafat.].
https://www.heritage.org/americas/report/the-chavez-plan-steal-venezuelas-presidential-election-what-obama-should-do
Small counties in LA are essentially defenseless against 300 pound gorilla -- the USA. And neoliberalism still can take
revenge, as it recently did in Argentina and Brazil.
Notable quotes:
"... Agence France-Press ..."
"... As monarchs were forced to realize, they served a function to society, in order to be served by it. It was a two way street. Now finance is having a, "Let them eat cake." moment, as they become more predator than organ of society. It is the heart telling the hands and feet they don't need so much blood and should work harder for what they do get. As well as telling the head it better go along, or else. ..."
"... As this regime change process unfolds, it is difficult not to feel deep sadness for Venezuelans. Chavez failed to lift the poor into a permanent middle class, Maduro failed to protect the accomplishments that had been achieved, and now, the state seems unprepared to cope with what was inevitable. ..."
"... It's a tragic moment in Latin American history. Though Maduro has some backing from the four most Resistant of all Resistors, Russian, China, Cuba and Iran, the nation's geography is too distant for them to flex their full restraint. The lesson of Nicaragua in the 80's should have been learned. ..."
"... "The wealthy few have declared war on the many poor. They should not be allowed to lose their bet and maintain their stakes. The world doesn't work that way. " Unfortunately Bevin I think that is exactly how the world works. The real never ending war is between the haves and have nots. ..."
"... I'm a bit more pessimistic. Washington seems united on getting rid of Maduro and installing a friendly regime. While Maduro can hang in there for awhile, the economic sanctions and covert operations (including sabotage, killings, bribery etc.) will cause severe problems for the government. Maduro is not Assad and lacks friendly neighbors--in fact, Latin America has pretty much returned to direct Washington rule. ..."
"... Like with the attacks on Syria, Trump becomes presidential when he attacks the likes of Iran and Venezuela. ..."
"... I wonder how many of the pro-USA protesters, willing to take the US coin to protest on the street, are also willing to take the US coin to die on the street. ..."
"... A U.S. military incursion could have significant unintended consequences, "including a deterioration of our relationship with currently supportive countries in the region." -- Gustavo Arnavat, a former Obama administration official and a senior advisor to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. ..."
"... I don't justify intervention anywhere (except in D.C. where the Tyranny and Hegemon resides). I point to missed opportunities, failures, corruption and not taking advice from your closest friends (China, Russia, Cuba). If they had brought in the Chinese petroleum experts and Russian economic experts, much of the disaster would have been avoided. When you have a huge enemy and you are weak and relatively small, you need help. Maduro waited until too late. ..."
"... Self-evidently all the governments which have followed the US are not only agreeing but are acting in compliance with a pre-set US timetable. They all waited for the US to give the signal, then like synchronized swimmers performed according to choreography pre-determined by the US. ..."
"... Maduro to his navy --- "Today the future of Venezuela is decided: if it becomes one more star of the United States flag or if it will continue to fly its eight tricolor stars," said the president. ..."
"... As usual, the AZ regime change machine is mightily backed up by billions of puff dollars (printed out of thin air), but among the puppets, the tie-eating Saakashvili is Optimus Prime compared with the Murky Guy's leadership. ..."
"... Ha, how 40 tons of the "barbaric relic" which disappeared from Ukraine after a similar "revolution" got to be mentioned also in relation to Venezuela. ..."
"... Well, the headline of this post is kinda problematic now ("U.S. Coup Attempt In Venezuela Lacks International Support"). I think it was problematic from the start, b, because 1) several countries had already joined with USA; 2) Europe's falling in line was never really in doubt. Note: The EU poodles have toed the line on Russia, Iran*, and now Venezuela. ..."
"... Instead, Guaido called for further "pressure", which is at this point limited to a further tightening of the economic isolation of the country. Canada seems to have anticipated this position by announcing a $53 million aid package which will be focussed on assisting current and future "refugees" headed to Columbia and Brazil. ..."
"... Hugo Chavez has repatriated most of Venezeulan gold whilst still alive. This is how the CIA and the Venezuelan Central Bank could invent the story that a part of this gold is being sent to Russia by Maduro. The 41 ton of Venezuelan gold still remain in Bank of England was a necessary collateral for buying naphtha (for pre-processing oil for export) and subsidised food for the Venezurlan population. ..."
U.S. Coup Attempt In Venezuela Lacks International SupportZanon , Feb 3, 2019
12:44:33 PM |
link
There is little doubt where 'western' media stand with regards to the U.S. led
coup-attempt (vid) in Venezuela. But their view does not reflect the overwhelming
international recognition the Venezuelan government under President Nicolás Maduro
continues to have.
The Rothschild family's house organ, the Economist , changed the background of
its Twitter account to a picture of the Random Dude™, Juan Guaidó, who the U.S.
regime changers
created to run the country.
The supposedly neutral news agencies are no better than the arch-neoliberal
Economist . The Reuters ' Latin America office also changed its header
picture to Random Dude. It reverted that after being called out.
Agence France-Press stated at 11:10 utc yesterday that "tens of thousands" would
join a rally.
Cont. reading: U.S. Coup Attempt In Venezuela Lacks International Support "Lacks
international support" unfortunately doesnt matter much. Regardless, even if a majority of
nations backed the coup doesnt mean its right. Also remember Ukraine coup, majority didnt
support that - but it didnt matter.
Empire is testing the waters of support by its DazzleSpeak about the spinning plate of
Venezuela. I hope it is learning that much of the world no longer wants to live in a world
motivated by fear.
Threat of US global default on Reserve Currency is coming soon because empire is out of
ammunition to maintain and extend supremacy. It will be interesting to see what the fall back
status will be and how maintained....the last thralls of Might-Makes-Right.....one would
hope.
The Bank of England should be holding closer to 30 tonnes of Venezuela's gold, not the 14
tonnes they're holding from Marudo under U.S. orders. The Venezuelan Central Bank (BCV) just
closed a huge gold swap with someone and now should have a total of maybe 2500 gold bars in
the BoE dungeons with their original serial numbers and weights. Custodians of gold like this
can't melt it down and make new bars - that's why state depositors stamp all of them with
serial numbers and precise weights. They want to be sure THEIR gold is there and THEIR gold
is returned.
The news isn't the U.S. demand that it won't be returned. The real news is that neither
the BCV nor the BoE will show anyone the original or current gold bar inventory list.
Usually, nobody cares. But with the U.S. and BoE chosing a new, rightful owner (Random Guy),
they should at the very least provide the inventory list.
It shouldn't be a secret - there is absolutely no security risk. The gold belongs to the
(starving) people of Venezuela. Or at least it did. What are the BoE and Rothschild BCV
hiding? Did they melt it down or sell it to someone else?
I think the deeper conceptual issues need to be considered, that would place the political
and social situations going on around the world, from France, to Venezuela, in perspective.
That money is the social contract enabling mass societies to function, not a commodity to
be mined from society and stored as government debt, to finance militaries, as well as making
the entire economy subservient to the gambling addictions of Wall St.
Humanity went through s similar evolutionary process, when monarchies, as private,
hereditary governments, reached the limits of their effectiveness. As the executive and
regulatory function, government is the central nervous system of society, while finance is
its circulation mechanism, basically the head and heart.
As monarchs were forced to realize, they served a function to society, in order to be
served by it. It was a two way street. Now finance is having a, "Let them eat cake." moment,
as they become more predator than organ of society. It is the heart telling the hands and
feet they don't need so much blood and should work harder for what they do get. As well as
telling the head it better go along, or else.
As it is now, all this government debt is setting the world up for predatory
lending/disaster capitalism, when the governments cannot run up more debt and those holding
the old debt start trading it for more public properties, from mineral rights to roads.
After watching the whole central meeting in Bolívar Avenue, Caracas,live
broadcasted by RTSpanish, which extended for several hours, in which were projected images of
other regions´meetings as well, and after watching live too, broadcasted by the same
channel, the pro-Random Dude meeting only in that rich neighborhood, which extended for about
half an hour and dispersed itslef very fast, I would calculate the numbers at both meetings
just in reverse as you have done.
I would say 200-300 thousands for Maduro´s supporters ( and i would say I get it
short..) and 20-30 thousands ( in the best case )for the Random Dude....
I notice that that photo you are basing your estimations on corresponds only to the front
of the square where the tribune for speechers of the pro-Maduro rallie was placed, but other
people has showed the whole Bolívar Avenue ( the longest and largest in Caracas ) full
of pro-Maduro people as long as the sight can catch ....See for example, Abby Martin´s
capture:
Blooming Barricade , Feb 3, 2019 1:31:10 PM |
link
The European Parliament voted on the Venezuela issue a few days ago, and naturally, the
centre-right wing European People's Party (Merkel, Tusk), the Liberals (Macron), and most of
the so-called Socialists voted to recognise the US coup minion as president. The European
United Left and most of the Greens along with the far-right wing voted against this, which
just shows you that the so-called liberal democrats are bought and paid for employees of
US/NATO multinational imperialism.
With the "Electoral College" method determining winners not in current favor, perhaps the US
MSM may wish to state that by world population, Maduro beats Guaidó by a factor of at
least 4 to 1 in public opinion.
thanks b... it is interesting @5 sashas comments if they can be verified..
@3paveway - it is much as @4 john merryman says, with the additional note that the boe are
essentially stealing venezualas gold in a might makes right type of undemocratic and
undignified way.. i always thought the federal reserve was an extension of the boe... both of
them are privately run, with some minor face saving image that they belong to the respective
gov'ts.. they don't... they are controlled and run by the 1% that are quite okay starving off
venezuala, or going to the next step - military intervention.. they are one sick group of
predators only focused on the god of mammon.. we have to figure out a way to get rid of them
before they completely destroy the planet..
Other than Russia../China/Iran....practically the entire world is under uncle sham's
thumb now.
The outlook is very depressing indeed.
Don't worry, China has an enormous amount of leverage:
"
Boeing predicts China will need more than 7,200 new aircraft worth over $1 trillion in
the 20 years through 2036."
Trump slaps some tariffs, here and there, on a few billion dollars of China's products.
But this is trivial compared to what China can do to Boeing, if Trump really annoys Xi. And
Boeing is just of many US companies that the Chinese can retaliate against.
Juan Guaido enjoys legislative immunity to arrest but Venezuela's Supreme Court barred him
from leaving the country, and the court also approved a request that all of Guaido's
financial assets be frozen.
As we have seen he's rather harmless, without any real power in the country, and so the
longer he's free and obviously ineffective the better. Plus it enables Maduro to appear
reasonable and unafraid of the young man.
The 800 lb elephant in the room here is the reality of class struggle in Caracas. Those
backing the imperialists seem to constitute the majority of Venezuela's small elite of rich
people. Despite their complaints, continual sabotage of the economy and outright treason in
their collaboration with its enemies they have been allowed to hold onto their ill gotten,
and inherited, wealth.
How long is that likely to last?
On the other side of the divide are millions of poor people, their livelihoods and their
democracy at risk. Many of them are having difficulty finding food to feed their families-
the deliberate result of sanctions supported by the wealthy, and the light skinned. Many are
finding it impossible to find the medicines their sick people desperately need.
If Venezuela is to maintain its independence it will do so because the poor refuse to give
it up. Their rewards and the means of rebuilding the economy lie in the wealth of the
rich.
The wealthy few have declared war on the many poor. They should not be allowed to lose
their bet and maintain their stakes. The world doesn't work that way.
As this regime change process unfolds, it is difficult not to feel deep sadness for
Venezuelans.
Chavez failed to lift the poor into a permanent middle class, Maduro failed to protect the
accomplishments that had been achieved, and now, the state seems unprepared to cope with what
was inevitable.
To assume that the Hegemon would keep its hands off the nation, return the gold, leave the
assets in the US untouched, not use the neighboring countries to mount an insurgency, seems
naive at best. The lessons learned from Cuba's 60 year fight for dignity taught the regime nothing.
Watching the tear down of Brazil's socialist leadership (two of them) taught the regime
nothing. Stupidity atop corruption atop a blind belief in an ideology that destroyed the wealth of
the nation (or at least crippled it) has led to the moment of truth. Will enough poor people
and some middle class defend the sovereignty of the nation? And will the military leadership and rank and file remain patriots?
It's a tragic moment in Latin American history. Though Maduro has some backing from the four most Resistant of all Resistors, Russian,
China, Cuba and Iran, the nation's geography is too distant for them to flex their full
restraint. The lesson of Nicaragua in the 80's should have been learned.
Now he faces invasion of convoys of aid on three borders. He must control his borders. The
odds are very long he can.
I am not sure if anyone has posted about this, my apologies if it is redundant. I was
wondering where our Random Dude was now located and what he was up to:
"For the role of President they chose a "poster boy" who doesn't represent anything and
who shouted out something at a meeting with 30,000-40,000 protesters, and after this he
immediately ran to the Embassy of Colombia, where he still sits to this day.
This boy refuses
any contact with the authorities. But since you are being informed by "different media
agencies" and certain authors on "Aftershock" – he communicated with army Generals on
twitter however the Generals are unaware of this but he communicated "in secret". Or he
appointed a certain official from among the immigrants in the US also on twitter "
Your analysis of the economic problems is too harsh directed at Chavez/Marduro and their
"ideology". Nafeez Ahmed's piece in Medium, which has been shared on this forum, does a much
better job describing the perfect storm of coinciding events which have combined to sink
Venezuela's economy. Short of two or three of these events, and the situation could be bad
but not as terrible as it is.
The programs instituted by the government over the past twenty
years remain extremely popular, as was acknowledged yesterday when Guaido made a vague
promise of government "subsidies" to those in need.
The aid caravans will be entirely symbolic, and offer little to nothing to a population of
over 30 million people. The sponsors of the aid caravans are also the same people who have
placed harsh economic sanctions on the country, a fact which will not be lost.
"The wealthy few have declared war on the many poor. They should not be allowed to lose their
bet and maintain their stakes. The world doesn't work that way. " Unfortunately Bevin I think that is exactly how the world works. The real never ending war
is between the haves and have nots.
Why don't the coup mongers name Hillary president of Venezuela. The biggest sore loser of all
time is currently "resting", as they say of out-of-work actors, and desperately wants to be
president of SOMETHING. Not being a native Venezuelan should be no drawback in her case. She
would simply trade her old Cubs/Yankees hat for a big V and probably discover some Venezuelan
great-great-grandmother hanging on her family tree. The coup mongers' current choice, the
sock puppet "Guido" Guadio, is about as legit as a Confederate nickel. And coups are by
definition NOT legit. So haul out those unused "I'm With Her" signs and ship them down there.
In the meantime, she can head for the Venezuelan Embassy and hole up there (a la Julian
Assange?) while awaiting the moment to parachute into Caracas. Mission Accomplished!
Let's remember that the US position is that Guaido is only the interim president of a
transitional government, which suggests that (1) the US has its real choice under cover in
Miami somewhere, possibly a Rubio house guest, or (more likely) (2) the US really doesn't
have a clue about what to do next. Hey, humanitarian aid, that's a good regime change
strategy (??).
Meanwhile they can demonstrate all they want, it never accomplishes anything (MLK
attendance the exception).
I'm a bit more pessimistic. Washington seems united on getting rid of Maduro and installing a
friendly regime. While Maduro can hang in there for awhile, the economic sanctions and covert
operations (including sabotage, killings, bribery etc.) will cause severe problems for the
government. Maduro is not Assad and lacks friendly neighbors--in fact, Latin America has
pretty much returned to direct Washington rule.
I suspect the Trump admin does have a plan for Venezuela and will push it through no
matter what anybody thinks. Trump's opinion of the bobbling heads or trained seal lot that
call themselves heads of state is about the same as he showed the Iraqi's when visiting the
US base in Iraq.
Trumps plans will only be stopped by the likes of Russia, China, Iran ect. No matter how
outlandish the claims of the lies of Bolton or himself are, MSM seems to take it up with all
seriousness.
Like with the attacks on Syria, Trump becomes presidential when he attacks the likes of Iran
and Venezuela.
USAMO . Same Old. First, engineer sanctions through compliant UN, then squeeeeze the
population until they understand the changing electoral requirements and their howl reaches
pitch
-in the meantime picking a favourite pony to front the 'peoples will' regime change op;
training him/her up in latest provocateur methodology and introducing them to their master
racketeers back in DC
then,
with malevolent mercenary gangs helping stirring street protest
offer emergency security assistance and food AID thru sanctified UN allowing your chosen
one to ride the front of the food wagon, saving the day.
Democracy, Yankee Doodle Dandy style.
Scotch Bingeington , Feb 3, 2019 7:16:18 PM |
link
jayc | 33
"The aid caravans will be entirely symbolic, and offer little to nothing to a population
of over 30 million people." Yes, and also those of the 30 million who support the Anti-Maduro movement are probably
not in need of basic foodstuffs, but will want their iPhone and their Netflix account.
I think this is the guy they would like to install--Leopoldo Lopez
Yes, good chance of that, if they could work it somehow (unlikely) and it would tie into
Guaido's reference to Feb 12.
wiki--During the crisis in Bolivarian Venezuela, Leopoldo Lopez called for protests in
February 2014. López, a leading figure in the opposition to the government, began to
lead protests. . .He was arrested on 18 February 2014 and charged with arson and conspiracy;
murder and terrorism charges were dropped. Human rights groups expressed concern that the
charges were politically motivated. . .Leopoldo López, a leading figure in the
opposition to the government, began to lead protests.. .
In September 2015, he was found
guilty of public incitement to violence through supposed subliminal messages, being involved
with criminal association, and was sentenced to 13 years and 9 months in prison. He was later
transferred to house arrest on 8 July 2017 after being imprisoned for over three years.
re: Trump's state of the union speech Tuesday night.
on VZ-- from WaPo Trump will
"... actively intervene in the political upheaval in Venezuela, aides said in previewing the
speech Friday."
here
I wonder how many of the pro-USA protesters, willing to take the US coin to protest on the
street, are also willing to take the US coin to die on the street.
I suspect these protests
are paper thin at best, the poor are unlikely to support the rich without financial
inducement, but the one thing the coup organisers have is plenty of money. If these are
indeed poor people protesting (who knows) then it would be interesting to know what quantity
of cash was offered to the participants. Maybe 30 USD for half a day of protesting? Decent
money for the protesters, easily affordable to the USA.
A countries domestic issues need to be kept separate from US attacks on a country. US is
not attacking Venezuela for humanitarian reasons. This is aside from the fact as Jen pointed
out, that Venezuela's economy has been under attack from the US for some time.
The expectations that a country that is under US attack should have a leader that is far
above average in terms of ability to withstand the economic attack of a superpower with
perfect, far seeing decisions is unreasonable. People lie that are rare and only occurred
occasionally in history.
What does matter is that the Maduro government is doing the best it can for its people,
rather than working in the interests of a foreign power to the detriment of its people.
As for a better leader - one that will resist the US and provide a better economy for
Venezuela while under US sustained attack....
Bart Hansen@20 - Oil production costs are complex, secret and mostly lies. With that caveat,
Venezuela was thought to have about $10 - $15 production costs on average. That includes
their light and medium crude, and zero investment in repair of their distribution networks.
Well over half of Venezuela's reserves are Orinco extra-heavy, sour crude. Essentially tar
sands, but buried 500m - 1500m deep that require solvent or steam extraction. So (guess)
maybe $30-range/bbl for production. Those tar sand oils produced are so heavy that they need
pre-processing and dilution before they can be refined or exported. Naphtha or other refined
products are used as dilutent and cost maybe $55/bbl today, but were around $75/bbl last
October.
U.S. refineries were pretty much the only ones paying cash for their 500,000 b/d of
Venezuelan crude. Trump's sanctions not only ban those imports, but also ban the 120,000 b/d
of naphtha and other dilutents we sold them.
Interesting to note that part of Trump's beat-down of the Venezuela little people is a ban
on the 120,000 b/d of dilutent last week. That will completely shut down their exports. They
could find another source of naphtha, but that source will be looking for $6.6 million a day
hard cash for it.
Maduro needs to sell Venezuela's gold to buy naphtha to export oil for ANY revenue. The
$2.5 billion the Bank of England can't find and won't deliver is meant to hasten the food
riots and CIA-orchestrated coup. But Mercy Corps is setting up concentration camps on the
Colombian border and we're delivering food aid, so the U.S. is really the hero, here. God
bless America! Obey, or die.
expectations that a country that is under US attack should have a leader that is far above
average
I appreciate your discussion of leaders, but let's not forget the people. It has been the
goal of the US to demonize leaders and go after them. Ho Chi Minh, Saddam Hussein, Bashar
Assad, Osama Binh Laden etc. etc.
But it's the people not the leaders that have formed the most resistance. It took the US Army
little time to track down big bad Saddam Hussein, but Baghdad wasn't pacified (controlled)
for four years, and people elsewhere in Iraq fought the "liberators" like the very devil.
Apply that to Venezuela. Heck, you and me, we'd all respond the same way given a foreign
invasion, right?
There are some warnings about avoiding dialogue and pushing a Venezuelan military option. The
opposition's courting of military officers carries potential dangers. If it leads to a schism
in the armed forces, that could be disastrous for the country, said Michael Shifter,
president of the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington policy anti-VZ forum.
A U.S. military incursion could have significant unintended consequences, "including a
deterioration of our relationship with currently supportive countries in the region." --
Gustavo Arnavat, a former Obama administration official and a senior advisor to the Center
for Strategic and International Studies.
Juan Guaido hopes that the United States will not use force in Venezuela, instead limiting
pressure on Maduro's government to diplomatic and economic measures, the Colombian newspaper
Tiempo reported Monday. . . here
If corruption or mismanaging a country's economy were justification for foreign
intervention to remove a leader, Israelis should be lobbying Washington DC to remove Binyamin
Netanyahu as their prime minister since he and his wife Sara have been charged by police for
fraud and bribery.
Indeed, depending on how it defines corruption, whether vaguely or narrowly, and on what
criteria, the US would have its work cut out for decades hunting down "corrupt"
politicians.
If I'm not mistaken the front page of the Washington Post, today showed a picture of a large pro-government protest, and
claimed that it was an opposition protest.
This will be something to watch and may be part of the answer to why now, why did the US go
after Venezula at this point. I think it is because Venezuela was historically captive to US
refineries, but no longer. India is capable of refining Venezuela oil and has a significant demand for it. If India
decides to do ignore the sanctions, I wonder if the US will impound tankers going to
India?
And tankers to China as China is building a refinery just for Venezula oil, it isn't
scheduled to come online until 2020, but perhaps China will push to make it happen asap?
to Paveway lV and Bart Hansen. It doesn't really matter the breakeven point for Venezuelan
oil if they can't access the money. I just read (15 minutes ago) on Seeking Alpha, that Trump
et al is blocking payments for Venezuelan oil. He is trying to force the payments into a
blocked account such that Maduro's gov cannot access it but Guido can. There are still
refineries in the US which need Venezuelan heavy crude to blend w/ the frack=crap. Volero is
stated to have two tankers which it cannot unload due to the payments issue. This is an
unusual way to provide "humanitarian aid."
Sorry I cannot give a link - the Seeking Alpha site seems to be done.
Re the Indian refineries, I believe they are currently buying Iranian oil so they may
resist sanctions against Venezuela. However, according to Paeway lV, without naphtha
Venezuela cannot pump oil. Maybe a swap with someone?
The aid caravans will be entirely symbolic, and offer little to nothing to a population
of over 30 million people.
I agree, Guaido's aid caravans will probably be something like 5% humanitarian and 95% for
smuggling arms into Venezuela.
However, China has the largest container ships in the world. Just one visit from a vessel
like the COSCO Shipping Universe could deliver more than 20,000 truckloads of stuff, which
would probably dwarf anything Guano is envisaging (even if his "humanitarian" caravans were
totally legitimate).
Would the Empire let it happen? I have little doubt that Bolton's sick enough to want to
stop a true humanitarian effort, but as I'm not as sick as Bolton is (at least I hope so), I
have a hard time imagining what excuse he could use to stop it -- especially after Guano's
caravans.
I don't justify intervention anywhere (except in D.C. where the Tyranny and Hegemon
resides). I point to missed opportunities, failures, corruption and not taking advice from your
closest friends (China, Russia, Cuba).
If they had brought in the Chinese petroleum experts and Russian economic experts, much of
the disaster would have been avoided. When you have a huge enemy and you are weak and relatively small, you need help. Maduro waited until too late.
There were many object lessons for better practices and better preparation for the
inevitable. Now, we can hope and pray that the Venezuelan people demonstrate their own will to resist
against intervention and regime change. Because if it comes, their wealth will be stolen
completely.
A sane government which really wanted the best for the people would've launched a crash
program to break free of the oil dependency which not only guarantees one remains at best a
US-colonized power, but which requires the physical destruction of one's own land and the
basis of one's future life.
I'm not just saying this about Venezuela, although destroying the Orinoco rain forest
necessary for our very lives in order to extract heavy oil is perhaps the most extreme
example on Earth of the self-destroying paradigm.
But any country afflicted with the oil curse ought to treat the deposits like very hot
radioactive waste and enforce at all costs a Chernobyl-type non-go zone. This also would
conserve critical ecological zones like the Amazon. If enough places did that simultaneously
it would prevent the US from "opening them up" by force and accelerate the collapse of the
empire and its globalization system. But any place which doesn't do this automatically
becomes a de facto colony and a target for aggression intended to turn them into a de jure
colony, as we see in this case.
From the evidence it seems that in the end a thing like Bolivarianism isn't offering any
real alternative to the US paradigm. Both equally want to burn every last fossil BTU's worth,
pump every last CO2 molecule, hack down and burn every last acre of forest. Both are on the
same mass murder-suicide ride.
Do the Venezulean people really want a better life than this? The American people sure
seem to want the worst.
It's my understanding that when Chavez was President, he did bring Chinese and Vietnamese
agriculture experts to Venezuela to study the country's potential for growing food staples.
The Vietnamese experts identified areas which originally had been considered by their former
wealthy owners as unproductive but which turned out to be ideal for growing rice.
Although Venezuela imports huge quantities of wheat from Russia, it's doubtful that
Russians can give much agricultural advice as Venezuela lies in the tropics and Russia does
not.
On the other hand, the way the Venezuelan government appears to be dealing with Juan Guaido, allowing him to shout in the wilderness and making himself look a fool, seems similar
to the way Russia treats Alexei Navalny, letting him make an idiot of himself, and might
suggest that Venezuela is taking advice from or copying Russia in this respect. Russia also
sold two S300 anti-missile defence systems to Venezuela though I do not know how often the
Venezuelans maintain them.
Thanks for the correction. I tend to skim history. I think the point still stands, that
politicians can't be left in control of the money supply. The impulse to abuse it is strong
The Maduro demo seems to have taken place on the Avenue Bolivar which is about 20 meters wide
and about 1.25 km long. The demo crowd appears to be packed so there could be 50 to 80
thousand people there. I haven't been able to locate the Guiado demo but it is possibly in
the upscale Las Mercedas district not far from the US Embassy. The photos of the Guiado are
generally close in and from a low angle which tends to exagerate the numbers. Even so, it
does not appear to be as densely packed / extensive as the Maduro event.
More disgraceful news:
Major EU nations recognize Guaido as Venezuela's acting president
Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Denmark, Austria, the Netherlands and Germany's
coordinated move came after the expiry of an eight-day deadline set last weekend for Maduro
to call a new election. Austria and Lithuania also lined up behind the self-declared
interim president Guaido.
Self-evidently all the governments which have followed the US are not only agreeing but
are acting in compliance with a pre-set US timetable. They all waited for the US to give the
signal, then like synchronized swimmers performed according to choreography pre-determined by
the US.
These European governments already were illegitimate in that they had surrendered
sovereignty to the EU. Now they're doubly illegitimate in that they've openly exposed
themselves as nothing but extensions of US policy. These are puppet governments.
So I'm not just joking when I say that any truly radical parties in Europe, "right" or
"left", should declare these fake national governments illegitimate and set up their own
shadow presidencies/premierships and governments.
Maduro to his navy --- "Today the future of Venezuela is decided: if it becomes one more star of the United
States flag or if it will continue to fly its eight tricolor stars," said the president.
"You saw the failed coup plotters yesterday ... with the gringo flag behind them. They no
longer hide, they no longer hide their identity. They no longer hide what they have inside,
they want to deliver our country, in pieces, to the gringo empire and the local
oligarchies."
Haiti is one of the countries that recognize Guano as president of Venezuela---
"Haiti's economy is reeling as unemployment & hunger is on the rise due to corruption
& mismanagement under #PHTK ruling party. On Jan. 31 many businesses shuttered in many
parts of the country as exchange rate of HT Gourd to US Dollar reached highest inflation
yet.
Exactly. They are US puppets.
Most obviously what we see is the most obvious top puppets in the EU; nordic, western europe
and the baltics. The meddling is apparent, still the corrupt EU/US governments keep on with their
aggression:
Russ: "So I'm not just joking when I say that any truly radical parties in Europe, "right" or
"left", should declare these fake national governments illegitimate and set up their own
shadow presidencies/premierships and governments."
This, so totally this, so absolutely and definitively this.
All these governments should be discarded and sued for breaching international norms.
Spain is specially ridiculous. Isn't Sanchez supposed to be "left", and not liberal scum?
I would not call the puppet character a Random Guy because he was clearly groomed for the
role over a number of years. Yet, he is obviously not a very capable guy because his claim to
fame is, for example, stringing a metal wire across the road to kill random motorbike riders
in a poor part of Caracas. Selection of such an untalented Murky Guy is another sign of the
desperation of the AngloZionist empire to grab resources after the Syrian debacle.
As usual,
the AZ regime change machine is mightily backed up by billions of puff dollars (printed out
of thin air), but among the puppets, the tie-eating Saakashvili is Optimus Prime compared
with the Murky Guy's leadership.
Ha, how 40 tons of the "barbaric relic" which disappeared from Ukraine after a similar
"revolution" got to be mentioned also in relation to Venezuela. And nobody even remembers
what happened to all the Ghadaffi's gold. You do not really think that hippo's Wooden Puppet
Guido (lol) will ever get to even touch this banksters' secret favorite? It will just
disappear into the Atlantic Ocean on the way to Guido. Just as carpenter Mastro Geppetto
carved his Pinocchio out of block of wood, so did the hippo carve his Guido out of another
block of rotting wood. This is why only the Italians, of all Europeans, could see through the
mischievous acts of the long-nosed Guido and his puppet master.
Yesterday I linked to an AP article
here on Charge d' Affaires James "Jimmy" Story who manages the US embassy in Caracas. In
the article was: "Chief among his interlocutors is Rafael Lacava, governor of the central
state of Carobobo, who presented him with a painting of two joined fists in the colours of
the U.S. and Venezuelan flags that now hangs in the entrance to Story's official residence in
Caracas."
So I looked up Rafael Lacava's twitter here which includes some glimpses of local
life in the small state of Carabobo just west of Caracas. Carabobo State was the site of the
Battle of Carabobo on 24 June 1821, a decisive win in the war of independence from Spain, and
was led by Simón Bolívar. The capital city of this state is Valencia, which is
also the country's main industrial center.
The tweets include some from Nicolas Maduro, including warnings that Trump wants another
Vietnam in Venezuela.
Russia has no choice than to boost the military to stand with Maduro. That may bring violence
including possibly the physical elimination of Guaido. That may trigger the West to intervene
militarily like in Libya without a UNSC approval.
That would rally the Venezualians around Maduro and the army.
As the american ( except the neocons) are against a war at their borders, Trump will have to
find a compromise.
Ultimately the Russians may push for a military takeover once they identified a military
leader.
Trump will have to accept that if he does not want to invade Venezuela
Well, the headline of this post is kinda problematic now ("U.S. Coup Attempt In Venezuela
Lacks International Support"). I think it was problematic from the start, b, because 1) several countries had already
joined with USA; 2) Europe's falling in line was never really in doubt. Note: The EU poodles have toed the line on Russia, Iran*, and now Venezuela.
=
* EU countries pretend to support JCPOA but have dragged their feet. Most commercial
interests will not cross USA and the EU states have done little to discourage that. It has
been announced that EuroSWIFT will be for humanitarian aid only.
It is important to remain as properly informed and nuanced as possible given the difficulties
of access to reliable information in the world of today. I, therefore, contribute this link
in which a Venezuelan sociologist presents a different view of the support Maduro has in the
country : https://therealnews.com/stories/defusing-the-crisis-a-way-forward-for-venezuela.
I have no way of knowing the de facto situation, as most of us. I do, however, have
experience of such turmoil, divisions, rallies and counter-rallies, lies, threats, etc. from
a country, my country, that, sadly, no longer exists. I would say - we should listen to the
people on the ground, always with a critical mind.
The implications of this barbaric assault for our world as whole, for South America and,
of course, for Venezuela, are far reaching. The role of the EU and its largest states in this
barbarism has been consistent and in the service of the US and European ruling class. The EU
has been supporting, promoting and awarding the Venezuelan opposition for a long time. Now it
is recognising the self-proclaimed person who wants to make Venezuela great again. Yet, my
fellow Europeans are more or less silent, more or less indifferent and very badly informed.
Being European is becoming a source of deep shame and we Europeans are starting to make
excuses when we introduce ourselves, just like the better informed Americans have been doing.
But there is a good side to this - all the masks have fallen off now. Everyone can see what
the US and the EU really are.
If not today, tomorrow their barbarism will be recognised as their defining feature. One
would think that change is then inevitable, even if long overdue.
One piece in the article you linked to does not seem to match events. Maduro was elected
president in what international observers said were a fair election. A number of opposition
figures chose, of there own accord not to run in the election.
Your article says the majority of Venezuelans do not want Maduro as president, yet on a few
weeks ago he was elected as president in a fair election.
@3 PavewayIV The Bank of England gold issue is pretty crazy to think about. If the Bank of
England can just give the Gold of a nation to a guy who just declares himself President
without running for office than their is no rule of law regarding the gold stored by BoE from
other countries. Surely any country that has assets held by other major UK, US banks should
be moving towards retrieving their gold after this fiasco. Its very scary to see the highest
parts of the banking sector; use of the Swift system; access to the US dollar and seizure of
assets by the US courts being increasingly used in the aggressions of the empire. If Maduro
is able to weather this storm and Venezuela is returned to some degree of stasis than Maduro
will ask to repatriate all of the gold held in Europe in order to prevent its future seizure
in case a Chavista is elected again next election. The BoE can't possibly just steal it based
on politics can it?
One sure sign of Maduro's popularity in Venezuela is the calls for a new election in which
Maduro is not allowed to participate. This was the same for Assad in Syria. The US know that
in any free and fair election, both Assad and Maduro would at anytime gain the most
votes.
Although Maduro was only recently inaugurated, the elections were May 2018. Maduro received
67.8 percent of the vote with a 46 percent voter turnout the next runners received 20.9 and
10.8 percent of the vote.
The wikipedia page has the vote numbers, but the article mostly goes on about Maduro blocking
opposition. If this were correct, then the US would not be vehemently opposed to Maduro even
running in another election.
What an embarrassment - Canada refused press credentials to Sputnik, RIA Novosti, and Telesur
for its multi-national celebration of "smart power".
"Richard Walker, a spokesman for Canada's foreign ministry, explained to Sputnik's
correspondent that the agency was denied accreditation because it "hasn't been cordial" with
Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs Chrystia Freeland in the past."
That is, the Russian media published factually correct information which demonstrated
Freeland as less than candid regarding her family history. Her feelings were hurt, and her
feelings apparently take precedent in her position as Foreign Minister.
The rational and sensible way forward in Venezuela - international mediation - continues
to be rejected by the "interim president", the USA, and Canada's pet Lima Group project.
Instead, Guaido called for further "pressure", which is at this point limited to a further
tightening of the economic isolation of the country. Canada seems to have anticipated this
position by announcing a $53 million aid package which will be focussed on assisting current
and future "refugees" headed to Columbia and Brazil.
Hugo Chavez has repatriated most of Venezeulan gold whilst still alive. This is how the
CIA and the Venezuelan Central Bank could invent the story that a part of this gold is being
sent to Russia by Maduro. The 41 ton of Venezuelan gold still remain in Bank of England was a
necessary collateral for buying naphtha (for pre-processing oil for export) and subsidised
food for the Venezurlan population.
Once Western sanctions are imposed on a country, the only
way anyone would trade with such credit-worthless country, is if hard assets are used as
collateral. Maduro will probably be forced to send a part of the repatriated gold to Shanghai
gold market, forcing the Venezuelan Centeral Bank by military force to dispatch, or the
Venezuelans will go hungry. Having national gold under the Central Bank control is only
second worst to having it under control of the Central Bank's foreign masters in BoE.
I cannot think of one Central Bank in all the countries of the World which is not under
the control of the international (Jewish) banking cartel. If the "revolution" succeeds, the
gold inside Venezuela will disappear just as the gold in BoE. Since 2017 Bolshevik
Revolution, the revolutions are fueled by gold.
@Peter AU 1 | Feb 4, 2019 1:28:47 PM | 85 Maduro was elected president in what international observers said were a fair
election.
The May 20, 2018 election it self was declared "free and fair" here by four independent committees who had
camped outside the polling places but (as in the US and other "democratic" countries) the
shenanigans leading up to the election called the fairness into question.
The elections were boycotted by the Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) coalition of opposition
parties and dismissed as illegitimate by the United States, the European Union (EU), and14
Western Hemisphere nations (the Lima Group). So we can say for sure that the boycott was a
tool to later call the elections illegitimate .
[How ironic since the US doesn't even (de facto) allow "opposition parties" (plural) but
restricts the quadrennial show to two look-alike parties, which Ralph Nader referred to as
tweedledum and tweedledee. Obviously neither of the two parties would ever boycott an
election.]
UN rapporteur to Venezuela and expert on international law Alfred de Zayas:
"I believe in democracy. I believe in the ballot box. If you believe in democracy, you can
not boycott an election. The name of the game is that you actually have to put your candidate
out and expect that the people will vote for you or against you," he said, referring to the
Venezuelan opposition's decision to boycott the recent presidential election, which saw
Maduro re-elected. . . here
Secretary of state John Kerry. "During my most recent visit to Kyiv, I was deeply impressed
by all you have accomplished in the more than two years since the Revolution of Dignity."
Secretary of state Pompeo. "The United States stands with the brave people of Venezuela as
they strive for a return to dignity and democracy."
This lot haven't much of an imagination. Just reading thev lines that were printed for the
Ukraine show.
The whole US and vassal States plan was for a swift removal of Maduro, that did not happen
thus time now runs in Maduro's favor. There won't a military invasion of Venezuela, there is
no apetite for that in Latin America at all, nor the vast majority of the Latin Americans
would support any sort of military intervention, even if head of States would promote it,
thus leaving two options for the US:
1) A cruise missile attack to destroy Venezuela Military and Government building, following a
false flag prepared and conducted by CIA's and Guaidó's supporter, such an attempt
would be received worldwide as an aggression, though the false flag would be used as
justification, that would not be tolerated by many many countries and could escalate in a
ugly way, and or
2) An attempt to assassinate Maduro to be blamed on the Venezuelan Military thus leaving
Guaidó out of it to legitimize him for power.
The second is a very likely scenario and may be in progress as of now.
"... This reminds me of the gerontocrats of the Soviet Politburo in the worst stagnation years who had to appoint the likes of Chernenko to top positions. ..."
"... The one thing the Mr MAGA's administration has in common with the late Brezhevian Politburo is its total inability to get anything done. My wife refers to the folks in the White House (since Dubya came to power) as the " gang that couldn't shoot straight " and she is right (she always is!): they just can't really get anything done anymore – all their half-assed pseudo-successes are inevitably followed by embarrassing failures. ..."
Remember the almost universal reaction of horror when Bolton was appointed as National
Security Advisor? Well, apparently, either the Neocons completely missed that, which I doubt,
or they did what they always do and decided to double-down by retrieving Elliott Abrams from
storage and appointing him US Special Envoy to Venezuela. I mean, yes, of course, the Neocons
are stupid and sociopathic enough not to ever care about others, but in this case I think that
we are dealing with a "Skripal tactic": do something so ridiculously stupid and offensive that
it places all your vassals before a stark choice: either submit and pretend like you did not
notice or, alternatively, dare to say something and face with wrath of Uncle Shmuel (the
Neocon's version of Uncle Sam).
And it worked, in the name of "solidarity" or whatever else, the most faithful lackeys of
the Empire immediate fell in line behind the latest US aggression against a sovereign nation in
spite of the self-evident fact that this aggression violates every letter of the most sacred
principles of international law. This is exactly the same tactic as when they make you clean
toilets with a toothbrush or do push-ups in the mud during basic training: not only to
condition you to total obedience, but to make you publicly give up any semblance of
dignity.
...Finally, these appointments also show that the senior-Neocons are frightened and paranoid
as there are still plenty of very sharp junior-Neocon folks to chose from in the US, yet they
felt the need to get Abrams from conservation and place him in a key position in spite of the
strong smell of naphthalene emanating from him. This reminds me of the gerontocrats of the
Soviet Politburo in the worst stagnation years who had to appoint the likes of Chernenko to top
positions.
The one thing the Mr MAGA's administration has in common with the late Brezhevian
Politburo is its total inability to get anything done. My wife refers to the folks in the White
House (since Dubya came to power) as the " gang that couldn't shoot straight "
and she is right (she always is!): they just can't really get anything done anymore – all
their half-assed pseudo-successes are inevitably followed by embarrassing failures.
Seriously, Ron Paul or Tulsi Gabbard speaking of democracy is one thing, but having
gangsters and psychopathic thugs like Pompeo, Bolton or Abrams in charge really sends a message
and that message is that we are dealing with a banal case of highway robbery triggered by two
very crude considerations:
First, to re-take control of Venezuela's immense natural
resources. Second, to prove to the world that Uncle Shmuel can still, quote , " pick up some small crappy
little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business ",
unquote.
The obvious problem is that 1) nobody takes the US seriously because 2) the US has not been
capable of defeating any country capable of resistance since many decades already. The various
US special forces, which would typically spearhead any invasion, have an especially appalling
record of abject failures every time they stop posing for cameras and have to engage in real
combat. I assure you that nobody in the Venezuelan military cares about movies like "Rambo" or
"Delta Force" while they carefully studied US FUBARs in Somalia, Grenada, Iran and elsewhere.
You can also bet that the Cubans, who have had many years of experience dealing with the (very
competent) South African special forces in Angola and elsewhere will share their experience
with their Venezuelan colleagues.
US Sanctions as a Tool To Perpetuate Neocolonialism
by Nauman
Sadiq Posted on
February 02, 2019 January 31, 2019 It's an evident fact that neocolonial powers are ruled
by behemoth corporations whose wealth is measured in hundreds of billions of dollars, far
more than the total GDP of many developing nations. The status of these multinational
corporations as dominant players in international politics gets official imprimatur when the
Western governments endorse the congressional lobbying practice of so-called "special
interest" groups, which is a euphemism for corporate interests.
Since the Western governments are nothing but the mouthpiece of business interests on
international political and economic forums, therefore any national or international entity
which hinders or opposes the agenda of corporate interests is either coerced into accepting
their demands or gets sidelined.
In 2013, the Manmohan Singh's government of India had certain objections to further
opening up to the Western businesses. The Business Roundtable, which is an informal
congregation of major US businesses and together holds a net wealth of $6 trillion, held a
meeting with the representatives of the Indian government and literally coerced it into
accepting unfair demands of the Western corporations.
The developing economies, such as India and Pakistan, are always hungry for foreign direct
investment (FDI) to sustain economic growth, and this investment mostly comes from the
Western corporations. When the Business Roundtables or the Paris-based International Chamber
of Commerce (ICC) form pressure groups and engage in "collective bargaining" activities, the
nascent and fragile developing economies don't have a choice but to toe their line.
State sovereignty, that sovereign nation states are at liberty to pursue independent
policies, particularly economic and trade policies, is a myth. Just like the ruling elites of
the developing countries which maintain a stranglehold and monopoly over domestic politics;
similarly, the neocolonial powers and multinational corporations control international
politics and the global economic order.
Any state in the international arena which dares to transgress the trade and economic
policies laid down by neocolonial powers and multinational corporations becomes an
international pariah like Castro's Cuba, Mugabe's Zimbabwe; or more recently, Maduro's
Venezuela.
Venezuela has one of the largest known oil reserves in the world. Even though the
mainstream media's pundits hold the socialist policies of President Nicolas Maduro
responsible for economic mismanagement in Venezuela, fact of the matter is that
hyperinflation in its economy is the effect of US sanctions against Venezuela which have been
put in place since the time of late President Hugo Chavez.
Another case in point is Iran which was cut off from the global economic system from 2006
to 2015, and then again after May last year when President Donald Trump annulled the Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), because of Iran's supposed nuclear ambitions. Good for
Iran that it also has one of the largest oil and gas resources, otherwise it would have been
insolvent by now.
Such is the power of Washington-led global financial system, especially the banking
sector, and the significance of petrodollar, because the global oil transactions are pegged
in the US dollars all over the world, and all the major oil bourses are also located in the
Western financial districts.
The crippling "third party" economic sanctions on Iran from 2006 to 2015 have brought to
the fore the enormous power that the Western financial institutions and the petrodollar as a
global reserve currency wields over the global financial system.
It bears mentioning that the Iranian nuclear negotiations were as much about Iran's
nuclear program as they were about its ballistic missile program, which is an equally
dangerous conventional threat to Israel and the Gulf's petro-monarchies, just across the
Persian Gulf.
Despite the sanctions being unfair, Iran felt the heat so much that it remained engaged in
negotiations throughout the nearly decade-long period of sanctions, and such was the
crippling effect of those "third party" sanctions on Iran's economy that had it not been for
its massive oil and gas reserves, and some Russian, Chinese and Turkish help in illicitly
buying Iranian oil, it could have defaulted due to the sanctions.
Notwithstanding, after the brutal assassination of Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate
in Istanbul on October 2, and the clear hand of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman in the
murder, certain naïve political commentators of the mainstream media came up with a
ludicrous suggestion that Washington should impose sanctions on Saudi Arabia.
As in the case of aforementioned Iran sanctions, sanctioning Saudi Arabia also seems
plausible; however, there is a caveat: Iran is only a single oil-rich state which has 160
billion barrels of proven oil reserves and has the capacity to produce 5 million barrels per
day (mbpd) of crude oil.
On the other hand, the Persian Gulf's petro-monarchies are actually three oil-rich states.
Saudi Arabia with its 266 billion barrels of proven oil reserves and 10 mbpd of daily crude
oil production, and UAE and Kuwait with 100 billion barrels of proven reserves, each, and 3
mbpd of daily crude oil production, each. Together, the share of the Gulf Cooperation
Countries (GCC) amounts to 466 billion barrels, almost one-third of the world's 1477 billion
barrels of total proven oil reserves.
Therefore, although imposing economic sanctions on the Gulf states might sound like a good
idea on paper, the relationship between the Gulf's petro-monarchies and the industrialized
world is that of a consumer-supplier relationship. The Gulf states are the suppliers of
energy and the industrialized world is its consumer, hence the Western powers cannot sanction
their energy suppliers and largest investors.
If anything, the Gulf's petro-monarchies had "sanctioned" the Western powers in the past
by imposing the oil embargo in 1973 after the Arab-Israel War. The 1973 Arab oil embargo
against the West lasted only for a short span of six months during which the price of oil
quadrupled, but Washington became so paranoid after the embargo that it put in place a ban on
the export of crude oil outside the US borders, and began keeping sixty-day stock of reserve
fuel for strategic and military needs.
Recently, some very upbeat rumors about the shale revolution have been circulating in the
media. However, the shale revolution is primarily a natural gas revolution. It has increased
the probable recoverable resources of natural gas by 30%. The shale oil, on the other hand,
refers to two starkly different kinds of energy resources: firstly, the solid kerogen –
though substantial resources of kerogen have been found in the US Green River formations, the
cost of extracting liquid crude from solid kerogen is so high that it is economically
unviable for at least a hundred years; secondly, the tight oil which is blocked by shale
– it is a viable energy resource but the reserves are so limited, roughly 4 billion
barrels in Texas and North Dakota, that it will run out in a few years.
More than the size of oil reserves, it is about per barrel extraction cost, which
determines the profits for the multinational oil companies. And in this regard, the Persian
Gulf's crude oil is the most profitable. Further, regarding the supposed US energy
independence after the purported shale revolution, the US produced 11 million barrels per day
(bpd) of crude oil in the first quarter of 2014, which was more than the output of Saudi
Arabia and Russia, each of which produces around 10 million bpd. But the US still imported
7.5 million bpd during the same period, which was more than the oil imports of France and
Britain put together. More than the total volume of oil production, the volume which an
oil-producing country exports determines its place in the hierarchy of petroleum and the
Gulf's petro-monarchies constitute the top tier of that pyramid.
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.
This article from 2017 looks like it was written yesterday. Trump betrayal of his elctorate on multiple levels, essentially on all
key poin of his election program mkes him "Republican Obama".
What is interesting about Trump foreign policy is his version of neoliberal "gangster capitalism" on foreign arena:
might is right principle applied like universal opener. Previous administrations tried to put a lipstick on the pig. Trump
does not even bother.
In terms of foreign policy, and even during the transition before Trump's inauguration, there were other, more disturbing signs
of where Trump would be heading soon. When Fidel Castro died on November 25, 2016,
Trump seemed jubilant as if he had somehow been vindicated, and took the opportunity to slander Castro as a "brutal dictator" who
"oppressed his own people" and turned Cuba into a "totalitarian island".
Notable quotes:
"... However, when he delivered his inaugural address on January 20, 2017, Trump appeared to reaffirm his campaign themes of anti-interventionism. In particular he seemed to turn the government's back on a long-standing policy of cultural imperialism , stating: "We do not seek to impose our way of life on anyone". In addition he said his government would "seek friendship and goodwill with the nations of the world," and he understood the importance of national sovereignty when he added, "it is the right of all nations to put their own interests first". ..."
"... Yet when it came to Russia, Trump could have instantly removed sanctions that were imposed by Obama in his last weeks in office -- an irresponsible and dangerous act by Obama, where foreign policy was used as a partisan tool in the service of shoring up a crummy conspiracy theory about "Russian hacking" in order to deny the Democrats any culpability in their much deserved defeat. ..."
"... The entire conflict with Russia that has developed in recent years, on the US side, was totally unnecessary, illogical, and quite preventable. ..."
"... Just two weeks after violating his promise to end the US role as the world's policeman and his vow to extricate the US from wars for regime change, Trump sold out again. "I love WikiLeaks -- " -- this is what Trump exclaimed in a speech on October 10, 2016. Trump's about-face on WikiLeaks is thus truly astounding. ..."
"... AP: If I could fit a couple of more topics. Jeff Sessions, your attorney general, is taking a tougher line suddenly on Julian Assange, saying that arresting him is a priority. You were supportive of what WikiLeaks was doing during the campaign with the release of the Clinton emails. Do you think that arresting Assange is a priority for the United States? ..."
"... AP: But that didn't mean that you supported what Assange is doing? ..."
"... AP: Can I just ask you, though -- do you believe it is a priority for the United States, or it should be a priority, to arrest Julian Assange? ..."
"... While there is no denying the extensive data about the severe impacts of NAFTA on select states and industries in the US, witnessed by the closure of tens of thousands of factories and the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs, there is little support for the claim that Canada and Mexico, as wholes, have instead fared well and that the US as a whole has been the loser thanks to them. ..."
"... Since NAFTA was implemented, migration from Mexico to the US skyrocketed dramatically. US agricultural industries sent millions of Mexican farmers into food poverty, and ultimately drove them away from agriculture ..."
"... As for per capita GDP, so treasured by economists, NAFTA had no positive impact on Mexico -- in fact, per capita GDP is nearly a flat line for the entire period since 1994. Finally, Trump does not mention that in terms of the number of actual protectionist measures that have been implemented, the US leads the world . ..."
"... To put Trump's position on NAFTA in bold relief, it is not that he is decidedly against free trade. In fact, he often claims he supports free trade, as long as it is "fair". However, his notion of fairness is very lopsided -- a trade agreement is fair only when the US reaps the greater share of benefits. ..."
"... As argued in the previous section, if Trump is to be the newfound champion of this imperialism -- empire's prodigal son -- then what an abysmally poor choice he is ..."
"... On the one hand, he helped to unleash US anti-interventionism (usually called "isolationism" not to call it anti-imperialism, which would then admit to imperialism which is still denied by most of the dominant elites). On the other hand, in trying to now contain such popular sentiment, he loses credibility -- after having lost credibility with the groups his campaign displaced. ..."
"... As for Trump's domestic opposition, what should be most pertinent are issues of conflict of interest and nepotism . Here members of Trump's base are more on target yet again, when they reject the presence of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner in the White House ("we didn't elect Ivanka or Jared"), than are those distracted by identity politics. ..."
"... As Trump leverages the presidency to upgrade the Trump family to the transnational capitalist class, and reinforces the power of US imperialism which that class has purchased, conflict of interest and nepotism will be the main political signposts of the transformation of the Trump presidency, but they could also be the targets for a refined strategy of opposition. ..."
Trump could have kept quiet, and lost nothing. Instead what he was attacking -- and the irony was missed on his fervently right
wing supporters -- was someone who was a leader in the anti-globalist movement, from long before it was ever called that. Fidel Castro
was a radical pioneer of independence, self-reliance, and self-determination.
Castro turned Cuba from an American-owned sugar plantation and brothel, a lurid backwater in the Caribbean, into a serious international
actor opposed to globalizing capitalism. There was no sign of any acknowledgment of this by Trump, who instead chose to parrot the
same people who would vilify him using similar terms (evil, authoritarian, etc.). Of course, Trump respects only corporate executives
and billionaires, not what he would see as some rag-tag Third World revolutionary. Here Trump's supporters generally failed, using
Castro's death as an opportunity for tribal partisanship, another opportunity to attack "weak liberals" like Obama who made minor
overtures to Cuba (too little, too late).
Their distrust of "the establishment" was nowhere to be found this time: their ignorance of Cuba and their resort to stock clichés
and slogans had all been furnished to them by the same establishment they otherwise claimed to oppose.
Just to be clear, the above is not meant to indicate any reversal on Trump's part regarding Cuba. He has been consistently anti-communist,
and fairly consistent in his denunciations of Fidel Castro. What is significant is that -- far from overcoming the left-right divide
-- Trump shores up the barriers, even at the cost of denouncing others who have a proven track record of fighting against neoliberal
globalization and US interventionism. In these regards, Trump has no track record. Even among his rivals in the Republican primaries,
senators Ted Cruz and Rand Paul had more of an anti-interventionist track record.
However, when he delivered his inaugural address
on January 20, 2017, Trump appeared to reaffirm his campaign themes of anti-interventionism. In particular he seemed to turn the
government's back on a long-standing policy of
cultural imperialism
, stating: "We do not seek to impose our way of life on anyone". In addition he said his government would "seek friendship and goodwill
with the nations of the world," and he understood the importance of national sovereignty when he added, "it is the right of all nations
to put their own interests first".
Russia
Yet when it came to Russia, Trump could have instantly removed sanctions that were imposed by Obama in his last weeks in office
-- an irresponsible and dangerous act by Obama, where foreign policy was used as a partisan tool in the service of shoring up a crummy
conspiracy theory about "Russian hacking" in order to deny the Democrats any culpability in their much deserved defeat.
Instead, Trump continued the sanctions, as if out of meek deference to Obama's policy, one founded on lies and antagonism
toward Trump himself. Rather than repair the foul attempt to sabotage the US-Russian relationship in preparation for his presidency,
Trump simply abided and thus became an accomplice. To be clear,
Trump has done precisely nothing
to dampen the near mass hysteria that has been manufactured in the US about alleged -- indeed imaginary -- "Russian intervention".
His comments, both during the electoral campaign and even early into his presidency, about wanting good relations with Russia,
have been replaced by Trump's admissions that US relations with Russia are at a low point (Putin agreed: "I would say the level of
trust [between Russia and the US] is at a workable level, especially in the military dimension, but it hasn't improved. On the contrary,
it has degraded " and his spokesman called
the relations " deplorable ".)
Rather than use the power of his office to calm fears, to build better ties with Russia, and to make meeting with Vladimir Putin
a top priority, Trump has again done nothing , except escalating tensions. The entire conflict with Russia that has
developed in recent years, on the US side, was totally unnecessary, illogical, and quite preventable. Russia had actively facilitated
the US' war in Afghanistan for over a decade, and was a consistent collaborator on numerous levels. It is up to thinking American
officials to honestly explain what motivated them to tilt relations with Russia, because it is certainly not Russia's doing. The
only explanation that makes any sense is that the US leadership grew concerned that Russia was no longer teetering on the edge of
total socio-economic breakdown, as it was under the neoliberal Boris Yeltsin, but has instead resurfaced as a major actor in international
affairs, and one that champions anti-neoliberal objectives of enhanced state sovereignty and self-determination.
WikiLeaks
Just two weeks after violating his promise to end the US role as the world's policeman and his vow to extricate the US from
wars for regime change, Trump sold out again.
"I love WikiLeaks --
" -- this is what Trump exclaimed in a speech on October 10, 2016. Trump's about-face on WikiLeaks is thus truly astounding.
After finding so much use for WikiLeaks' publication of the Podesta emails, which became incorporated into his campaign speeches,
and which fuelled the writing and speaking of journalists and bloggers sympathetic to Trump -- he was now effectively declaring WikiLeaks
to be both an enemy and a likely target of US government action, in even more blunt terms than we heard during the past eight years
under Obama. This is not mere continuity with the past, but a dramatic escalation. Rather than praise Julian Assange for his work,
call for an end to the illegal impediments to his seeking asylum, swear off any US calls for extraditing and prosecuting Assange,
and perhaps meeting with him in person, Trump has done all of the opposite. Instead we learn that Trump's administration may
file arrest charges against Assange
. Mike Pompeo ,
chosen by Trump to head the CIA, who had himself
cited WikiLeaks as a reliable source of proof about how the Democratic National Committee had rigged its campaign, now declared
WikiLeaks to be a "
non-state hostile intelligence service ," along with vicious personal slander against Assange.
Trump's about-face on WikiLeaks was one that he defended in terms that were not just a deceptive rewriting of history, but one
that was also fearful -- "I don't support or unsupport" WikiLeaks, was what Trump was now saying in his dash for the nearest exit.
The backtracking is so obvious in this
interview
Trump gave to the AP , that his shoes must have left skid marks on the floor:
AP: If I could fit a couple of more topics. Jeff Sessions, your attorney general, is taking a tougher line suddenly on
Julian Assange, saying that arresting him is a priority. You were supportive of what WikiLeaks was doing during the campaign with
the release of the Clinton emails. Do you think that arresting Assange is a priority for the United States?
TRUMP: When Wikileaks came out never heard of Wikileaks, never heard of it. When Wikileaks came out, all I was just saying
is, "Well, look at all this information here, this is pretty good stuff." You know, they tried to hack the Republican, the RNC,
but we had good defenses. They didn't have defenses, which is pretty bad management. But we had good defenses, they tried to hack
both of them. They weren't able to get through to Republicans. No, I found it very interesting when I read this stuff and I said,
"Wow." It was just a figure of speech. I said, "Well, look at this. It's good reading."
AP: But that didn't mean that you supported what Assange is doing?
TRUMP: No, I don't support or unsupport. It was just information .
AP: Can I just ask you, though -- do you believe it is a priority for the United States, or it should be a priority, to
arrest Julian Assange?
TRUMP: I am not involved in that decision, but if Jeff Sessions wants to do it, it's OK with me. I didn't know about that decision,
but if they want to do it, it's OK with me.
First, Trump invents the fictitious claim that WikiLeaks was responsible for hacking the DNC, and that WikiLeaks also tried to
hack the Republicans. Second, he pretends to be an innocent bystander, a spectator, in his own administration -- whatever others
decide, is "OK" with him, not that he knows about their decisions, but it's all up to others. He has no power, all of a sudden.
Again, what Trump is displaying in this episode is his ultimate attachment to his class, with all of its anxieties and its contempt
for rebellious, marginal upstarts. Trump shuns any sort of "loyalty" to WikiLeaks (not that they ever had a working relationship)
or any form of gratitude, because then that would imply a debt and therefore a transfer of value -- whereas Trump's core ethics are
those of expedience and greed (he admits that much).
This move has come with a cost , with members of Trump's support base openly denouncing the betrayal. 6
NAFTA
On NAFTA , Trump claims he has not changed his position -- yet, from openly denouncing the free trade agreement and promising
to terminate it, he now vows only to seek modifications and amendments, which means supporting NAFTA. He appeared to be
awfully quick to obey the diplomatic pressure of Canada's Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, and Mexico's President, Enrique Peńa
Nieto. Trump's entire position on NAFTA now comes into question.
While there is no denying the extensive data about the severe impacts of NAFTA on select states and industries in the US,
witnessed by the closure of tens of thousands of factories and the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs, there is little support
for the claim that Canada and Mexico, as wholes, have instead fared well and that the US as a whole has been the loser thanks to
them.
This really deserves to be treated at length, separately from this article. However, for now, let's keep in mind that when
Trump complains about Canadian softwood lumber and dairy exports to the US, his argument about NAFTA is without merit. Neither commodity
is part of the NAFTA agreement.
Moreover, where dairy is concerned, the problem is US overproduction.
Wisconsin alone has more
dairy cows than all of Canada . There is a net surplus , in the US' favour, with respect to US dairy exports to Canada.
Overall,
the US has a net surplus in the trade in
goods and services with Canada. Regarding Mexico, the irony of Trump's denunciations of imaginary Mexican victories is that he
weakens his own criticisms of immigration.
Since NAFTA was implemented,
migration from Mexico to
the US skyrocketed dramatically. US agricultural industries sent millions of Mexican farmers into food poverty, and ultimately
drove them away from agriculture.
As for per capita GDP, so treasured by economists, NAFTA had no positive impact on Mexico -- in fact,
per capita GDP is nearly a flat
line for the entire period since 1994. Finally, Trump does not mention that in terms of the number of actual protectionist measures
that have been implemented, the
US leads the world .
To put Trump's position on NAFTA in bold relief, it is not that he is decidedly against free trade. In fact, he often claims
he supports free trade, as long as it is "fair". However, his notion of fairness is very lopsided -- a trade agreement is fair only
when the US reaps the greater share of benefits.
His arguments with respect to Canada are akin to those of a looter or raider. He wants to block lumber imports from Canada, at
the same time as he wants to break the Canadian dairy market wide open to absorb US excess production. That approach is at the core
of what defined the US as a "new empire" in the 1800s. In addition, while Trump was quick to tear up the TPP, he has said nothing
about TISA and TTIP.
Mexico
Trump's argument with Mexico is also disturbing for what it implies. It would seem that any
evidence of production
in Mexico causes Trump concern. Mexico should not only keep its people -- however many are displaced by US imports -- but it should
also be as dependent as possible on the US for everything except oil. Since Trump has consistently declared his antagonism to OPEC,
ideally Mexico's oil would be sold for a few dollars per barrel.
China
Trump's turn on China almost provoked laughter from his many domestic critics. Absurdly, what figures prominently in most renditions
of the story of Trump's change on China (including his own), is a big piece of chocolate cake. The missile strike on Syria was, according
to Wilbur Ross, the "
after-dinner entertainment ". Here, Trump's loud condemnations of China on trade issues were suddenly quelled -- and it is not
because chocolate has magical properties. Instead it seems Trump has been willing to settle on
selling out citizens' interests , and
particularly those who voted for him, in return for China's assistance on North Korea. Let's be clear: countering and dominating
North Korea is an established favourite among neoconservatives. Trump's priority here is fully "neocon," and the submergence of trade
issues in favour of militaristic preferences is the one case where neoconservatives might be distinguished from the otherwise identical
neoliberals.
North Korea
Where North Korea is concerned, Trump chose to manufacture a "
crisis ". North Korea has actually done nothing
to warrant a sudden outbreak of panic over it being supposedly aggressive and threatening. North Korea is no more aggressive than
any person defending their survival can be called belligerent. The constant series of US military exercises in South Korea, or near
North Korean waters, is instead a deliberate provocation to a state whose existence the US nearly extinguished. Even last year the
US Air Force publicly boasted of having
"nearly destroyed" North Korea -- language one would have expected from the Luftwaffe in WWII. The US continues to maintain roughly
60,000 troops on the border between North and South Korea, and continues to refuse to formally declare an end to the Korean War and
sign a peace treaty
. Trump then announced he was sending an "armada" to the Korean peninsula, and boasted of how "very powerful" it was. This was in
addition to the US deploying the THAAD missile system in South Korea. Several of his messages in Twitter were written using highly
provocative and threatening language. When asked if he would start a war, Trump glibly replied: "
I don't know. I mean, we'll see ". On another occasion Trump stated, "There is a chance that we could end up having a
major, major conflict with North
Korea. Absolutely". When the world's leading military superpower declares its intention to destroy you, then there is nothing you
can do in your defense which anyone could justly label as "over the top". Otherwise, once again Trump posed as a parental figure,
the world's chief babysitter -- picture Trump, surrounded by children taking part in the "Easter egg roll" at the White House, being
asked about North Korea and responding "they gotta behave". Trump would presume to teach manners to North Korea, using the only tools
of instruction that seem to be the first and last resort of US foreign policy (and the "defense" industry): bombs.
Syria
Attacking Syria , on purportedly humanitarian grounds, is for many (including vocal supporters) one of the most glaring contradictions
of Trump's campaign statements about not embroiling the US in failed wars of regime change and world policing. During the campaign,
he was in favour of Russia's collaboration with Syria in the fight against ISIS. For years he had condemned Obama for involving the
US in Syria, and consistently opposed military intervention there. All that was consigned to the archive of positions Trump declared
to now be worthless. That there had been a change in Trump's position is not a matter of dispute --
Trump made the point himself :
"I like to think of myself as a very flexible person. I don't have to have one specific way, and if the world changes, I go
the same way, I don't change. Well, I do change and I am flexible, and I'm proud of that flexibility. And I will tell you, that
attack on children yesterday had a big impact on me -- big impact. That was a horrible, horrible thing. And I've been watching
it and seeing it, and it doesn't get any worse than that. And I have that flexibility, and it's very, very possible -- and I will
tell you, it's already happened that my attitude toward Syria and Assad has changed very much. And if you look back over the last
few weeks, there were other attacks using gas. You're now talking about a whole different level".
Bending to the will of the prevailing Cold War and neo-McCarthyist atmosphere in the US, rife with anti-Russian conspiracy theories,
Trump found an easy opportunity to score points with the hostile media, ever so mindful as he is about approval ratings, polls, and
media coverage. Some explain Trump's reversals as arising from his
pursuit
of
public adulation -- and while the media play the key role in purveying celebrity status, they are also a stiff bastion of imperialist
culture. Given his many years as a the host of a popular TV show, and as the owner of the Miss Universe Pageant, there is some logical
merit to the argument. But I think even more is at work, as explained in paragraphs above.
According to Eric Trump it was at the urging of Ivanka that Donald Trump decided to strike a humanitarian-militarist pose. He
would play the part of the Victorian parent, only he would use missiles to teach unruly children lessons about violence. Using language
typically used against him by the mainstream media, Trump now felt entitled to pontificate that Assad is "evil," an "
animal ," who would
have
to go . When did he supposedly come to this realization? Did Assad become evil at the same time Trump was inaugurated? Why would
Trump have kept so silent about "evil" on the campaign trail? Trump of course is wrong: it's not that the world changed and he changed
with it; rather, he invented a new fiction to suit his masked intentions. Trump's supposed opponents and critics, like the Soros-funded
organizer of the women's march Linda Sarsour, showed her
approval of even more drastic
action by endorsing messages by what sounded like a stern school mistress who thought that 59 cruise missiles were just a mere "slap
on the wrist". Virtually every neocon who is publicly active applauded Trump, as did most senior Democrats. The loudest
opposition
, however, came from Trump's
own base , with a number of articles
featuring criticism from Trump's
supporters , and one conservative publication calling him outright a "
weakling
and a political ingrate ".
Members of the Trump administration have played various word games with the public on intervention in Syria. From unnamed officials
saying the missile strike was a "one off," to named officials
promising more if there
were any other suspected chemical attacks (or use of barrel bombs -- and this while the US dropped the biggest non-nuclear bomb in
existence on Afghanistan); some said that
regime change was not the goal,
and then others made it clear that was the ultimate
goal ; and then Trump saying, "Our policy is the same, it hasn't changed.
We're not going into Syria " -- even
though
Trump himself greatly increased the number of US troops he deployed to Syria , illegally, in an escalation of the least
protested invasion in recent history. Now we should know enough not to count this as mere ambiguity, but as deliberate obfuscation
that offers momentary (thinly veiled) cover for a
renewal of neocon policy .
We can draw an outline of Trump's liberal imperialism when it comes to Syria, which is likely to be applied elsewhere. First,
Trump's interventionist policy regarding Syria is one that continues to treat that country as if it were terra nullius ,
a mere playground for superpower politics. Second, Trump is clearly continuing with the
neoconservative agenda and its hit list of
states to be terminated by US military action, as famously confirmed by Gen. Wesley Clark. Even Trump's strategy for justifying the
attack on Syria echoed the two prior Bush presidential administrations -- selling war with the infamous "incubator babies" myth and
the myth of "weapons of mass destruction" (WMDs). In many ways, Trump's presidency is thus shaping up to be either the seventh term
of the George H.W. Bush regime, or the fifth straight term of the George W. Bush regime. Third, Trump is taking ownership of an extremely
dangerous conflict, with costs that could surpass anything witnessed by the war on Iraq (which also continues). Fourth, by highlighting
the importance of photographs in allegedly changing his mind, Trump has placed a high market value on propaganda featuring dead babies.
His actions in Syria will now create an effective demand for the pornographic trade in pictures of atrocities. These are matters
of great importance to the transnational capitalist class, which demands full global penetrability, diminished state power (unless
in the service of this class' goals), a uniformity of expectations and conformity in behaviour, and an emphasis on individual civil
liberties which are the basis for defending private property and consumerism.
Venezuela
It is very disturbing to see how Venezuela is being framed as ripe for US intervention, in ways that distinctly echo the lead
up to the US war on Libya. Just as disturbing is that Trump's Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, has a clear conflict of interest
regarding Venezuela, from his recent role as CEO of
Exxon
and its conflict with the government of Venezuela over its nationalization of oil. Tillerson is, by any definition, a clear-cut
member of the transnational capitalist class. The Twitter account of the
State
Department has a battery of messages sternly lecturing Venezuela about the treatment of protesters, while also pontificating
on the Venezuelan Constitution as if the US State Department had become a global supreme court. What is impressive is the seamless
continuity in the nature of the messages on Venezuela from that account, as if no change of government happened between Obama's time
and Trump's. Nikki Haley, Trump's neocon ambassador to the UN, issued
a statement that read like it had been written by her predecessors, Samantha Power and Susan Rice, a statement which in itself
is an unacceptable intervention in Venezuelan internal affairs. For Trump's part, from just days
before the election, to a couple of weeks
after his inauguration, he has sent explicit
messages of support for anti-government
forces in Venezuela. In February, Trump
imposed sanctions on Venezuela's
Vice President. After Syria and North Korea, Venezuela is seeming the likely focus of US interventionism under Trump.
NATO
Rounding out the picture, at least for now (this was just the first hundred days of Trump's presidency), was Trump's outstanding
reversal on NATO -- in fact, once again he stated the reversal himself, and without explanation either: "
I said it was obsolete. It's no longer obsolete ". This came just days after the US missile strike against Syria, and just as
Ivanka Trump was about to represent
his government at a meeting of globalist women, the
W20 . NATO has served as
the transnational military alliance at the service of the transnational capitalist class, and particularly the military and political
members of the TCC. 7
Saving Neoliberalism?
Has Trump saved neoliberal capitalism from its ongoing demise? Has he sustained popular faith in liberal political ideals? Are
we still in the dying days of liberalism
? If there had been a centrally coordinated plan to plant an operative among the ranks of populist conservatives and independents,
to channel their support for nationalism into support for the persona of the plant, and to then have that plant steer a course straight
back to shoring up neoliberal globalism -- then we might have had a wonderful story of a masterful conspiracy, the biggest heist
in the history of elections anywhere. A truly "rigged system" could be expected to behave that way. Was Trump designated to take
the fall in a rigged game, only his huge ego got in the way when he realized he could realistically win the election and he decided
to really tilt hard against his partner, Hillary Clinton? It could be the basis for a novel, or a Hollywood political comedy. I have
no way of knowing if it could be true.
Framed within the terms of what we do know, there was relief by the ousted group of political elites and the liberal globalist
media at the sight of Trump's reversals, and a sense that
their vision had been vindicated.
However, if they are hoping that the likes of Trump will serve as a reliable flag bearer, then theirs is a misguided wishful thinking.
If someone so demonized and ridiculed, tarnished as an evil thug and racist fascist, the subject of mass demonstrations in the US
and abroad, is the latest champion of (neo)liberalism, then we are certainly witnessing its dying days.
Is Trump Beneficial for Anti-Imperialism?
Once one is informed enough and thus prepared to understand that anti-imperialism is not the exclusive preserve of the left (a
left which anyway has mostly shunned it over the last two decades), that it
did not originate with the
left , and that it has a long and distinguished history
in the US itself , then we can move
toward some interesting realizations. The facts, borne out by surveys and my own online immersion among pro-Trump social media users,
is that one of the
significantreasons
why Trump won is due to the growth in popularity of basic anti-imperialist principles (even if not recognized under that name): for
example, no more world policing, no transnational militarization, no more interventions abroad, no more regime change, no war, and
no globalism. Nationalists in Europe, as in Russia, have also pushed forward a basic anti-imperialist vision. Whereas in Latin America
anti-imperialism is largely still leftist, in Europe and North America the left-right divide has become blurred, but the crucial
thing is that at least now we can speak of anti-imperialism gaining strength in these three major continents. Resistance against
globalization has been the primary objective, along with strengthening national sovereignty, protecting local cultural identity,
and opposing free trade and transnational capital. Unfortunately, some anti-imperialist writers (on the left in fact) have tended
to restrict their field of vision to military matters primarily, while almost completely neglecting the economic and cultural, and
especially domestic dimensions of imperialism. (I am grossly generalizing of course, but I think it is largely accurate.) Where structures
such as NAFTA are concerned, many of these same leftist anti-imperialists, few as they are, have had virtually nothing to say. It
could be that they have yet to fully recognize that the transnational capitalist class has, gradually over the last seven decades,
essentially purchased the power of US imperialism. Therefore the TCC's imperialism includes NAFTA, just as it includes open borders,
neoliberal identity politics, and drone strikes. They are all different parts of the same whole.
As argued in the previous section, if Trump is to be the newfound champion of this imperialism -- empire's prodigal son --
then what an abysmally poor choice he is. 8
On the one hand, he helped to unleash US anti-interventionism (usually called "isolationism" not to call it anti-imperialism,
which would then admit to imperialism which is still denied by most of the dominant elites). On the other hand, in trying to now
contain such popular sentiment, he loses credibility -- after having lost credibility with the groups his campaign displaced.
In addition to that, given that his candidacy aggravated internal divisions in the US, which have not subsided with his assumption
of office, these domestic social and cultural conflicts cause a serious deficit of legitimacy, a loss of political capital. A declining
economy will also deprive him of capital in the strict sense. Moreover, given the kind of persona the media have crafted, the daily
caricaturing of Trump will significantly spur anti-Americanism around the world. If suddenly even Canadian academics are talking
about boycotting the US, then the worm has truly turned. Trump can only rely on "hard power" (military violence), because "soft power"
is almost out of the question now that Trump has been constructed as a barbarian. Incompetent and/or undermined governance will also
render Trump a deficient upholder of the status quo. The fact that nationalist movements around the world are not centrally coordinated,
and their fortunes are not pinned to those of Trump, establishes a well-defined limit to his influence. Trump's antagonism toward
various countries -- as wholes -- has already helped to stir up a deep sediment of anti-Americanism. If Americanism is at the heart
of Trump's nationalist globalism, then it is doing all the things that are needed to induce a major heart attack.
As for Trump's domestic opposition, what should be most pertinent are issues of conflict of interest and nepotism
. Here members of Trump's base are more on target yet again, when they reject the presence of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner
in the White House ("we didn't elect Ivanka or Jared"), than are those distracted by identity politics.
As Trump leverages the presidency to upgrade the Trump family to the transnational capitalist class, and reinforces the power
of US imperialism which that class has purchased, conflict of interest and nepotism will be the main political signposts of the transformation
of the Trump presidency, but they could also be the targets for a refined strategy of opposition.
"... The technocratic paradigm also tends to dominate economic and political life. The economy accepts every advance in technology with a view to profit, without concern for its potentially negative impact on human beings. Finance overwhelms the real economy. The lessons of the global financial crisis have not been assimilated, and we are learning all too slowly the lessons of environmental deterioration. Some circles maintain that current economics and technology will solve all environmental problems, and argue, in popular and non-technical terms, that the problems of global hunger and poverty will be resolved simply by market growth. ..."
From Encyclical Letter Laudato Si' of the Holy Father Francis, On Care For Our Common Home:
The basic problem goes even deeper: it is the way that humanity has taken up technology and its development according to an undifferentiated
and one-dimensional paradigm. This paradigm exalts the concept of a subject who, using logical and rational procedures, progressively
approaches and gains control over an external object. This subject makes every effort to establish the scientific and experimental
method, which in itself is already a technique of possession, mastery and transformation. It is as if the subject were to find
itself in the presence of something formless, completely open to manipulation. Men and women have constantly intervened in nature,
but for a long time this meant being in tune with and respecting the possibilities offered by the things themselves. It was a
matter of receiving what nature itself allowed, as if from its own hand. Now, by contrast, we are the ones to lay our hands on
things, attempting to extract everything possible from them while frequently ignoring or forgetting the reality in front of us.
Human beings and material objects no longer extend a friendly hand to one another; the relationship has become confrontational.
This has made it easy to accept the idea of infinite or unlimited growth, which proves so attractive to economists, financiers
and experts in technology. It is based on the lie that there is an infinite supply of the earth's goods, and this leads to the
planet being squeezed dry beyond every limit. It is the false notion that "an infinite quantity of energy and resources are available,
that it is possible to renew them quickly, and that the negative effects of the exploitation of the natural order can be easily
absorbed"
"The technocratic paradigm also tends to dominate economic and political life. The economy accepts every advance
in technology with a view to profit, without concern for its potentially negative impact on human beings. Finance overwhelms the
real economy. The lessons of the global financial crisis have not been assimilated, and we are learning all too slowly the lessons
of environmental deterioration. Some circles maintain that current economics and technology will solve all environmental problems,
and argue, in popular and non-technical terms, that the problems of global hunger and poverty will be resolved simply by market
growth.
They are less concerned with certain economic theories which today scarcely anybody dares defend, than with their actual
operation in the functioning of the economy. They may not affirm such theories with words, but nonetheless support them with their
deeds by showing no interest in more balanced levels of production, a better distribution of wealth, concern for the environment
and the rights of future generations. Their behavior shows that for them maximizing profits is enough. Yet by itself the market
cannot guarantee integral human development and social inclusion. At the same time, we have "a sort of 'superdevelopment' of a
wasteful and consumerist kind which forms an unacceptable contrast with the ongoing situations of dehumanizing deprivation", while
we are all too slow in developing economic institutions and social initiatives which can give the poor regular access to basic
resources. We fail to see the deepest roots of our present failures, which have to do with the direction, goals, meaning and social
implications of technological and economic growth."
"... with minor exceptions the 5 eye countries are no different.. ..."
"... His History has often been applied as analogous to the post-cold war era, with the US empire usually compared to the arrogant, bullying, tyrannical, over-stretched Athenian empire. The speeches of the Corinthian and Theban ambassadors trying to convince Sparta to join them in war could be transposed almost word for word to anyone who fiercely opposes the empire today. ..."
"... Interesting times, or as one source said today, an Arch Duke moment could well be here. ..."
"... Why Venezuela? Why now? We've looked at these questions before. The answer to the first is, I think, most interesting: It represents a return of the Empire to its natural sphere of influence. It is as untenable for Russia to control Venezuela as it is for the US to run Ukraine. Or Syria. Or Afghanistan, for that matter. ..."
This article at https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/01/29/the-empires-propagandists/
may be of interest to some. Not saying that any of it is new to readers here nor is it
exhaustive but imo a decent piece that pulls together a lot and might be interesting to those
who mainly follow MSM.
An extract:
"The ruling class of the US imperium will simply not tolerate any government that opposes
its financial and geopolitical dominance, attempts socialism, or transfers its nexus to
another powerful state entity, like Russia or China for instance. If one chooses to do so it
is instantly targeted for assault either by crippling economic sanctions or embargoes, which
make governance nearly impossible and primarily harms the general population, or covert
subversion, or by direct and indirect military intervention. And the corporate media, when it
chooses to cover these issues, generally parrots State Department and Pentagon talking points
and obfuscations about the intentions of the US government, the role of corporations and
global capitalism, and the character of the governments the US happens to be opposing at the
time. And all of this is done with virtually no historical analysis. But of course none of
this is new."
It is interesting, the seeming rush to mess with Venezuela.
I guess whether it was in fact rushed, depends on how much we want to believe the data we are
fed.
I believe it was and suspect that that was the reason for resumption of operation of the
government - to support the intervention in Venezuela. Otherwise, it seemed like too sudden a
reversal by Trump.
I think in their analysis of where to intervene next, they look at an array of
factors:
Venezuela is weak
Venezuela espouses something like socialism
Venezuela has been associating with unsavory "competitors"
Venezuela is nearby (and very nearby our asset, Colombia)
Venezuela can be portrayed as in need of humanitarian intervention
Maduro has said some unkind things about U.S. government (Bush)
Venezuela holds a grand prize
In there discusions, I assume the issue of right/wrong is not mentioned.
Imagine someone attempting to raise the issue:
- But what will the media say?
- But what will the U.N. say?
- But what will the Pope say?
- But what will the voters say?
- But what will the other party say?
- But is it really the moral thing to do, what would God say?
with minor exceptions the 5 eye countries are no different..
i suppose the main
difference is not being served up a regular diet of 'we are the greatest' bs, accounts for
some of it.. the general curiousity about what the fuck is going on outside of the usa seems
sorely lacking in people who live in the usa... maybe the media can be blamed for a chunk of
this... generally canucks know a lot more about the usa, then the usa people know about
canada.. that is something i have witnessed in my life.. but, the simple answer to your
question is there isn't a lot of difference.. and yes - trudeau senior must be really
disappointed in tru dope jr... he is nothing compared to his dad... canada is on a downhill
trajectory and fast with this buffoon.. i expect worse in the next election too.. we will get
our trump as we are one cycle behind..
His History has often been applied as analogous to the post-cold war era, with the US
empire usually compared to the arrogant, bullying, tyrannical, over-stretched Athenian
empire. The speeches of the Corinthian and Theban ambassadors trying to convince Sparta to
join them in war could be transposed almost word for word to anyone who fiercely opposes the
empire today.
Also, similar to some who get impatient with the seeming over-conservatism of Russia and
China today, so the aggressive, hot-headed Corinthians and Thebans often get frustrated with
the more conservative Spartans.
I wonder when/if there'll be an American version of the Athenians' disastrous Sicilian
expedition.
Attached to that Venezuelanalysis.com that CE linked to @ 2 was this odd piece of
information:
"EREPLA deal "unusually favourable to foreign company"
... [A] 25-year deal was signed with unknown US based firm EREPLA in November 2018,
which has been described by financial firm Argus as "unusually favourable" to the US
company.
Little is known of EREPLA or its board of directors, with Reuters claiming that Harry
Sargeant III, magnate and ex-Financial Chairman of the US Republican Party, is one of their
owners. The small company, which was only legally registered in the US on November 8,
2018, a mere day before signing the PDVSA deal, has managed to extract a contract from PDVSA
which revives a number of practices, previously eliminated in the Chavez-era, of oil
so-called service contracts. PDVSA is yet to make any official comment on the deal, and analysts have already expressed concern that the deal violates Venezuela's 2001
Hydrocarbons Law.
The deal, which is extendable for a further 15 years, is due to bring US $500 million
of investment to the Tia Juana, Rosa Mediano fields in Maracaibo Lake and the Ayacucho 5
field in the Orinoco Belt. It assigns 49.9 percent of the new mixed company to EREPLA, and
passes 100 percent of the output to the US firm, which is expected to repatriate 50.1 percent
of sale profits back to PDVSA.
Day to day running, purchasing, exporting, and the sale of the oil produced is to be
completely controlled by EREPLA, except in the case of fulfilling PDVSA's hefty oil quota to
China, which will be agreed upon by both parts.
Whilst EREPLA is due to supply the rigs and crews for the fields, other costs will be
split between the two partners, whilst the US firm find themselves exempt from Venezuelan
labour laws under the Service Contract clause, as well as from paying its share of the 30
percent oil royalty which PDVSA is due to cover.
"We believe that the new model created in this agreement is in the national interest of
the United States," stated a Harry Sargeant Oil Management Group lawyer who signed the
documents on behalf of EREPLA.
An EREPLA statement on the deal describes how it looks to "revitalise" Venezuela's oil
industry. It goes on to explain that new terms and conditions have been applied as previous
contracts "fermented corruption and bad management." EREPLA also argued that the deal will
help prevent "US adversaries" such as Chinese and Russian firms from gaining further ground
in the oil-rich country.
It is unclear at this point how the new deal will function in light of US financial
sanctions against Caracas, as a license from the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC)
is still pending, but the statement assures that the company's work "will be carried out in
accordance with the economic sanctions enforced by the U.S. Treasury Department."
Oil deals in Venezuela were notoriously favourable to foreign firms until 2001, in
terms of profit [repatriation], labour laws, running costs, and local accountability, until
Hugo Chavez' Hydrocarbons Law broke the tradition, ensuring Venezuelan control over joint
ventures. Another Chavez decree in 2007 capped foreign participation in oil deals at 40
percent. However, in December 2017 the National Constituent Assembly approved a "Foreign
Investment Law" meant to improve conditions for foreign capital investments in
Venezuela.
A company that is incorporated only a day before it signs a major oil extraction and
production deal (parts of which violate Venezuela's own laws governing working conditions and
pay for Venezuelan workers and national control over joint ventures) with Venezuela? Does
anyone else not smell a rat?
What could PDVSA have been thinking? Did it not enter their
heads that EREPLA could be a front acting for elements in the US government?
Venezeula has become the tipping point for loss of GRC for the USD.
Venezeulan oil is being shipped to India, refined by the new Rosneft refinery then being
sold in anything but USD.
Added to the now over 100 country's that are rejecting the USD by using bi-lateral trade,
KSA already selling in yuan, the desperation of Uncle Scam is palpable.
Interesting times, or as one source said today, an Arch Duke moment could well be here.
Why Venezuela? Why now?
We've looked at these questions before. The answer to the first is, I think, most
interesting:
It represents a return of the Empire to its natural sphere of influence. It is as untenable
for Russia to control Venezuela as it is for the US to run Ukraine. Or Syria. Or Afghanistan,
for that matter.
It seems to me that the major blocs might be pulling back, and settling for easy gains.
Not that this coup is likely to be easy, it may prove to be impossible. It may even prove to
be the spark that sets Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil and the rest of Latin America alight.
But the way the clowns in the White House- who haven't had a new idea since 1981-see it all
resources will be mobilised to make the region safe for imperialism: Venezuela, Cuba,
Nicaragua and Bolivia: in the proverbial cross hairs.
The second question |Why now?) could be a reflection of the fact that the neo-conservative
axis has only recently re-established full spectrum domination over the White House. As the
Hitler Youth Freeland has been hinting: the running in this matter has been made by the Lima
Group in which Canada has been playing a leading and thoroughly despicable role. It was they
who did the pseudo legalistic groundwork for the coup. No doubt Bolton et al found it
convenient to have the Lima group demands presented to it on a plate. That meant that even
Ponce, who together with Bolton and Pompeo takes the role of the Three Weird Sisters in this
tragedy, could trigger the crisis with a phone call to Guido. Whose role is clearly to be
martyred, probably by a CIA sniper, so that he can die, if not for his country at least for
its corrupt elites.
We've seen this movie before.
Melians. As we think, at any rate, it is expedient--we speak as we are obliged, since
you enjoin us to let right alone and talk only of interest -- that you should not destroy
what is our common protection, the privilege of being allowed in danger to invoke what is
fair and right, and even to profit by arguments not strictly valid. And you are as much
interested in this as any, as your fall would be a signal for the heaviest vengeance and an
example for the world to meditate upon.
Athenians. The end of our empire, if end it should, does not frighten us: a rival
empire like Lacedaemon, even if Lacedaemon was our real antagonist, is not so terrible to the
vanquished as subjects who by themselves attack and overpower their rulers. This, however, is
a risk that we are content to take. We will now proceed to show you that we are come here in
the interest of our empire, and that we shall say what we are now going to say, for the
preservation of your country; as we would fain exercise that empire over you without trouble,
and see you preserved for the good of us both.
Melians. And how, pray, could it turn out as good for us to serve as for you to
rule?
Athenians. Because you would have the advantage of submitting before suffering the
worst, and we should gain by not destroying you.
Melians . So that you would not consent to our being neutral, friends instead of
enemies, but allies of neither side.
Athenians. No; for your hostility cannot so much hurt us as your friendship will be
an argument to our subjects of our weakness, and your enmity of our power.
Melians. Is that your subjects' idea of equity, to put those who have nothing to do
with you in the same category with peoples that are most of them your own colonists, and some
conquered rebels?
Athenians. As far as right goes they think one has as much of it as the other, and
that if any maintain their independence it is because they are strong, and that if we do not
molest them it is because we are afraid; so that besides extending our empire we should gain
in security by your subjection; the fact that you are islanders and weaker than others
rendering it all the more important that you should not succeed in baffling the masters of
the sea.
Melians. But do you consider that there is no security in the policy which we
indicate? For here again if you debar us from talking about justice and invite us to obey
your interest, we also must explain ours, and try to persuade you, if the two happen to
coincide. How can you avoid making enemies of all existing neutrals who shall look at case
from it that one day or another you will attack them? And what is this but to make greater
the enemies that you have already, and to force others to become so who would otherwise have
never thought of it?
Athenians. Why, the fact is that continentals generally give us but little alarm;
the liberty which they enjoy will long prevent their taking precautions against us; it is
rather islanders like yourselves, outside our empire, and subjects smarting under the yoke,
who would be the most likely to take a rash step and lead themselves and us into obvious
danger.
Melians. Well then, if you risk so much to retain your empire, and your subjects to
get rid of it, it were surely great baseness and cowardice in us who are still free not to
try everything that can be tried, before submitting to your yoke.
Athenians. Not if you are well advised, the contest not being an equal one, with
honour as the prize and shame as the penalty, but a question of self-preservation and of not
resisting those who are far stronger than you are...
The MSM and its allies in the controlled alternative media, and the global private-interest
financial, investment and banking system, are a tag-team, indispensable to each other.
Control of money and control of information. The first narrowly concentrates wealth and thus
power and influence. The second through agenda-driven selection, lies, censorship, spin,
misdirection and so on – disinformation – controls people's sense of what is real
and possible, thus dis-empowering them.
The American military and CIA have provided most of the overt and covert 'muscle' for that
control system.
The combined effort of narrowly controlled and narrowly advantaging globe straddling
finance, media, and muscle has facilitated the development of a near global Empire. In common
with traditional Empires this new Empire had totalitarian ambitions: but since its reach was
global, this is really a first attempt at global totalitarian control.
Russia under Putin – leaving aside China – has developed enough strength to
attempt alternative modes of communication and finance and development, not as adjuncts or
subordinates to the Empire's efforts in those regards. And their military is antidote and
opposition to the totalitarian project.
The forgoing is pretty obvious stuff, but I think that the Saker's concluding paragraph
provides a limiting summary of how the issue can play out.
"But fundamentally the Russian people need to decide. Do they really want to live in a
western-style capitalist society (with all the russophobic politics and the adoption
of the terminally degenerate "culture" such a choice implies), or do they want a
"social society" (to use Putin's own words) – meaning a society in which social and
economic
justice and the good of the country are placed above corporate and personal profits.
You could say that this is a battle of greed vs ethics."
This is a simplistic way of looking at the choices available. We are all caught up in
transitional culture processes, no matter where we live. The conjunction of the cornucopia of
new technology and unprecedented environmental and social challenges is everywhere at play,
leading who knows where?
What the Russian people have been given, and this is near singular on Earth, is a
protected and enhanced opportunity of developing a culture in which honest national discourse
is a predominant feature. This is in complete contrast to the predominant 'fake news' system
of discourse control that is in place in so many countries. And full and honest discourse
will create its own original cultural developments.
The Russian adoption of more honest discourse is already having global influence. An
example is Russia Today, which far from perfect and all that, still provides an enormous
advance over the extremely controlled western mass media, and a powerful foe to 'fake
news'.
Perhaps the most visible exemplar of rationale discourse has been Putin himself, with for
example his marathon annual Q and A with the Russian people, or his articulate well
considered sallies on many issues
And with that – if Russia can use unfettered reason writ large as a prime ingredient
of cultural and political development, as a basic developmental 'steering tool' – then
the simple dichotomy of "western-style capitalist society" vs "a society in which social and
economic justice and the good of the country are placed above corporate and personal profits"
, as much as I'm sympathetic to the latter, seems to me to be a limiting way of expressing
the range of potential beneficent possibilities.
Free market is possible only under strict government regulation. Without government regulation free market quickly
deteriorates into the law of jungles. Such a paradox ;-)
And if financial oligarchy gets to power as they got via coup d'état in the USA in late 7th, it is only a matter of time before
the society collapses. They are very destructive to the society at large. Probably more so then organized crime. But wait. They
actually can be viewed as special type of organized prime as is "The best way to rob the bank is to own it".
Notable quotes:
"... Idiots on here are always going on about how we don't got capitalism, if we only had capitalism, we don't got free markets, if only we had free markets, then everything would be hunky-dory. Without any proof, of course, because there never was and never will be a "free" "market." The US has plenty capitalism. And everything sucks. And they want more. Confused, stupid, disingenuous liars. ..."
"... Free markets are crookedness factories. As a PhD from Chicago Business School told me, "Free markets?! What free markets?! There is no free market! It's all crooked!" ..."
Idiots on here are always going on about how we don't got capitalism, if we only had
capitalism, we don't got free markets, if only we had free markets, then everything would be
hunky-dory. Without any proof, of course, because there never was and never will be a "free"
"market." The US has plenty capitalism. And everything sucks. And they want more. Confused,
stupid, disingenuous liars.
Look, what you call "capitalism" and "free markets" just means scams to make rich people
richer. You read some simple-minded description of some pie-in-the-sky theory of some perfect
world where rational actors make the best possible decisions in their own interest without
any outside interference, and you actually think you are reading a description of something
real.
I'll tell you what's real. Crookedness. Free markets are crookedness factories. As a
PhD from Chicago Business School told me, "Free markets?! What free markets?! There is no
free market! It's all crooked!"
The Last but not LeastTechnology is dominated by
two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt.
Ph.D
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CTG_Sweden 19 minutes ago ( Edited ) remove Share link Copy But so far they haven´t been kicked out of Iran, like a considerable portion of the Palestinian Christians in Palestine/Israel back in 1947-48. 30 % of the Palestinians who were driven out from Israel were Christians. Nor have they been starved to death like the Christians who owned farmland in Russia/Ukraine in the 1920s and 30s when Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin and Stalin´s "brother in law" Kaganovych ruled over Russian/Ukrainian farmers. But I agree that Europe still is a better place for Christians than Iran. But does a person like Barbara Lerner-Spectre want to keep it that way? Well, I´m not so sure about that. CTG_Sweden 17 minutes ago remove Share link Copy
euro is beginning to look like a credible rival to the dollar.
© AP Photo /
Ariana Cubillos
Montevideo Calls Venezuela's Guaido 'More Non-Legitimate' Than Maduro's Gov't
