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In Defence of Jeremy Corbyn

First off, let me get the ‘defending Corbyn’ bit out of the way. I do defend Corbyn’s defence of the downtrodden and the dispossessed, a rare quality in Britain’s despicable, dishonest and hypocritical political class. The attacks on him accusing him of anti-semitism are reprehensible and fundamentally originate with the Zionist entity, Israel, launched by Israel’s supporters inside the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) and reinforced by that other supporter of Israel, the BBC (with the able assistance from the rest of the corporate media).[1]

The despicable hatred shown by the state/corporate media toward Corbyn has nothing to do with the man but with the state’s abject fear of Corbyn’s (remote) connection to socialism, made all the worse by airbrushing him out of what passes for a public debate on Corbyn’s politics. What are they afraid of? Clearly not Corbyn’s politics but instead, it’s the idea of an alternative, no matter how remote it may be at present (though I suspect that given the parlous nature of contemporary British capitalism, it may be closer than we think. Think the Gilets Jaunes+).

So Corbyn gets endless and vicious ad hominem attacks but is never given the chance to defend himself in the public arena. And they call it democracy. On the one hand, it reveals the nasty nature of capitalism, bare in tooth and claw, and on the other, how desperate and clueless the ruling political class is, best exemplified by the utter farce (turning into disaster) called Brexit, a sick joke that backfired on the comedians in power that drags on ad infinitum.

But I also think it’s important to understand why Corbyn chose not to vigorously defend his position on the issue of Palestine, after all this is what the attack is all about, not Jews but Palestine. His defence of Palestinian rights has absolutely nothing to do with anti-semitism unless, like the Zionists you choose to link the two. This is the reason why Zionism is itself intrinsically anti-semitic. The entire purpose of tarring Corbyn with the anti-semitism brush is to defend Israel’s theft of Palestine. It’s a stratagem that aims to legitimise the theft, which is why Corbyn’s essentially liberal position capitulated to the attack. He was bullied into silence, afraid of the power of the Israeli lobby in our public affairs that could to do him permanent political damage.

Why I Don’t Support Corbyn

Anybody who has read my earlier essays on Corbyn will probably have already sussed my views on the man and more especially, the political party that has been his life-long domain (35 years or so in Parliament as a Labour back bencher).[2] Before that, a full-time trade union worker.

The major reason that most of the left advance for supporting Jeremy Corbyn appears to boil down to the fact that there is simply no alternative, that Corbyn is the best we’ve got to offer. That even a bad Labour government is better than a Tory one. But is this really true? This is, after all, the argument that has been used to justify voting for Labour, literally for decades. If true, then there is no alternative to the endless, first this then that approach to (no) real change. The end product of this view is an endless spiral downwards to the bottom, with the idea of socialism receding ever further into the distance with every election that passes.

At the end of 1890s, the newly formed Labour Party (formerly the Labour Representation Committee) decided to participate in Parliamentary democracy rather than act as an external pressure group for a socialist revolution and in doing so, set the agenda for the Left for the next century (and more). They talked of ‘reforming’ capitalism, slowly, bit-by-bit, squeezing concessions from capital, culminating in the 1945 postwar Labour government. Indeed it was the high point of the reformist approach and even then nationalisation was firstly a social democratic response to a nationwide demand for real socialism from the organised working class following the horrors of the 1930s and WWII, and secondly, to save an effectively bankrupt capitalist state, a capitalist state saved from collapse by a ‘socialist’ government. The ‘social contract’ between capital and labour was signed by a Labour government and capitalism was saved.

Yet at the same time, it was a Labour Party and Labour government that was profoundly anti-communist and anti-left, a ‘socialist’ party that banned relations with the rest of the left, expelling anyone who wished to see real socialist policies, prohibitions that still exist and are carried out to this day. A Cold War, imperialist party that supported colonialism and neocolonialism that helped subsidise the Welfare State. The working class was bought off with crumbs off the capitalist table on the backs of our former colonial subjects.

The illusion of socialism (social democracy) lasted 30 years. Enter Margaret Thatcher and the return to unbridled capitalism or neoliberalism as it is now known. RIP the Welfare State. What’s important is the role of the Labour Party and subsequent Labour governments in this process of defanging the class struggle.

Critical to the end of social democracy were two, connected events: first, the destruction of manufacturing through its export to cheap labour areas and the commensurate destruction of the organised, industrial working class that went with it, principally coal mining and the National Union of Mineworkers, a union which brought down a Tory government. Other areas of manufacturing were to follow over the subsequent decades.

This process was assisted by the discovery of North Sea oil and gas and the domination of the City of London through its virtually complete deregulation. The Age of Financialisation was upon us.

A parallel process took place in the USA and in 1991 the dissolution of the Soviet Union cleared the decks for what we now call globalisation or gangster capitalism as I prefer to call it.

One can say that it’s been downhill for the working class ever since and for the rest of the planet and its people.

Throughout this latter period, Jeremy Corbyn occupied a back bench in the Houses of Parliament, one can say one of a handful of token lefties, always on hand for demonstrations and petitions but little else, but they kept the (red?) flag flying. This is the face of reformism and it’s been this way with the Labour Party for over 100 years. All that’s changed has been how many tokens have sat in Parliament. So from a party of (former) trade unionists to a party of lawyers and businessmen, culminating in ‘New’ Labour and war criminal Tony Blair. In retrospect this process was inevitable. Every successive Labour government moved further and further to the right, effectively opening the door for ever more rightwing Tory governments and policies. A Labour government would enact reactionary immigration laws and the next Tory government would build on them.

The Labour Party proved indispensable to capitalism from the moment the first Labour Party member took his seat in Parliament in 1892, Keir Hardie. Organised labour in the shape of the Labour Party became an intrinsic part of the ruling political class, the class that managed capitalism. Incorporating representatives of the organised working class cemented the illusion of democracy.

This is the Labour Party that Jeremy Corbyn would ‘rescue’ from the neoliberals.

Socialism is the only answer to this situation, the crisis of the welfare state. The only way to keep the results of economic activity inside the country and available for social services is to nationalize the industries, so that they become public goods, owned collectively and not by private individuals and stockholders. The only way to maintain and pay for the public programs that the population cherishes, is to finance them through state ownership of the means of production and distribution. The welfare state is played out, and the yellow vest protests are symptomatic of this. Rather than looking backward and wishing it to return, we should embrace the future by building the conditions for socialism. ‘The Yellow Vests, the Crisis of the Welfare State and Socialism’ By Michéle Brand (See this)

This used to be the rallying cry of the left of the Labour Party. A cry that was entirely missing from Corbyn’s Election Manifesto, missing even from his original manifesto before it was mangled by Emily Thornberry and the rest of the right wingers who surround Corbyn.

Yet the half million people who joined the Constituency Labour Party across the nation, joined because they thought that Corbyn offered them change, radical change from Austerity, from poverty, from the miserable existence inflicted on them by a rancid and bankrupt capitalism. A not inconsidersable number, perhaps 20% or more of the population.

Even Momentum, which had all the appearance of a grassroots-powered movement, was in reality covertly backed by the PLP. Run by John Lansman, Corbyn’s former election agent, a Zionist creature of the Labour establishment but with ‘leftwing’ credentials. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. In its formative period, anyone could join Momentum but once Corbyn was elected leader of the Labour Party, everything changed. Now you had to join the Labour Party in order to be a member of Momentum. Goodbye grassroots. The rules of the Labour Party forbid anyone who joins from belonging to any other political grouping. Worse still, your politics had to be acceptable to the bureaucracy as well or else out you go. I know of lefties in the Labour Party who have to censor themselves in public for fear of being expelled for their beliefs, and they call it democracy.

Yet assuming that Corbyn is successful in his bid to head to a future Labour government, I have to ask, what is more important to Corbyn, saving the Labour Party and heading a Labour government or honouring his pledge to the millions who support him, the millions he wants to vote for him come election time?

Things don’t look promising judging by events of the past year. Corbyn has not risen to the occasion, he bottled it over the accusations of his anti-semitism; he caved in over Trident, NATO, Syria, even Austerity. What else will he sacrifice of his principles in order to ‘lead’ a Labour government? Well there’s not much of his original manifesto left to sacrifice.

A Lost Opportunity

The process set in motion by Momentum and other grassroots actions, awoke a sleeping giant, the millions of working people immiserated by Austerity and the demise of the Welfare State. It was this that powered Corbyn’s ascent to leadership of the Labour Party, not something that even Corbyn himself expected. He was, after all, near to retirement and in an age where neoliberalism was apparently triumphant, who woulda thunk it?

But millions of people acting independently of the Labour Party bureaucracy, indeed independent of our tweedle-dee, tweedle-dum electoral process, simply could not be tolerated (once more, see Gilets Jaunes). Hence the virulent, indeed slanderous attacks on Corbyn. He had to be neutralised as dangerous to the status quo.

But instead of empowering the mass base, Corbyn participated in shifting the focus back to electioneering (was this his doing?). Hence the calls that Momentum made, ‘General Election Now.’ Back into the belly of the beast and the PLP, where the neoliberals dominate and in the process of course, the grassroots are sidelined, their usefulness at an end. This is the reason why France has the Gilets Jaunes, betrayal by the political class, left and the trade unions. Once more, Labour’s grassroots support treated with contempt. And the proof of this can be seen in the polls, with Labour’s share falling.

Not only treated with contempt by the entrenched political class, but viewed as dangerous to the elite’s grip on power. Once more, it’s the idea that they’re afraid of.

So where does Corbyn stand in all of this? How does he reconcile his reliance on electoral politics with his grassroots base? What if he succeeds and they vote in a Labour government in the next election, what then? With all the compromises that Corbyn has made in order to placate the right wing that control the PLP, aren’t his support base going to be somewhat disappointed when they find out what he has had to give up in order to become prime minister? This is the dilemma that has brought down successive Labour governments, the gulf between promises and the inability or even unwillingness to deliver on those promises.

What this illustrates is a broken system, decades past its sell-by date. An anachronism with Corbyn a throwback to a bygone era, an exercise in nostalgia. But there is no going back, we can only go forward. As Michéle Brand says:

The welfare state is played out, and the yellow vest protests are symptomatic of this. Rather than looking backward and wishing it to return, we should embrace the future by building the conditions for socialism.

I think this is what Corbyn’s support base wants. They may not know it’s called socialism but that’s the challenge we face after over 40 years of neoliberalism and the ravages of the Cold War; to take the demand of millions of working people for a radical transformation of society and translate it into a realistic programme. I might add that this the same challenge that Les Gilets Jaunes face and I’m under no illusion as to how difficult a task this will be.

But now the threat of global heating adds even more urgency to the task and it’s patently obvious that not only is capitalism not up to the task, indeed it’s the cause of the disaster in the first place. Thus these two critical problems are intimately interconnected, in solving one we stand a chance of solving the other. This means that first capitalism has to go first. It’s just too urgent.

Is it realistic to expect the Labour Party to take on this challenge? Is it even possible given what appears to be the insurmountable obstacles and contradictions within the Labour Party itself? A Parliamentary Labour Party so virulently opposed even to Corbyn’s emasculated version of a welfare state, that it’s prepared to sabotage an election in order to remove him.

And then there’s the elephant in the room: the corporate-security state that has proved itself to have no qualms in assassinating its own citizens, let alone the tens of thousands slaughtered under the guise of ‘humanitarian intervention’; that spies on every single one of us; that tracks our movements, our thoughts, that censors, that lies to us. How does Corbyn’s would-be government intend to deal with this? Would it even be inclined to? More to the point, how will the security state react to a Corbyn-led government, especially if it attempts to carry out anything that would loosen the grip that the corporate-security state has of us or dare to threaten the rule of capital?

Had Corbyn stayed loyal to the folks that put him where he (almost) is, it would have meant that the Labour Party machine would have lost control of its direction. Instead leadership would have come first and foremost from local Constituency Labour Party branches (CLP), where undoubtedly a firefight would have taken place between the locals and the Blairites, between left and right in the Party, with the bureaucracy controlling the Rules and hence having the advantage but the left having numbers on its side. This is after all, how Corbyn got to be the leader, the right was outvoted.

Furthermore, local Constituency Parties could reach out to the larger population that they are situated within, and potentially the trade unions. In the ‘old days’, the 50s and the 60s, we had very active local Trades Councils that brought together a range of trade unions to deal with local and national issues. They still exist of course, but they’re a shadow of their formers selves. Theoretically, CLPs can also unite single issue struggles under the ‘umbrella’ of the Party, had they the freedom of course. It’s the only way to break the stranglehold of the Party’s bureaucracy. But Corbyn chose not to take this route.

It’s principally for this reason that I can’t support Corbyn and his bid to head a Labour government with a party that’s an intrinsic part of the ruling elite. It’s a contradiction in terms, but then what’s the alternative? It’s a real dilemma for many of us, especially in such desperate and dangerous times. Is it a risk worth taking?

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This article was originally published on Investigating Imperialism.

Notes

1. See ‘Blanket Silence: Corporate Media Ignore New Report Exposing Distorted And Misleading Coverage of Corbyn’, Media Lens, 3 October 2018.

See also: ‘Charges ‘Without Merit’ – Jeremy Corbyn, Antisemitism, Norman Finkelstein and Noam Chomsky‘, Media Lens, 12 September 2018.

2. See for example: ‘Corbyn’s Dilemma’ By William Bowles. 18 December, 2015.

At face value – the notion that the US occupation of Syria is key to preventing the return of the so-called “Islamic State” (ISIS) to Syrian territory is unconvincing. 

Regions west of the Euphrates River where ISIS had previously thrived have since been permanently taken back by the Syrian Arab Army and its Russian and Iranian allies – quite obviously without any support from the United States – and in fact – despite Washington’s best efforts to hamper Damascus’ security operations.

Damascus and its Russian and Iranian allies have demonstrated that ISIS can be permanently defeated. With ISIS supply lines running out of NATO-territory in Turkey and from across the Jordanian and Iraqi border cut off – Syrian forces have managed to sustainably suppress the terrorist organization’s efforts to reestablish itself west of the Euphrates.

The very fact that ISIS persists in the sole region of the country currently under US occupation raises many questions about not only the sincerity or lack thereof of Washington’s efforts to confront and defeat ISIS – but over whether or not Washington is deliberately sustaining the terrorist organization’s fighting capacity specifically to serve as a pretext for America’s continued – and illegal – occupation of Syrian territory.

The US Department of Defense Says It Best 

A recent report (entire PDF version here) published by the US Department of Defense (DoD) Inspector General himself would claim:

According to the DoD, while U.S.-backed Syrian forces have continued the fight to retake the remaining ISIS strongholds in Syria, ISIS remains a potent force of battle-hardened and well-disciplined fighters that “could likely resurge in Syria” absent continued counterterrorism pressure. According to the DoD, ISIS is still able to coordinate offensives and counter-offensives, as well as operate as a decentralized insurgency.

The report also claims:

Currently, ISIS is regenerating key functions and capabilities more quickly in Iraq than in Syria, but absent sustained [counterterrorism] pressure, ISIS could likely resurge in Syria within six to twelve months and regain limited territory in the [Middle Euphrates River Valley (MERV)].  

By “continued counterterrorism pressure,” the report specifically means continued US occupation of both Syria and Iraq as well as continued military and political support for proxy militants the US is using to augment its occupation in Syria.

The report itself notes that the last stronghold of ISIS exists specifically in territory under defacto US occupation or protection east of the Euphrates River where Syrian forces have been repeatedly attacked – both by US-backed proxies and by US forces themselves.

The very fact that the report mentions ISIS is “regenerating key functions and capabilities more quickly in Iraq than in Syria” despite the US planning no withdrawal from Iraq seems to suggest just how either impotent or genuinely uninterested the US is in actually confronting and defeating ISIS. As to why – ISIS serves as the most convincing pretext to justify Washington’s otherwise unjustified and continued occupation of both Syria and Iraq.

US DoD’s Own Report Exposes Weakness, Illegitimacy of “Kurdish Independence” 

The report is all but an admission that US-backed militants in Syria lack the capability themselves to overcome the threat of ISIS without constant support from Washington. That the report claims ISIS is all but defeated but could “resurge” within a year without US backing – highlights the weakness and illegitimacy of these forces and their political ambitions of “independence” they pursue in eastern Syria.

A Kurdish-dominated eastern Syria which lacks the military and economic capabilities to assert control over the region without the perpetual presence of and backing of US troops – only further undermines the credibility of Washington’s Kurdish project east of the Euphrates.

The Syrian government – conversely – has demonstrated the ability to reassert control over territory and prevent the return of extremist groups – including ISIS.

Were the United States truly dedicated to the destruction of ISIS – it is clear that it would support forces in the region not only capable of achieving this goal – but who have so far been the only forces in the region to do so.

ISIS as a Pretext for Perpetual US Occupation

In reality – the US goal in both Syria and Iraq is to undermine the strength and unity of both while incrementally isolating and encircling neighboring Iran. The US itself deliberately created ISIS and the many extremist groups fighting alongside it.

It was in a leaked 2012 US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) memo that revealed the US and its allies’ intent to create what it called at the time a “Salafist principality” in eastern Syria. The memo would explicitly state that (emphasis added):

If the situation unravels there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in eastern Syria (Hasaka and Der Zor), and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime, which is considered the strategic depth of the Shia expansion (Iraq and Iran).

On clarifying who these supporting powers were, the DIA memo would state:

The West, Gulf countries, and Turkey support the opposition; while Russia, China, and Iran support the regime.

The “Salafist” (Islamic) “principality” (State) would indeed be created precisely in eastern Syria as US policymakers and their allies had set out to do. It would be branded the “Islamic State” and be used first to wage a more muscular proxy war against Damascus – and when that failed – to invite US military forces to intervene in the conflict directly.

Several years onward, and with the abject failure of the US proxy war in Syria all but complete, the shattered remnants of ISIS are sheltered exclusively in regions now under the defacto protection of US forces and are being used as a pretext to delay or altogether prevent any significant withdrawal of US forces.

While many see the announcement of a US troop withdrawal from Syria by US President Donald Trump and attempts to backtrack away from the withdrawal as a struggle between the White House and the Pentagon – it is much more likely the result of a collapsing foreign policy vacillating between bad options and worse options.

The inability – so far – of Israeli airstrikes to even penetrate Syrian air defenses let alone cause any significant damage on the ground in Syria has further highlighted Western impotence and complicated Washington’s plans moving onward into the future.

Turkey’s teetering policy regarding Syria and the prospects of it being drawn deeper into Syrian territory to “take over” the US occupation – as described by the DoD  Inspector General’s report – will only further overextend and mire Turkish forces, creating vulnerabilities that can be easily exploited by everyone sitting at the negotiation tables opposite Ankara.

It is still uncertain what Ankara will do, but as an initially willing partner in US-engineered proxy war in Syria – it is now left with its own unpalatable options of bad and worse.

It is interesting that even the DoD Inspector General’s report mentions ISIS’ continued fighting capacity depends on foreign fighters and “external donations” – yet never explores the obvious state sponsorship required to sustain both. The DoD report and US actions themselves have all but approached openly defending the remnants of ISIS.

While the prospect of violently overthrowing the Syrian government seems to have all but passed, the US is still trying to justify its presence in Syria at precisely the junctions ISIS and other terrorist organizations are moving fighters and weapons into the country through – in northern Syria, in southeast Syria near the Iraqi border, and at Al Tanf near the Iraqi-Jordanian border.

Were the US to seek to consolidate its proxies and initiate a “resurge” of ISIS – the very scenario it claims it seeks to prevent – its control of these vital entry points into Syria and Iraq would be paramount. Allowing them to fall into Syrian and Iraqi forces’ hands to be secured and cut off would – ironically – spell the end of ISIS in both nations.

While Washington’s words signal a desire to defeat ISIS – its actions are the sole obstruction between ISIS and its absolute defeat.

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Tony Cartalucci is Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook” where this article was originally published. 

Featured image is from New Eastern Outlook

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Last week, the US formally adopted sanctions on Venezuelan national oil company PDVSA, as well as on CITGO, its US-based distribution arm, as part of its press for regime change in Caracas. National Security Advisor John Bolton estimated the actions would affect some $7 billion in assets and would block $11 billion in revenue to the Venezuelan government over the next year. The State Department was quick to add,

“These new sanctions do not target the innocent people of Venezuela…”

But of course they do. The Wall Street Journal reported:

The sanctions could create deeper gasoline shortages in Venezuela. The country’s refineries are already operating at a fraction of their capacity, crippled by a lack of spare parts and crude. Venezuela only produced a third of the 190,000 barrels of gasoline it consumed a day as of November, according to Ivan Freites, a leader of the country’s oil union.

“Immediately, it’s going to hurt the average Venezuelan,” Mr. Freites said.

Meanwhile, The New York Times noted:

But just across the street, a group of senior citizens waiting in line to collect their pensions worried that the Trump administration’s actions would further bankrupt their country and deepen the humanitarian crisis that has left so many starving, sick and without basic services.

“The United States has no business meddling in this,” said Aura Ramos, 59, a retiree who can barely afford blood pressure medicine. “It’s the regular people who will be affected.”

The Washington Office on Latin America released a statement criticizing the announced sanctions, writing:

However, we are deeply concerned at the potential for the recently announced U.S. sanctions to intensify the severe hardships and suffering that millions of Venezuelans are enduring. Venezuelans are already facing widespread scarcities of essential medicines and basic goods. Venezuela’s oil exports represent the main source of hard currency used to pay for imports. Without this revenue, it is clear that the importation of food and medicine could be put at risk. In turn, this will further accelerate a migration and refugee crisis that has strained neighboring countries and put many of the over 3 million Venezuelan migrants and refugees at risk.

It appears as though there is increasing acceptance of the basic fact that the US sanctions on Venezuela will have a negative impact on the people of Venezuela, but all this analysis misses two important points. First, the Trump administration had already imposed broad economic sanctions in 2017, though apparently both The Wall Street Journal and New York Times were unaware of this development.

From the same WSJ article:

…this week’s sanctions mark the first targeting of Venezuela’s lifeblood industry, which accounts for nearly all of the country’s hard currency income. Until now, U.S. sanctions were largely limited to individuals in Venezuela’s regime.

Another example from a NYT article a few days earlier:

The oil sanctions amount to the first punitive action taken by the United States against Mr. Maduro since the power struggle in Caracas erupted last week, and it is intended to starve the government of Mr. Maduro of cash and foreign currency. Oil production in Venezuela has already plummeted because of mismanagement and poor policies, and the country’s economy is in shambles.

These examples are certainly not alone in their misunderstanding of the sanctions ― and their impact on the oil industry. But it’s not terribly difficult to find information on the impact of the 2017 sanctions. Venezuelan economist Francisco Rodríguez provided a useful analysis last year explaining just this ― and it is even in English.

Rodríguez’s basic story: the oil industry is critical to the Venezuelan government; underinvestment and the rapid decline in oil prices caused a significant drop in revenue; then, as oil prices began increasing, Trump imposed sanctions making any international financial transaction extremely difficult and potentially “toxic.” Rodríguez explains, using this graph of oil production in Venezuela and Colombia, how Venezuelan and Colombian oil production both declined at the same rate, until the Trump financial embargo was implemented in August 2017. Then, Venezuela’s oil production collapsed:

It is striking that the second change in trend in Venezuela’s production numbers occurs at the time at which the United States decided to impose financial sanctions on Venezuela. Executive Order 13.808, issued on August 25 of 2017, barred U.S. persons from providing new financing to the Venezuelan government or PDVSA. Although the order carved out allowances for commercial credit of less than 90 days, it stopped the country from issuing new debt or selling previously issued debt currently in its possession.

The Executive Order is part of a broader process of what one could term the “toxification” of financial dealings with Venezuela. During 2017, it became increasingly clear that institutions who decided to enter into financial arrangements with Venezuela would have to be willing to pay high reputational and regulatory costs. This was partly the result of a strategic decision by the Venezuelan opposition, in itself a response to the growing authoritarianism of the Maduro government.

It’s not just the the media’s apparent amnesia with regard to those 2017 sanctions and their impact on the oil industry that is the problem here. In fact, the impact of those sanctions was even larger. As my colleague, Mark Weisbrot has previously explained, and as Rodríguez notes in the same article linked above, the sanctions made it virtually impossible for the Venezuela government to take the measures necessary to eliminate hyperinflation or recover from a deep depression. Such measures would include debt restructuring, and creating a new exchange rate system (Exchange Rate Bases Stabilization), in which the currency would normally be pegged to the dollar.

But it actually gets worse. When the US first announced its recognition of Juan Guaidó as president of Venezuela on January 23, the decision was met largely with applause within the foreign policy establishment. It seemed like nobody bothered to think about what, practically and economically, the decision would mean. Since Trump’s election, and his increasingly threatening rhetoric in relation to Venezuela, there has been wide agreement that a full-scale oil embargo would be terrible, both for Venezuela and the US. Yet somehow hardly anyone realized that by recognizing Guaidó, the US was de facto putting an oil embargo in place. Once again we turn to Rodríguez who, for what it’s worth, has been publicly supportive of the decision to recognize Guaidó and wrote the following on January 28,^[1] a day before the most recently announced sanctions:

By giving it the legal authority to invoice Venezuelan oil, the decision to recognize the Guaidó administration, therefore, would have the same implications for bilateral trade of an oil embargo. Applied by the countries that provide for nearly three-fourths of Venezuela’s imports, the decisions can be expected to have a significant effect on the country’s capacity both to produce oil and import goods. As a result, we expect Venezuela’s oil production to decline by 640tbd to 508tbd in 2019 (a fall of 55.7%), as opposed to our prior forecast of 1,070tbd. Exports will fall to USD 13.5bn (USD 12.3bn from oil), nearly half our previous estimate of USD 23.8bn. Imports of goods will decline to USD 7.0bn, a 40.3% decline (we expect the entrance of some humanitarian aid as well as the default on payments of all debt to cushion the fall). Venezuela’s economy is highly import dependent, as illustrated by the strong empirical correlation between import and GDP growth. As a result of the additional import crunch, we expect Venezuela’s economy to contract by 26.4%, as opposed to our previous forecast of 11.7%.

The impact is clear. The decision to formally recognize Guaidó will have a massive economic impact on the people of Venezuela ― irrespective of sanctions, oil embargos or whatever else is announced. The Trump administration succeeded in de facto implementing an oil embargo, without taking any of the heat they would have if it were done explicitly. And then this week, the Trump administration announced broader trade sanctions that appeared to make explicit by the recognition of a parallel government, with some specific carve outs for American oil companies already in Venezuela, like Chevron and Halliburton.

Of course, there are plenty of people who will argue that this pain and suffering is worth it in order to force Maduro from power. That’s their right, but the media should force them to make that argument openly, and honestly confront the pain and suffering these policies will inflict.

Finally, if asking for the media to get the sanctions story right is too much, maybe they can give some coverage to the fact that National Security Advisor John Bolton went on national TV and openly said the following:

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. It would be good for the people of Venezuela. It would be good for the people of the United States. We both have a lot at stake here making this come out the right way.

A decimated oil industry in the nation with the largest proven oil reserves in the world would appear to serve some alternative interests beyond “democracy” and “human rights.”

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Note

^[1] Francisco Rodríguez, “Ecuador & Venezuela This Week,” Torino Economics and Torino Capital Group Company, January 28, 2019.

Featured image is from Energy Jobline

Donald Trump has expressed full support for the Venezuelan opposition to oust President Nicolas Maduro from power, just as the country’s authorities announced they’d seized a cache of weapons, allegedly delivered from the US.

The US-made weapons were discovered at the storage yard of Arturo Michelena International Airport in the Venezuelan city of Valencia, the Interior Ministry said Tuesday. The stash included at least 19 rifles and 118 magazines, high-caliber ammunition, as well as 90 radios and six mobile phones – and was likely sent from Miami, Florida on Sunday, authorities believe. An investigation to determine the intended recipient of the shipment has been launched.

✔19 fusiles
✔118 cargadores de fusil
✔4 porta fusil
✔3 miras para fusil
✔90 antenas de radio
✔6 teléfonos fueron hallados en el patio de almacenamiento del aeropuerto de Valencia los cuales ingresaron al país el #3Feb en el Air Bus N881YV procedente de Miami,EEUU #5Feb pic.twitter.com/5wnBFnxaFt

— GD Endes Palencia Ortiz (@PalenciaEndes) February 5, 2019

#5Feb | #EsNoticia Incautado armamento bélico procedente de EEUU en aeropuerto internacional de Valencia 👉🏻 Aquí los detalles https://t.co/PWyD5axrUh pic.twitter.com/sipf2Xfiv1

— MPPRIJP (@MIJPVenezuela) February 5, 2019

While the US never ruled out a military option to support Juan Guaidó’s claim to power, so far Washington has called for a peaceful transition of power in the Latin American country.

“We stand with the Venezuelan people in their noble quest for freedom,” Donald Trump reiterated during his State of the Union Address on Tuesday, offering full support for the Venezuelan opposition and the leader of the National Assembly.

ICYMI:

– US recognizes Guaido as new president

– Accuses Maduro of his socialist policies…

– Stands with people of Venezuela #SOTU#StateOfTheUnionAddresshttps://t.co/9QJsEqHz8O pic.twitter.com/UfPPLOvX3T

— RT (@RT_com) February 6, 2019

“We condemn the brutality of Maduro regime,” Trump added blaming Caracas, and socialism in general, for the economic downfall of the country strangled by US sanctions.

The opposition leader proclaimed himself interim president on January 23. In a matter of days, Guaidó received full support from Washington, as well as many of the EU and Latin American countries. Following the announcement, Venezuela witnessed massive rallies, both for and against Maduro.

The Venezuelan government slammed the move as “a coup attempt” and warned against any international meddling or potential military action. Despite the opposition and even US officials urging Venezuelan officers and soldiers to defect, the army has so far mostly maintained its loyalty to the elected government, while President Maduro has repeatedly stressed that Venezuela will defend its sovereignty at any cost.

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It had the semblance of a play lacking key actors.  They were deemed the difficult ones, and a decision was made to go through with the performance.  The Taliban were willing to talk with their adversaries, but they were keen on doing so with opposition politicians rather than the stick-in-the-mud types in government led by the current President Ashraf Ghani.  The assessment from The New York Times over the whole affair held at the President Hotel in Moscow was that the meeting could only be, at best, “a brainstorming session”. 

The Taliban officials going to Moscow were a different crew, at least in terms of perceptions.  These were not the intemperate salad day youths of 1996, yanking cassettes from car stereos in Kandahar and ranting against all matters musical and female.  These were men of diplomacy, their guns holstered.  Gone were visions of seizing the whole of Afghanistan and establishing a broader theocratic state.  Doing so, by their admission, would not bring the state to peaceful order. Nor, and here there will be questions, did they seem unwilling to reconsider their position on broader notion of human rights. 

The claims from the Taliban demonstrate their continued boldness and durability.  Enemies have come and gone, and they remain steadfast in imposing order.  Their brutality remains common and assertive, but they have become wiser, more discerning in their heavy-handedness.

“Peace is more difficult than war,” suggested Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai, one of the members of the negotiating party to head to Moscow. 

The January draft agreement arising from a series of meetings with US Special Envoy for Afghanistan Reconciliation, Zalmay Khalilzad, suggests a commitment on the part of the US to withdraw its forces from the country with a Taliban promise to prevent Afghanistan being used as a staging ground for jihadists in future. 

The Wednesday statement did little to add flesh to any potential bargain but did outline nine points.  Continued intra-Afghan talks would take place – the usual talks about talks; involving the cooperation of regional countries and others were “essential to determine lasting and nationwide peace in Afghanistan”.   

One aspiration stood out, making all aware about the traumatic divisions in a society that has resisted internally and externally imposed changes for generations.  Unity has been impossible; centralisation of the state an impracticable and unrealisable dream. 

“All parties agreed that the values such as respect for the principles of Islam in all parts of the system, the principle that Afghanistan is a common home to all Afghans, support to a powerful centralised government with all ethnicities having a role in it, protecting national sovereignty and promoting social justice, to keep Afghanistan neutral in all regional and international conflicts, protecting Afghanistan’s national and religious values and undertaking a unified and single policy.”  

The other aspirations follow on from the first: the withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghan soil; an affirmation of Afghanistan’s sovereignty and the principle of non-interference.  Then come promises to protect “social, economic, political and educational rights of the Afghan women in line with Islamic principles, protection of political and social rights of the entire people of Afghanistan and protection of freedom of speech in line with Islamic principles.”

Ghani’s spokesman Samim Arif expressed his sentiments on the gathering.

“On the issue of the peace process, we respect the views of all parts of society, including the politicians.  But the ownership and the leadership of the peace process is the authority of the Afghan government.”

Ghani was even blunter:

“With whom, what will they agree upon there?  Where is their executive power?  Let hundreds of such meetings be held, but these would only be paper (agreements) unless there is an agreement by the Afghan government; Afghanistan’s national assembly and Afghanistan’s legal institutions.”

Ghani might as well have asked himself those same questions, his rule itself very much a paper based one, his claims to executive authority adventurous at best.

Notwithstanding the activities in Moscow, there will no doubt be a good number of Afghans, left confused by years of external intervention and promptings, concerned by this affirmation and legitimation of Taliban rule.  While the Moscow declaration insists on observing various rights previously anathema to Taliban theocracy, these are provisional within the remit of “Islamic principles”, which have been shown to be roughly interpreted when needed.  Schools may continue being threatened under any new regime; education for females face the prospects of being reined in (religious reasons apply, naturally), as they always tend to in areas of Taliban occupation.  Aired guarantees are simply that.   

The gathering in Moscow signalled one undeniable reality: the Taliban as a political force cannot be ignored.  Remarks made in the immediate aftermath of the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 by US-led forces that the Taliban would be blown to smithereens and wiped off the lunar face of the country have come to nought.  These fighters have lasted the distance; corrupt officials in Kabul, pampered and sponsored by foreign largesse, remain estranged and politically weak.  The Trump administration, prone to erratic spots of unilateral viciousness, is keen on easing part of the imperium’s commitments in the Middle East.  Eyes will be on Kabul to see how far this goes.

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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]

Featured image is from Moscow Times

No U.S. War on Venezuela!

We cannot be silent in the face of the latest U.S. aggression against the Venezuelan people. Nicolás Maduro is the president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, chosen twice by the people as part of an internationally observed electoral process. Since the 1998 election of Hugo Chávez, the United States has been relentless in its pursuit of regime change in Venezuela. With Donald Trump in the White House, these efforts have escalated to threats of all-out military violence, the plundering of billions of dollars in wealth from the Venezuelan people and pushing a multitude of outrageous lies in the global media.

For hundreds of years, the U.S. has waged war against the people of the world through coups, invasions and economic warfare. Juan Guaidó is a U.S. puppet. He is not a representative of the Venezuelan masses. The idea that a person can swear themselves in as president at a rally in the interest of “defending democracy” is laughable. The right wing in Venezuela claim the Bolivarian elections are rigged because they refuse to participate in them.Instead they engage in voter intimidation using violence reminiscent of Jim Crow terrorism against African-Americans in the Deep U.S. South.

U.S.-led sanctions and currency manipulation are responsible for the suffering in Venezuela. Marco Rubio and right-wing media guide the Venezuelan opposition from Miami. The U.S. cannot stand for any country on the planet to enjoy its natural wealth or the fruits of its labor independent of Wall Street and the Pentagon. Venezuela has the largest proven oil reserves in the world and is rich in gold and other mineral wealth. Iraq war architect John Bolton said that regime change in Venezuela would be a tremendous opportunity to gain more profits for Wall Street. We believe him.

Since the Bolivarian Revolution in 1998, massive strides have been taken to uplift the working class, Afro-Venezuelans and Indigenous populations in Venezuela. The working poor have made tremendous gains because the government implemented policies and passed laws to fight racism, sexism, homophobia and economic inequality. Despite sanctions and sabotage, Venezuela has maintained a transparent and democratic system through many elections. Venezuela provides aid to struggling people worldwide through subsidized fuel and by leading the way with progressive labor laws. Their gains are part of the global struggle waged by workers and the oppressed against the wealthiest and most powerful capitalists on the planet.

Therefore, we demand:

• The U.S. immediately cease all hostile actions against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela — lift all sanctions, stop backing a coup, cease efforts to destroy the Venezuelan economy and respect the right of the Venezuelan people to self-determination.
• All countries involved in the plunder of Venezuelan wealth immediately return what they have stolen to the democratically elected government of Venezuela and its people.
• Wall Street must immediately pay reparations to the Venezuelan people for their suffering under genocidal sanctions and currency manipulation.

In the internationalist and liberatory spirit of Simón Bolívar, we pledge to mobilize and fight on the side of Venezuela’s right to sovereignty, understanding that the gains won under the Bolivarian Revolution are gains for all the world’s workers and oppressed.

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US president Donald Trump’s statement of his intention to remain in Iraq in order to “be looking a little bit at Iran because Iran is a real problem” has created a political storm in Mesopotamia among local politicians and groups now determined to put an end to the US presence in the country. Many are upset by Trump’s statement, saying that the “US forces are departing from their initial mission to fight terrorism, the reason for which they are allowed to stay in Iraq”. Iraqi President Barham Saleh commented that the US administration did not ask Iraq’s permission for US troops stationed in the country to “watch Iran”.

US forces have been deployed in Iraq in large numbers since 2014 when ISIS occupied a third of the country. The US establishment under president Obama refrained from rushing to support the Iraqi government, leaving room for Iran to act rapidly and send weapons and military advisors to Baghdad and Erbil. The intentionally slow US reaction pushed the Grand Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Sistani to call for the mobilisation of the population, a call that led to the creation of the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), called Hashd al-Shaabi, who managed to stop ISIS’s advance.

Moreover, in response to Iraq’s request, a joint military operational room was formed in Baghdad’s “Green Zone” where Russian, Iranian, Iraqi and Syrian high-ranking officers are still present, coordinating military attacks and sharing electronic and other intelligence information about ISIS whereabouts and the movements of its militants, sleeping cells and leaders.

The US also offered to conduct intelligence operations and air strikes against ISIS. Nevertheless, during the period that the ISIS threat diminished the number of the US forces has more than doubled, from 5,200 to 11,000, according to sources within the Iraqi government; some Iraqi sources claim the real numbers are much larger, with as many as 34,000 US servicemen spread over 31 bases and locations, along with Iraqi forces. There are no military bases for US forces only.

US forces are officially based at Camp Victory within the perimeter of Baghdad airport, Camp Al-Taji situated 25 km north of Baghdad, Balad Airbase which is 64 km north of Baghdad, Al-Habbaniyah Camp between Ramadi and Fallujah, Qay’yara Airfield 300 km north of Baghdad, Kariz base in Zummar Nineveh, Ayn al-Assad Airbase close to Baghdadi in al-Anbar province, Kirkuk al-Hurriya Airbase, Bashur base in Erbil, Erbil International Airport command and control base, Harir Shaqlawa Kurdistan in Erbil and Atrush Field in Duhok. US forces constructed a new Airbase close to al-Qaem on the Iraqi-Syrian borders and another close to al-Rutbah east of Ramadi and close to the Syrian borders. The US forces have a military presence within the Iraqi security forces in various locations and camps, mainly within the Counter-Terrorism units.

Trump visited one of these bases, Ayn al-Assad, during the Christmas and New Year holidays. The breach of protocol associated with his visit created domestic upheaval, leading many Iraqis to call on the Parliament to expel US forces from Iraq; the three leading Iraqi officials (Speaker, President and Prime Minister) refused to meet him at the US part of the base.  For security reasons the US President was forced to keep secret his visit to a country where he has thousands of forces on the ground. By contrast the Iranian Foreign Minister, Mohammad Jawad Zarif, visited Iraq for five days meeting local officials in Baghdad, Najaf and Karbala.

Iraqi organisations – who fought ISIS for years, and share Iran’s goal of rejecting US hegemony in the region – threatened to attack US forces if they didn’t leave the country immediately. However, sources close to decision makers report that “Iraqi groups are not expected to attack US forces immediately”.

“Iran has asked all their friends in Iraq to refrain from attacking the US forces and instead to arm themselves with patience for the day when US forces refuse to leave if and when the Parliament approves a bill asking them to return home. Should this happen, US forces would be considered an occupation force, giving legitimacy for the Iraqi resistance to attain their goal”, said the source.

These Iraqi organisations are keeping a close watch on the US forces’ movement in the country. They consider the US establishment a source of trouble to the country and the region. Last week, Iraqi security Forces Hashd al-Shaabi forced a US patrol to return from their mission, preventing them from entering the city of Mosul on foot. The Iraqi forces consider the US is diverging from its mission to help Iraq fight terrorism when US forces patrol Iraqi cities for their own training purposes.

Hashd al-Shaabi has a grudge against the US forces for having bombarded Iraqi forces on the borders between Iraq and Syria, causing dozens of casualties. US officials offered repeated apologies, accusing Israel of the bombing and promising that such “mistakes” would not be repeated in the future. US officials feared the Hashd reaction and were concerned about their own troops on the ground.

According to Iraqi sources, the Parliament “needs several months to coordinate a large action and the preparation of a bill asking for the withdrawal of the US forces from the country. This campaign is expected to be guided by the Sadrist leader Sayyed Moqtada al-Sadr”. The Sadrist groups are feared by the US for their long history of attacks against US forces during the occupation of Iraq between 2003 and 2011. Those mainly responsible for attacking and killing US occupation forces were Sadrists leaders who today lead their own groups: Asaeb Ahl al-Haq, Kataeb al-Imam Ali and Harakat al-Nujaba’.

From 2003-11, the US declared themselves an occupation force. Today, these forces are present following an official request from the central government in Baghdad. Thus, their departure should follow on a parliamentary initiative, according to article 61 of the constitution.

The Iraq government would like to avoid an aggressive stand against the US and is not looking to have Washington as an enemy. At the same time, Iraq doesn’t want to be considered submissive and under the wing of the US and its policies. The US aims to pull out its forces from Syria – if Trump’s warmonger advisors allow him to do so – to deploy them in Iraq–a move that should increase the number of US forces in Iraq. This would represent a further provocation to the Iraqis.

Simultaneously, Iraq is cooperating with Iran on all commercial levels, especially with regard to energy. Washington would like to prevent any selling of Iranian oil and would like to make sure Iraq is not helping Iran or becoming hostile to Israel.

It is too late: the three Iraqi leaders (the president,the prime minister, the speaker) are closer to Iran than the US. Nevertheless, these leaders, unlike, for example, a figure such as Nuri al-Maliki,do not have a record of hostility to the US. Nevertheless, Trump is mistaken if he believes Mesopotamia will bow to his wishes and become the platform for an attack on Iran.

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The Globalization of War: America’s “Long War” against Humanity

Michel Chossudovsky

The “globalization of war” is a hegemonic project. Major military and covert intelligence operations are being undertaken simultaneously in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia and the Far East. The U.S. military agenda combines both major theater operations as well as covert actions geared towards destabilizing sovereign states.

ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-6-0

Year: 2015

Pages: 240 Pages

List Price: $22.95

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US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued an ultimatum to the Venezuelan government of President Nicolas Maduro on Wednesday, demanding that it throw open its borders to a US-orchestrated scheme to deliver “humanitarian aid.” Washington’s aim is either to provoke a fissure within the country’s armed forces or set the stage for a US-led military intervention.

“The Venezuelan people desperately need humanitarian aid,” Pompeo tweeted. “The US & 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.”

The sudden concern for the “starving people” of Venezuela comes from a US government that has systematically worked to strangle the Venezuelan economy, imposing a financial blockade in August 2017 and an oil embargo last week. The embargo aims to block all sales to and from the state-owned energy company PDVSA, threatening the country with the loss of its main source of foreign exchange and its ability to import food and medicine.

Washington’s intention is unmistakable. It seeks to starve the Venezuelan population into submission, render the country ungovernable and carry through a regime-change operation to install a right-wing puppet government.

To that end, the US government sponsored a political coup launched on January 23 with Juan Guaidó’s self-swearing in as “interim president,” a stunt worked out in advance with the Trump administration. Washington immediately recognized Guaidó, an operative of the extreme right, US-funded Voluntad Popular (Popular Will) party, who had been suddenly elevated to the presidency of the opposition-controlled National Assembly on the eve of the coup. The Trump administration at the same time declared the Maduro government “illegitimate.”

The right-wing governments of Latin America, along with Canada and the major European powers, have followed suit in what amounts to a criminal and predatory scramble for control over Venezuela’s oil reserves, the largest of any country on the planet.

Guaidó and the Venezuelan right, working in close collaboration with the CIA and the State Department, have launched a noisy public campaign over the aid promised by Washington ($20 million), Canada (US$40 million) and the European Union (US$5 million), demanding the opening of a “humanitarian corridor” and declaring that supplies are on the verge of arriving in the Colombian border city of Cúcuta and must be brought into Venezuela under the right-wing opposition’s control, without hindrance.

The main target of this propaganda campaign is the Venezuelan military, which constitutes a key pillar of the Maduro government and has thus far failed to desert it.

The Twitter account of the National Assembly led by Guaidó has kept as its lead message:

“Now is the time, soldier of the fatherland! Are you going to deny humanitarian aid to your mother?”

Guaidó, meanwhile, tweeted on Wednesday that

“in the coming hours, we will give the scope and possibilities of the humanitarian aid, to the National Armed Forces I say: let this aid in because it is for your families too.”

The Venezuelan military’s reaction to this campaign has been to block the major bridge linking Cúcuta in Colombia with Urena in Venezuela, parking a tanker truck and two large containers across the bridge’s three lanes.

The pretense that truckloads of food and medicine brought to the Colombian-Venezuelan border will reverse the profound economic and social crisis prevailing in Venezuela is absurd. The aid, whenever it may arrive, is a classic Trojan Horse, directed not at alleviating the suffering of the Venezuelan people but at provoking either a military coup or an armed confrontation.

Both the Red Cross and Caritas, the Catholic Church-affiliated aid group, have refused to participate in any operation involving the US “humanitarian corridor,” citing their principles of neutrality and independence.

The foreign ministers of both Colombia and Brazil, the two countries that border Venezuela where the US has proposed to open up its “humanitarian corridors,” were in Washington Tuesday for discussions with Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton. The latter appeared at a press conference last week carrying a notepad with the words “5,000 troops to Colombia” written on it.

Undoubtedly, the preferred US option is to provoke a social, economic and political crisis in Venezuela of such magnitude that the military changes sides, overthrowing Maduro and lining up behind a US puppet regime. Failing to achieve this outcome, however, as Trump has repeatedly stated, the option of a US military intervention remains “on the table.”

The US president reiterated his recognition of the “legitimate government” of Guaidó in his State of the Union address Tuesday, to applause from both Republicans and Democrats, whose principal leaders have endorsed the US coup attempt.

The American corporate media, meanwhile, has fallen into line behind Washington’s regime-change operation in the same manner as it did in advance of the US wars in Iraq, Libya and elsewhere. On cue from the State Department, the White House and the CIA, it is broadcasting reports on hunger in Venezuela and casting Maduro as a villain for failing to throw his borders open to the US “aid.”

Maduro, who heads a bourgeois government that defends private property and the interests of both domestic and foreign finance capital, has appealed to the Pope to mediate between his government and the US-backed right-wing opposition. It has welcomed the intervention of a “contact group” organized by Uruguay and Mexico, with the participation of Bolivia, Ecuador, Costa Rica and eight members of the European Union (Spain, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden and the UK), which is convening in Montevideo today to seek a peaceful way out of the crisis.

For its part, however, the right-wing opposition led by Guaidó, acting on orders from Washington, has rejected any “dialogue” or negotiated settlement, demanding unconditional regime-change and counting on US military might to achieve it.

Underlying this intransigence is the determination of US imperialism to assert its hegemony over the most oil-rich country in the world and to roll back the influence of China and Russia, which both have extensive economic and military ties with Caracas.

The threat of Venezuela becoming a flashpoint for a major confrontation between the world’s principal nuclear-armed powers is real and growing. The New York Times published an editorial Wednesday generally supporting the overthrow of the Maduro government, but expressing the nervousness that exists within sections of the US ruling establishment over the extremely bellicose policy being pursued against Venezuela.

“In part because of the Trump administration’s all-in support for regime-change, the crisis has become a dangerous global power struggle,” the Times warned. “That’s the last thing Venezuelans need.”

Citing the ties between Caracas and Moscow and Beijing, the Times states,

“It is very much in American and Western interests to free Venezuela from such unholy alliances through negotiations between supporters of Mr. Guaidó and Mr. Maduro.”

And should such negotiations not be forthcoming? Clearly, there is ample reason for concern within ruling layers over another US war for regime-change, given the abject and bloody failure of previous such military adventures in Iraq and Libya to achieve any tangible gains for US imperialist interests. But in the end, the American ruling class as a whole is embarked on a course in Venezuela that can only produce a bloodbath and the imposition of the kind of dictatorship that was brought to power by the CIA and the Pentagon in Chile, Argentina and elsewhere in Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s, combined with the threat of a far wider war.

The working class in the United States, Europe and internationally must reject the “humanitarian” and “democratic” pretensions of both Washington and the European powers with contempt and unite with the working class of Venezuela and Latin America as a whole in a struggle against imperialist intervention and capitalism.

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The clearest indication of how the Indian military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (“deep state”) truly feel about America’s Afghan peace talks with the Taliban can be seen in retired Major-General Harsha Kakar’s recent article on the topic for “The Statesman”, where the otherwise presumably serious former military official shows the sour grapes that his country has over this process by resorting to a chain of emotional arguments to make the implied point that the war must go on at all costs in order to advance India’s strategic interests vis-à-vis Pakistan at the US’ expense.

Intuiting India’s Interpretation

India, which hasn’t shied away from sounding off about all manner of international issues ever since Prime Minister Modi’s election in 2014, has been uncharacteristically tight-lipped about its attitude towards America’s Afghan peace talks with the Taliban, leading many observers to intuit that it’s extremely unhappy with this process but is applying the age-old wisdom about how “it’s better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt” in order to avoid the ignoble distinction of being the only country in the world to condemn the latest steps taken to end this nearly two-decade-long conflict. These suspicions appear to be confirmed after reading retired Major-General Harsha Kakar’s recent article on this topic for “The Statesman”, where the otherwise presumably serious former military official shows the sour grapes that his country has over this process by resorting to a chain of emotional arguments to make the implied point that the war must go on at all costs in order to advance India’s strategic interests vis-à-vis Pakistan at the US’ expense.

Double Standards On Democracy

In his piece about “Who will be responsible for Afghanistan mess?”, Kakar hits the gate running by comparing the US’ possible withdrawal from Afghanistan to its prior one from Vietnam, remarking that

“Donald Trump appears desperate to fulfill his campaign promise, ignoring sound advice.”

Seeing as how Trump was democratically elected as President of the United States partly on his campaign promise to draw down America’s involvement in costly overseas conflicts, Kakar is implying that the will of the people should be ignored in order to promote the interests of the US’ permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracy (“deep state”), which is superficially hypocritical for someone from the self-professed “world’s largest democracy” to say but makes sense when one realizes that the Indian “deep state” (of which Kakar is a part) hijacked control of the country after Modi took office. For reasons of “narrative convenience”, Kakar ignores the fact that the withdrawal from Vietnam was extremely popular with average Americans, just like a similar one from Afghanistan would be as well.

Screengrab from The Statesman

Frustration Over “America First”

Another important factor that Kakar ignores is Trump’s signature “America First” foreign policy, as he writes that

“It appears the US is presently only concerned about itself, rather than the people of Afghanistan and other states which have a stake in the country.”

This should have been self-evident because Trump’s foreign policy is all about prioritizing US interests instead of ‘taking one for the team’ and ‘doing favors’ for its international ‘partners’ who he feels have been exploiting America for far too long by freeloading off of it. India, it can be said, is one such ‘partner’, at least when it comes to Afghanistan, though this will be returned to in the next section of the present article. Continuing along, Kakar’s next series of points touch upon his views on how wounded US and NATO veterans, as well as those who lost their brothers-in-arms in the conflict, might dislike that Trump’s withdrawing without a victory, but the Major-General seems to be out of touch with the rank and file because otherwise he’d know that this war is very unpopular with them.

For the second time in two paragraphs, he then whines about “America First” again by writing that

“Trump has made up his mind and would follow his intuitions, the world be damned”, adding that “He did it in Syria and is repeating it here.”

Once more, Kakar’s angle of approach to this issue is the same as Trump’s “deep state” foes’ in that he deliberately overlooks just how popular the President’s intention to withdraw from Syria is among average Americans in order to further his own ‘class’’ institutional interests at their expense. The next chain of interconnected points that he tries to make is that the Taliban will go back on its previously stated commitment to peace and inclusive governance as part of a preplanned conspiracy with Pakistan, though not before Islamabad “obtains US largesse, has doors for IMF loans opened and pressure…applied on India to pull out of Afghanistan.” It’s actually these three outcomes of Pakistan’s diplomatic facilitation of the peacemaking process that Kakar – and by extrapolation, the Indian “deep state” that he represents – is most fearful of.

Cutting Off India’s Free Ride In Afghanistan

The Major-General doesn’t really care about the US’ international reputation potentially taking a hit after its ‘second Vietnam’ or what its wounded veterans think about the withdrawal, but his emotional embellishment of these two topics appears to be nothing more than a poorly thought-out attempt to misportray Trump’s peace talks with the Taliban in the worst possible light because of how worried India is about the strategic consequences of their success. New Delhi knows that its interests in Afghanistan are only secured so long as the Pentagon is there to protect them and that the US’ possible withdrawal from the country would remove India’s strategic depth vis-à-vis Pakistan, therefore largely stabilizing the situation in South Asia to what New Delhi’s “deep state” believes would be their ultimate detriment per the “zero-sum” paradigm that guides their decisions. Put another way, despite the War on Afghanistan being a total military failure for the US, India wants Americans to continue dying for them in order to advance their country’s regional interests.

It was written earlier that Trump’s “America First” policy is aimed first and foremost at cutting off the US’ freeloaders, so bearing in mind the aforementioned insight about how India used the US all these years as its “cat’s paw” against Pakistan by strategically profiting off of its people’s sacrifices in blood and treasure, it can be said that the application of “America First” to the War on Afghanistan is a nightmare scenario for New Delhi. Fearing that the withdrawal of American troops will leave Indian investments without protection, Kakar suggests the deployment of historically ineffective UN peacekeeping forces as a desperate last-ditch measure to defeat the same National Liberation Movement that not even the US could crush with over 100,000 troops at the height of the Obama-era surge. Of note, for as much as he hypes up the US’ possible loss of face following any prospective withdrawal from Afghanistan, Kakar doesn’t talk about what a loss of face and money it would be for India if the Taliban seizes its many investments there in the aftermath.

The End Of An Empire, But Which One?

Right near the end, Kakar predicts that “Trump would have demitted office but would remain in history books for being responsible for the death of a nation”, concluding that “It would only prove the adage of ‘Afghanistan being the graveyard of empires’”, but the US might actually save itself from collapse by withdrawing from the war-torn state, reinvesting its money in domestic infrastructure and socio-economic projects instead, and getting out of the quagmire while it still can.

On the other hand, the same can’t be said for Modi and his envisaged empire of “Akhand Bharat”, which might both be dealt political death blows ahead of India’s general elections in May if serious concern over the geopolitical consequences of a possibly impending American withdrawal from Afghanistan combines with other issues to convince voters to kick the hyper-jingoist Hindutva ideologues out of office before they lead their country to ruin. It’s little wonder then that India’s “deep state” has sour grapes over the US’ Pakistani-facilitated peacemaking progress in Afghanistan because it could end their dreams of a regional empire once and for all.

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This article was originally published on Eurasia Future.

Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

The St Louis River of Northern Minnesota will be as Vulnerable to Annihilation as were Brazil’s Rio Doce and Paraobeba Rivers (pictured below) – if the PolyMet Project is Allowed to Proceed

(Trying to understand why every Brazilian mining catastrophe has been blacked-out by the Duluth News-Tribune)

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One of the most disturbing aspects of the past two years of Donald Trump foreign policy has been the assumption that decisions made by the United States are binding on the rest of the world. Apart from time of war, no other nation has ever sought to prevent other nations from trading with each other. And the United States has also uniquely sought to penalize other countries for alleged crimes that did not occur in the US and that did not involve American citizens, while also insisting that all nations must comply with whatever penalties are meted out by Washington.

The United States now sees itself as judge, jury and executioner in policing the international community, a conceit that began post World War 2 when American presidents began referring to themselves as “leader of the free world.” This pretense received legislative backing with passage of the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1987 (ATA) as amended in 1992 plus subsequent related legislation, to include the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act of 2016 (JASTA). The body of legislation can be used by US citizens or residents to obtain civil judgments against alleged terrorists anywhere in the world and can be employed to punish governments, international organizations and even corporations that are perceived to be supportive of terrorists, even indirectly or unknowingly. Plaintiffs are able to sue for injuries to their “person, property, or business” and have ten years to bring a claim.

Sometimes the connections and level of proof required by a US court to take action are tenuous, and that is being polite. Suits currently can claim secondary liability for third parties, including banks and large corporations, under “material support” of terrorism statutes. This includes “aiding and abetting” liability as well as providing “services” to any group that the United States considers to be terrorist, even if the terrorist label is dubious and/or if that support is inadvertent.

There have been two recent lawsuits seeking civil damages under ATA and JASTA involved Iran and Syria. Regarding Iran, in June 2017 a jury deliberated for one day before delivering a guilty verdict against two Iranian foundations for violation of US sanctions, allowing a federal court to authorize the US government seizure of a skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan. It was the largest terrorism-related civil forfeiture in United States history. The presiding judge decided to distribute proceeds from the building’s sale, which could amount to as much as $1 billion, to the families of victims of terrorism, including the September 11^th attacks. The court ruled that Iran had some culpability for the 9/11 attacks as a state sponsor of terrorism, though it could not determine that Iran was directly involved in the attacks.

The ruling against Iran has to be considered somewhat bizarre as it is clear that Iran had nothing to do with 9/11 but was considered guilty anyway because the State Department in Washington has declared it to be a state sponsor of terror. Being able to determine guilt based on an interpretation of a foreign government’s behavior puts incredible power in the hands of unelected bureaucrats who are making political decisions regarding who is “good” and who is “bad.”

A second, more recent, court case has involved Syria. Last week a federal court in the District of Columbia ruled that Syria was liable for the targeting and killing of an American journalist who was covering the shelling of a rebel held area of Homs in 2012.

The court awarded $302.5 million to the family of the journalist, Marie Colvin. In her ruling, Judge Amy Berman Jackson cited “Syria’s longstanding policy of violence” seeking “to intimidate journalists” and “suppress dissent.” As it is normally not possible even in American courts to sue a foreign government, a so-called human rights group funded by the US and other governments called the Center for Justice and Accountability made its case relying on the designation of Damascus as a state sponsor of terrorism. The judge believed that the evidence presented was “credible and convincing.”

The complexities of what is going on in Syria are such that it is difficult to imagine that a Washington based judge could possibly render judgment in any credible fashion. Colvin was in a war zone and the plaintiffs, whose agenda was to compile a dossier of war crimes against Syria, made their case using documents that they provided, which certainly presented a partisan viewpoint and might themselves have been fabricated. Based on her own comments, Judge Amy Berman Jackson certainly came into the game with her own particular view on Syria and what the conflict there was all about.

Another American gift to international jurisprudence has been the Magnitsky Act of 2012, a product of the feel-good enthusiasm of the Barack Obama Administration. It was based on a narrative regarding what went on in Russia under the clueless Boris Yeltsin and his nationalist successor Vladimir Putin that was peddled by one Bill Browder, who many believe to have been a major player in the looting of the former Soviet Union. It was claimed by Browder and his accomplices in the media that the Russian government had been complicit in the arrest, torture and killing of one Sergei Magnitsky, an accountant turned whistleblower working for Browder. Almost every aspect of the story has been challenged, but it was completely bought into by the Congress and White House and led to sanctions on the Russians who were allegedly involved despite Moscow’s complaints that the US had no legal right to interfere in its internal affairs relating to a Russian citizen.

Worse still, the Magnitsky Act has been broadened and is now the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act of 2017. It is being used to sanction and otherwise punish alleged “human rights abusers” in other countries. It was most recently used in the Jamal Khashoggi case, in which the US sanctioned the alleged killers of the Saudi dissident journalist even though no one had actually been convicted of any crime.

Independent of Magnitsky and the various ATA acts is the ability of the US Treasury Department and its Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) to sanction a country’s ability to move money through the US controlled dollar financial system. That is what is taking place currently regarding payments for Venezuela’s oil exports, which have been sanctioned and will not be able to use the dollar denominated system after April 28th. A similar US imposed sanctioning is currently in effect against Iran, with all potential purchasers of Iranian oil themselves being subject to secondary sanctions if they continue to make purchases after May 5th.

Most of the world oil business is transacted in dollars, so the Treasury Department has an effective weapon in hand to interfere in foreign countries without having to send in the Marines, but there is, of course, a danger that the rest of the world will eventually read the tea leaves and abandon the use of petrodollars altogether. If that occurs it will make it more difficult for the American government to continue to print dollars without regard for deficits as there will be little demand for the extra US currency in circulation.

The principle that Washington should respect the sovereignty of other states even when it disagrees with their internal policies has effectively been abandoned. And, as if things were not bad enough, some new legislation virtually guarantees that in the near future the United States will be doing still more to interfere in and destabilize much of the world. Congress has passed and President Trump has signed the Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act, which seeks to improve Washington’s response to mass killings. The prevention of genocide and mass murder is now a part of American national security agenda. There will be a Mass Atrocity Task Force and State Department officers will receive training to sensitize them to impending genocide, though presumably the new program will not apply to the Palestinians as the law’s namesake never was troubled by their suppression and killing by the state of Israel.

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Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is www.councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected]. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from SCF

Many see Trump conspiring with oilmen to capture Venezuelan petroleum reserves. Trump’s earlier blunt talk about seizing oilfields buttresses this thesis. As well, ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips and Chevron appreciate better than anyone the astronomic value of Venezuela’s heavy oil. There are, however, flaws in the petro-conquistador thesis. Foremost, it does not explain why oil-resistant Democrats and Europeans play lead roles in this regime change travesty.

On December 18, 2014 a Democrat-led Senate passed the Venezuela Defense of Human Rights and Civil Society Act. This legislation, sponsored by Democratic Senator Robert Menendez, imposed sanctions on Venezuela while promising support for Venezuelan “civil society.” The Act also sought to meet “the information needs of the Venezuelan people” through publications and broadcasts; and through “distribution of circumvention technology.” Obama signed immediately.

On March 9, 2015 Obama declared:

“…a national emergency with respect to the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States presented by the situation in Venezuela.”

His accompanying Executive Order 13692 extended sanctions while undertaking to: “support greater political expression in Venezuela.”

At this time the US deep state conducted an orchestra of American and European agencies and foundations disbursing $50 million a year to Venezuelan “civil society” (opposition politicians, student activists and journalists). Key agencies were USAID and National Endowment for Democracy. Participating foundations included: (Jimmy) Carter Centre; (Soros’s) Open Society; (Democratic Party-affiliated) National Democratic Institute for International Affairs; plus several Spanish and German concerns.

On January 16, 2017, four days before Trump’s inauguration, Obama renewed his declaration designating Venezuela a national security threat. Venezuela’s Foreign Minister called the move “new aggression by Barack Obama” extending Obama’s “legacy of hate and serious violation of international law.”

On January 4, 2019 a Democrat-led House of Representatives swore in.

On January 10 House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair, Eliot Engel (Democrat-NY) said he would waste no time holding “Mr. Maduro” accountable. Simultaneously, former DNC Chair and Hillary Clinton fixer, Democratic Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz unveiled her Venezuelan-Russian Threat Mitigation Act. She was flanked by former Clinton cabinet member and Clinton Foundation boss, Democratic Congresswoman Donna Shalala who announced her Venezuelan Arms Restriction Act to prevent weapons sales, including non-lethal police gear, to Venezuela. Next up was Democratic Congresswoman Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, sponsor of the Venezuelan Humanitarian Assistance Act aimed at allowing US operatives to bypass Venezuelan authorities and distribute “aid” directly to Venezuelans.

On January 24, less than 24 hours after Juan Guaido declared himself Venezuelan President, Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff (House Intelligence Committee Chair) blamed Maduro’s “dictatorial” rule for devastating Venezuela’s economy, then recognised Guaido as Venezuela’s “rightful leader.” Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (Democrat-IL) piped in calling Venezuela’s 2018 election a sham before endorsing Guaido’s presidency.

Of 280 Democratic Senators and Representatives 3 dissented. This troika did not include Bernie Sanders. On January 24 Bernie boarded the war-train with a battle-whoop beginning:

“The Maduro government in Venezuela has been waging a violent crackdown on Venezuelan civil society, violated the constitution by dissolving the National Assembly and was re-elected last year in an election that many observers said was fraudulent. Further the economy is a disaster and millions are migrating.

Bernie goes on to warn of the perils of regime change while leaving wide open the door to punitive sanctions. His statement is silent on America’s economic war on Venezuela. His support for “civil society” is willfully naïve about such groups’ involvement in political meddling up to and including regime change. (Bernie supported starvation sanctions against Iraq, and the bombing of Serbia. He calls Hugo Chavez a “dead communist dictator.”)

Regarding Venezuela the Democrats march in lockstep with: the Liberal Party of Canada under PM Trudeau; Merkel’s ruling coalition in Germany; French President Macron; and the governments of Sweden, Denmark, Austria and Spain.

These governments are committed to phasing petroleum out of their economies. All champion the Paris Climate Accord. None can be quickly dismissed as Exxon’s goons. None take orders from Trump. Thus, the petro-conquistador thesis appears ill-equipped to explain their behaviour.

No doubt Washington DC hosts cabals of oilmen and politicos coveting unfettered access to the Orinoco Belt. Here, however, it seems fantastical that President Maduro might be removed by anything short of civil war; or that the Orinoco Belt might be exploitable amidst the Vietnam-style conflagration surely to ensue. Then, arises the enigmatic spectacle of a dozen “liberal-leftist-environmentalist” Western parties and governments frantically tilting at the same windmill. Pourquoi?

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A letter was sent today to the Science for Peace list-serve in response to the Science for Peace Statement on the Government of Canada’s ongoing campaign to overturn the elected government of Venezuela.

Science for Peace is based in the Dept of Physics of the University of Toronto.

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What is most welcome in this statement is its expeditious issue and wide-lensed comprehension of the hypocritically self-serving role of Canada’s state, major mining corporations and banks in the plundering of Latin American societies and interference in their internal affairs to ensure that it can continue on and grow against elected governments seeking self-determination.  (now for the first time our foreign minister mendaciously publicly leading the alliance of the externally orchestrated oppression, exploitation and coup in Venezuela).

This exact passage deserves verbatim support:

“Canada has, in recent years, supported the replacement of elected governments in Honduras, Guatemala, Haiti and now in Venezuela, and its relations with Latin America are problematical in broader terms.

Canada provides a financial and legal haven for businesses that exploit labour and decimate the forests, agriculture, and watersheds in these countries. Canadian banks mire these countries in debt and buy up public utilities.

Protests against Canadian mining companies in Mexico, Peru, Bolivia and Guatemala are met with police and military brutality. In addition, Canada needs to maintain a distance from the far-right government of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil. Bolsonaro, among other policies, threatens our common future by opening up the Amazon, the lungs of the planet, to deforestation for profit.”

I would like to add, however, that it is not only or primarily “the Trudeau government” that is “shaping its interventionist stance toward Venezuela”. It is, more specifically, Foreign Minister Freeland who also leads Canada and NATO towards massive militaristic operations on Russia’s borders, as well as warlike policies of the violent-coup established government of Ukraine with, as the right-wing states of Latin America, a chilling fondness for fascist military rule of the past.

But to be fair, this is just as much the policy of the now Conservative opposition whose leader stands full-square for this illegal interference in Venezuela, and whose admired Harper predecessor was the most militaristic regime in Canada’s history with its bombers leading NATO’s near eco-genocide of Libya. The Conservatives not the Liberals signed the still fulfilled contract “to sell military hardware to Saudi Arabia” that helps to starve and destroy Yemen society today. Only the NDP has advised against Canada’s US-like interference in Venezuela’s government, but the media have bayed against its leader for saying so.

The excellent Sandbrook/Science for Peace statement also points out the hypocrisy of Canada still selling armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia (as it murders its critic and bombs poverty-stricken neighbour Yemen into mass starvation), while at the same time “condemning the Maduro regime for lesser crimes”.

But the question arises even here, what are “Maduro’s crimes“ under law?  Everywhere in the mass media and government statements Maduro is accused of them – from ‘massive corruption’ to ‘fraudulent elections’. But internet search cannot find any evidence of abuse of public power for private gain – the definition of corruption.

Moreover, the pervasive claim of ‘fraudulent elections’ is plainly refuted by the international evidence of nearly 100 professional journalists and others from around the world whose June 26 report on the 2018 May election was unanimous in declaring the Venezuela’s electoral system as “fraud proof”, and by President Jimmy Carter’s earlier report on Venezuela’s electoral system as “the most excellent I have known”.

There is no testimony from any direct observer to the contrary. But then none of Minster Freeland’s foreign allies now ganging up on Venezuela had any known observers at the election which some of then-fractured opposition boycotted (the sole irregularity).

What is most shocking about Canada’s fomenting of a right-wing led uprising against Venezuela’s elected government is the long line of official lies of its government and the corporate media at collective and individual levels.

They completely suppress the cause of Venezuela’s economic and civil collapse by ever more US-led financial embargoes on all its lifeline of support – from its international credit to food and medical imports to recent seizure of banked assets in the US to externally orchestrated mobs in the street over 20 years.

Led by Canada’s Foreign Minister (right) embracing all fellow conspirators to Bolsonaro’s man most warmly, she claims and all echo in variations that this externally-wrought coup in violation of international law is “the rule of law” and “according to the Constitution” for “free and fair elections” to end the “illegitimate Maduro dictatorship”.  

 

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John McMurtry is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada whose work is translated from Latin America to Japan. He is the author of the three-volume Philosophy and World Problems published by UNESCO’s Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS), and his most recent book is The Cancer Stage of Capitalism: From Crisis to Cure. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

The agenda for the “Montevideo Mechanism” being held in Uruguay on Thursday will be a four part process, foreign ministers said Wednesday.

International delegates were directed to a press conference led by Uruguayan Foreign Minister Rodolfo Nin Novoa and Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrand where they presented a brief outline of the meeting.

Held in hopes to mediate the domestic turmoil between Venezuelan opposition forces and the legitimate Nicolas Maduro administration, the conference will be broken into four segments, the foreign ministers said.

The first mode of action will be to map out the conditions to encourage the two parties to dialogue. Following this, negotiations will ensue, with the international delegation assisting the two Venezuelan sides debate their demands, concessions, and the results of the initial talk. The third step will be to commit to these agreements and, finally, implement the changes into government policy.

Gobiernos de México, Uruguay, y @CARICOMorg, en atención al llamado del secretario General de la #ONU, @antonioguterres, coinciden en que la única vía para abordar la situación en Venezuela es el diálogo para la negociación, desde el respeto al derecho internacional y los #DDHH. pic.twitter.com/DvhCYseNsd

— SRE México (@SRE_mx) February 6, 2019

“Governments of Mexico, Uruguay, and @CARICOMorg, in attention to the call of the Secretary-General of the #ONU, @antonioguterres agree that the only way to address the situation in Venezuela is the dialogue for negotiation, out of respect for international law and the #DDHH.”

In a Twitter statement, the Mexican Foreign Ministry said,

“This initiative is made available to Venezuelan actors as a peaceful and democratic alternative that privileges dialogue and peace, to foster the necessary conditions for a comprehensive, comprehensive and lasting solution.

“This mechanism is testimony to an active, proactive and conciliatory diplomacy to bring the disputing parties closer, and subscribes to the principles of non-intervention, the legal equality of States, the peaceful settlement of disputes, respect for human rights, and the self-determination of peoples,” the statement said.

“Similarly, we reiterate our decision to help restore the tranquility of the Venezuelan people, through dialogue and peace, to reduce tensions between political forces and avoid the threat or use of force,” the minsitry said.

Both Mexico and Uruguay have shown solidarity with Venezuela and Maduro after a coup was attempted on Jan. 23 by Juan Guaido, an opposition lawmaker and the self-proclaimed “interim president” and the United States reiterated its threats of militarized intervention once again.

They will overseeing the talk which will be attended by various Caribbean and South American representatives as well as members of the European Union associated with the International Contact Group, namely Italy, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Costa Rica, Bolivia, and Ecuador.

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Featured image: They will overseeing the talk which will be attended by various representatives from the Caribbean, South American, and the European Union. | Photo: Twitter: @SRE_mx

The decision from Global Affairs Canada to recognize an unelected, unconstitutionally self-proclaimed interim president of Venezuela came “within minutes” of Juan Guaido’s  declaration on Jan. 23, the CBC reports. A mere two weeks after the inauguration of democratically-elected Nicolas Maduro, Guaido, a little-known politician heading Venezuela’s opposition-controlled National Assembly declared himself president until another election is held. Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland issued a statement shortly thereafter fully supporting Guaido and demanding the ouster of Maduro.

It’s imperative to note, however, that contrary to what Freeland claims, Guaido’s declaration violates Venezuela’s Constitution. According to the document, defined by its radical mechanisms that ensure power rests largely in democratically-elected popular institutions such as communes, for instance, the nation’s president must first be deemed unfit or absent to carry out his or her duties before someone else can legally assume the presidency. Section 233 outlines all the ways, including death, resignation or mental incapacity, to name just a few, that a president can be deemed unfit. As such, a very alive, mentally aware and democratically-elected Maduro candidly, and with the infectious humor Venezuelans are known for, pointed out during a televised Jan. 24 speech:

“Estoy vivo, gracias a Dios y seguiré vivo por muchos años….y estoy bien del coco…y más duro que nunca.” (I’m alive, thank God, and will be for many years to come… My mind is still clear… and I’m going harder than ever.)

Additionally, Section 233 clearly states that if the president is indeed deemed unfit or absent within the first four years of taking office, new elections shall be called within the following 30 days, during which time the Executive Vice President will assume the presidency. The constitution only allows the president of the National Assembly – in this case, Guaido – to assume the presidency during the first 30 days if the elected president is deemed unfit or absent before taking office. None of these conditions have been met, making Guaido’s self-declaration unconstitutional and thus illegal.

Screengrab from The Guardian

What’s more, Guaido, as well as Canada’s mainstream media, claim that despite the illegality of his self-declaration, the move was necessary because Maduro won under contested terms in the May 20, 2018 presidential elections.

But the truth is that all of the 150 international observers, including members from various civic organizations and former heads of states, who were there to monitor the elections as part of an agreement between the opposition and the Maduro government, “unanimously” agreed that the elections were fair and transparent. In the 11-page report prepared by the Canadian delegation, for example, all members conclude they all “witnessed a transparent, secure, democratic and orderly electoral and voting process.”

In fact, even members of the opposition, many of whom reportedly participated in the world-renown vote-auditing process, which includes several different levels of electronic and manual auditing, had agreed at that time that the process had been carried out fair and square. It wasn’t until they lost (and in the months leading up to the audited elections) that they cried foul. What’s more, contrary to the media’s narrative that the elections were rushed by Maduro – which parrots the Canadian Foreign Affairs Ministry’s position – the elections were held when they were, largely at the request of the opposition.

That’s evidenced in the formal written peace agreement presented to both the Maduro government and the opposition members by former Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero after almost two years of peace negotiations. On February 2018, the “Agreement of Democratic Coexistence for Venezuela” was finally ready to be signed by everyone, teleSUR English reported. In it, the incumbent Maduro government had agreed to many of the oppositions’ demands, including getting rid of pro-government “red points” controlled by Chavistas and a call for international UN and OAS observers and to hold the presidential elections as early as possible rather than in December, as is customary in Venezuela, the Canadian delegation’s report states. “But at the last minute,” Raul Burbano, one of the observers from that delegation tells the Media Co-op, “the opposition walked away.” Although there is no conclusive evidence, the Canadian delegation’s report states that on the same week the agreement was to be signed,

“Former US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson while on tour of Latin America openly called for regime change in Venezuela. A day later, the Venezuelan opposition backed out of the agreement and refused to participate in the early elections which they had called for.”

As for the claim that Maduro barred individuals or parties from running in the elections, the truth is that it was the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Venezuela (not Maduro) who disqualified certain parties due to violations of the aforementioned electoral process.

On Jan. 25, 2018, the Canadian delegation’s report states that the Court “ordered the (Electoral National Council) to exclude the MUD from ballot validation process” after ruling that the coalition’s structure, “the consolidation of various political organizations, some renewed and others pending renewal violated the electoral process.” Essentially, Burbano explains, the coalition was trying to double-dip by putting forward representatives as both individual candidates and as parties. They weren’t really trying to “rig the system,” he says, “but play the system.” Other opposition members like Leopoldo Lopez and Henrique Capriles – two of the most popular ones – were not able to run because they have been either accused, tried and convicted of crimes or barred from running due to corruption. Currently, Lopez is serving a 14-year prison term, which has been commuted to house arrest due to “humanitarian measures” taken by the supreme court, The Guardian reports, for inciting the violent 2014 protests that claimed several lives. And in 2017, the Comptroller General’s office barred Capriles from holding public office for 15 years “on the ground of alleged misconduct, though no bribery charges were brought against him,” according to a report by Venezuelanalysis.com.

These facts, it seems, are inconsequential to Canada’s officials and the media.

But while much of this news may come as a surprise to people, the wheels of the American Empire had actually been in motion in Venezuela for a long time, and Canada had been serving as the oil greasing those wheels.

Anticipating a Coup

As the Canadian Press would reveal, the plot among Canadian diplomats in Caracas and their Latin American and Caribbean counterparts, united under the so called Lima Group, to install Guaido in order to undermine Maduro had been “a labour of months.” Together with the other dozen or so heads of states, Canada had been brainstorming how to unite Venezuela’s opposition under one strongman. That man, described in a piece by alternative news source The Gray Zone as a “previously unknown political bottom-dweller,” would be Guaido. But “political bottom-dweller” though he may have been, he had also been the “product of more than a decade of assiduous grooming by the US government’s elite regime change factories,” according to The Gray Zone’s piece, titled “The Making of Juan Guaido: How the US Regime Change Laboratory Created Venezuela’s Coup Leader.”

Active among Venezuelan right-wing student activists, Gray Zone writers Dan Cohen and Max Blumenthal say Guaido grew up learning to undermine the socialist government. As a politician, he immersed himself in the “most violent faction of Venezuela’s most radical opposition party, positioning himself at the forefront of one destabilization campaign after another.” This made him prime meat for Washington.

“Guaido is more popular outside Venezuela than inside, especially in the elite Ivy League and Washington circles,” Diego Sequera, a Venezuelan journalist and writer for the investigative outlet Mision Verdad told The Gray Zone. “He’s a known character there, is predictably right-wing, and is considered loyal to the program.”

So it should come as no surprise that Canadian officials had “anticipated” Guaido’s move, as the Canadian Press reports, since they had been “keeping in close contact with” him long before everything unfolded. In fact, exactly one year before Guaido’s illegal proclamation, on Jan. 23, 2018, Canada had already played a key role in the fourth Lima Group meeting, in which it voiced total “rejection” for the presidential election call, according to a 2018 official government document. On Feb. 4, Ottawa will host yet another Lima Group meeting on the subject. Canada also provided more than $800,000 in “humanitarian aid” to various “humanitarian partners.” Many of those “humanitarian partners,” however, include the likes of organizations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, to name a couple, which are run by “politicians and ‘managers,’” says Alfred De Zayas, former UN special rapporteur to Venezuela. And since they “all depend on donations…the donors tend to set the agenda.”

Of note is the fact that despite claims to Canada’s historic rejection of US-style intervention in Latin America, as one Toronto Star editorial purports, the truth is that Canada’s record for backing, financing and  facilitating US-led invasions of Latin America is as sordid as it is opportunistic – in the shadows and behind the curtains, waiting to feed on what the empire breaks off, not unlike the actual species of bottom-feeding fish that have learned to cover themselves before they strike.

It is thus entirely in step with its foreign policy – founded on colonialism and capitalism – that Canada has formally recognized an unelected, self-proclaimed interim president in Venezuela who is backed by the US and who stands against everything Hugo Chavez, the Bolivarian Revolution, and the democratically-elected president Nicolas Maduro defend. That Canada is openly endorsing a US-led coup d’etat in-the-making should be a clear sign that its foreign policy is one rigidly guided by the same corporate interests as those of the American empire which seek to, above all, control the world’s oil supply.

It should not come as a surprise, however, says Todd Gordon, a law and society professor at Laurier University and author of Blood of Extraction: Canada’s Imperialism in Latin America, as it is “nothing new.”

“If your policies are not deferential to multinational corporations and the neoliberal orthodox,” he told the Media Co-op, “you’re going to find yourself on the wrong side of Canadian policy.”

In the Shadow of The Empire

Intervention justified by manufactured humanitarian crises. Destabilization masqueraded as popular opposition. And regime change via coup d’etat.

That has been the United States’ proven formula in Latin America for over 100 years. During the 1970s and 1980s, the CIA was directly funding right-wing dictatorships to fight the rise of socialist governments in the region. While ostensibly the goal then was to quell the supposed evils of Soviet communist influence, the real purpose was neutralizing all popular social movements by force in order to secure access to the natural resources of those countries. As the Cold War thawed, and after two decades of backing military dictatorships, Cuba remained one of the American empire’s only remaining threats in the region, despite over 600 assassination attempts against Fidel Castro.

Then, in 1998, Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez came into the picture with a firebrand anti-imperialist, anti-Washington fervor that swept up many other South American nations and, more importantly, limited America’s access to one of the world’s largest oil reserves. The empire, once again, trembled. Since then, the socialist PSUV party, now led by Nicolas Maduro, has won over 25 elections despite a violent though fragmented opposition.

And then there are, of course, the unilateral economic sanctions the US has imposed on Venezuela, which former UN Special Rapporteur to that nation, Alfred de Zayas (image on the right), says are unequivocally illegal. They amount to “unilateral coercive measures,” De Zayas, an expert in international law, wrote in an online interview with the Media Co-op. And those “are always illegal, because they contravene the UN Charter, customary international law, and in the case of Latin America, chapter 4, article 19 of the OAS Charter.” Burbano, one of the 150 international observers, can attest to the effects of the sanctions. Pulling a quote out of Richard Nixon’s playbook, Burbano likens what’s happening to Venezuela to what happened to Salvador Allende’s socialist government in Chile in 1973, where US policy was meant to “make the economy scream.”

Less talked about, however, is Canada’s shadowy history in Latin America, which dates back to the 19th century, when its corporations and banks began to stake claims to the region. By the 20th century, those same banks had direct relationships with many of those military dictatorships the US backed. But it wasn’t until the 1990s when Canadian foreign investment in Latin America, led by banks and mining companies, really took off, making Canada one of the major foreign investor nations in the world. From that moment on, Canada began applying a “persistently aggressive…foreign policy,” says Gordon. The Pink Tide – inspired by Chavez’s 21st Century Socialism – that would push many South American nations to reject the neoliberal status quo at the turn of the century was, in fact, Canada’s key foreign policy concern. Consequently, under Stephen Harper’s Conservatives, Canada played a major role in the coup d’etats in Haiti (2004), Honduras (2009) and Paraguay (2012), ousting democratically-elected leaders. As a result, says Gordon, to date, Canadian banks have “one of the largest foreign footprints” across Latin America and the Caribbean.

By deftly promoting an image of benevolent peacekeeper, a message then sanitized by a complacent and arguably ideologically-led media, Canada has managed to reap all the rewards of the American Empire without getting its hands as dirty. On the contrary, Canada has often been considered the diplomatic, apologetic cousin of the empire, able to deliver its messages precisely because of that facade. A Trojan Horse with hockey sticks.

In The Ugly Canadian: Stephen Harper’s Foreign Policy, for instance, Yves Engler notes conversations between Canadian, American and Venezuela opposition officials who, aware of the U.S.’ dirty history in the region, colluded on how Canada could inject themselves in the country to serve as the intermediary. Canada is “a country that can deliver messages that can resonate in ways that sometimes our messages don’t for historical or psychological reasons,” Thomas Shannon, a US diplomat had quipped following Chavez’s 2006 reelection. Gordon confirms this.

“They’re very conscious of that,” he says. “Because (Canada is) in the shadow of the US, it can get away with things it otherwise might not have.”

That behavior extends beyond party lines.

Canada’s aggressive interference in Venezuela, for instance, began under the right-wing government of Stephen Harper, who, like his US counterparts, felt threatened by Venezuela’s anti-capitalist, anti-Washington stance. As early as 2006, when Chavez won with 63 percent of the vote, Canada was the only member of the OAS to join the US in denouncing Chavez’s legitimate victory.

“Six months later,” writes Engler in The Ugly Canadian, “Harper toured South America to help stunt the region’s rejection of neoliberalism and US dependence.”

By 2010, former deputy foreign affairs minister under Harper, Peter Kent, was already meeting opposition figures. Then, as in now, Kent parroted the same unsubstantiated claims about the shrinkage of democratic space in Venezuela. From then, baseless, unsubstantiated accusations against the Venezuelan government have continued to be levied by both Conservatives and Liberals alike. “Both are capitalist, corporate-oriented parties whose goal is to protect the interests of the rich and the powerful both in Canada and internationally,” Gordon says. “Liberals put a more social and glossy face on things. Conservatives are more blunt about it. But the end goal…is the same.”

Indeed, today, under Trudeau, nothing has changed – not the tone or scope of media coverage nor Canada’s foreign policy. The narrative remains the same.

Selling a Humanitarian Crisis

It’s indisputable that the situation in Venezuela is dire. Many hardships, particularly economic and social ones, have shaken that nation, and political divisions are rooted deep within the population. But these bare facts, stripped of an explanation, context or analysis do not amount to a humanitarian crisis, which is the narrative that western media has continued to push despite mounting evidence to the contrary.

For instance, in a CBC interview late last month with Burbano of Common Frontiers, the host took what many listeners on Twitter later described as a “combative” tone. During a short eight-minute interview on the CBC’s As It Happens, host Carol Off seemed uninterested in Burbano’s side of the story, which contradicted the calamitous picture she had been trying to paint.

“I don’t think anybody can deny there are challenges, economic, social, political in Venezuela,” Burbano said, explaining he had seen it for himself last May when he was there and spoke to people on the ground. “But there’s not a humanitarian crisis in Venezuela…The term ‘humanitarian crisis’ is used as a political screen to create the political conditions to intervene.”

But Off pushed ahead with her script, claiming that neither of them could opine on the matter since they didn’t live there but, in the same breath, asserting: “This is a humanitarian crisis.” Burbano pointed out that what he said was based on what he experienced, which had been confirmed by many others who had also visited the country, including De Zayas, whose detailed UN report Burbano mentioned repeatedly. Off made no attempt to inquire about that report. Burbano also mentioned the human rights violations that mar other countries supporting Guaido like Colombia, for instance. Off ignored that too.

By contrast, on Jan. 31, the CBC devoted 20 minutes to interviewing Maria Corina Machado, a prominent member of the opposition who helped plot and execute the unsuccessful 2002 coup, and former Canadian Ambassador to Venezuela Ben Roswell, who bumbled on about how Canada’s intervention is not the same as the American intervention.

During the unusually-long segment of the CBC’s The Current with Anna Maria Trimonti, Machado and Roswell – two uncritical faces of the same coin – were essentially given an ample platform to further the same narrative with next to no critical questions coming from Trimonti. Perhaps one of the few moments when Trimonti pushed Machado was when she played back a recording of an earlier interview with a prominent Canadian writer who has denounced Canadian and the US’ intervention in Venezuela as a coup, hoping to elicit a response. Instead, Machado evaded the question and went back to her talking points suggesting the fight isn’t ideological but about helping starving Venezuelans. Machado went on for minutes without Trimonti even attempting to return to her question. Near the end of Machado’s nine-or-so minutes on air, Trimonti mentions Machado’s role in the 2002 coup. Machado once again evades the question. Trimonti doesn’t push.

The only thing Machado didn’t twist or lie about was when she admitted the main priority for the opposition was to return Venezuela to a neoliberal, open-market economy – the same that kept millions of Venezuelans in poverty before Chavez. This “goes beyond Maduro,” said Machado, a disgraced member of the National Assembly who in 2014 was welcomed to Toronto’s financial district by Harper in order to (unsuccessfully) rally anti-Maduro support. “We want…Venezuela to be brought again to the bloc of Western democracies,…open markets and true integration.”

The thing is, Burbano is not alone. As he pointed out to Carol Off during his short interview, others such as former UN Rapporteur De Zayas himself, as well as all 150 international observers, 68 percent of the Venezuelan voters who supported Maduro and huge parts of the international civic and political community all agree that there is no humanitarian crisis and that Maduro is the legitimate, democratically-elected president. But if a humanitarian crisis can be created, or at least its illusion sold, foreign intervention can be justified. “That’s what they do,” Gordon says, referring to how the mainstream media helped sanitize Canada’s role in the coups of Haiti, Paraguay and Honduras. “They don’t say, ‘We’re fomenting a coup.’ They say, ‘We’re doing democracy promotion.’” De Zayas agrees: “The only purpose of maintaining that Venezuela is suffering a humanitarian crisis is to justify a military humanitarian intervention – which of course would violate article 2(4) of the UN charter.”

So why does the media refuse to give a voice to these dissident views? Or not at least present this other side of the story, which is publicly available, documented and verified?

In a word: Money.

Money, Money, Money

“There is too much money at stake,” De Zayas, the first UN Special Rapporteur to visit Venezuela in 21 years, tells the Media Co-op. “Venezuela’s oil and gold reserves are so huge that many in the US and EU are rubbing their hands in the expectation of the loot if Maduro is toppled and the natural resources of Venezuela are privatized.”

Indeed, in a particularly revealing freudian slip, US National Security Adviser John Bolton admitted during a Fox News interview that Venezuelan oil was their main target.

“We’re in conversations with major American companies that are now either in Venezuela or in…the United States,” the senior official admits. “I think we’re trying to get to the same end result here. Venezuela is one of the three countries….(that) will make a big difference to the United states economically, if we can have American oil companies invest in and produce the oil capabilities in Venezuela.”

For his part, De Zayas has spent most of his adult life shouting this from the rooftops to no avail. He was a former member of the Office for the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights for decades, as well as Secretary of the Human Rights Committee and Chief of the Petitions Department. He is also an international law expert and was the Douglas McKay Brown Chair in International Law at the University of British Columbia in 2003. Following his two-year fact-finding mission to Venezuela concluding in 2018, De Zayas wrote a detailed and lengthy report clearly stating that while criticisms exist of the Maduro government (as criticism exist in every country, including Canada), the main factors affecting the Venezuelan economy and fomenting social and political unrest were the United States’ economic sanctions and economic war that has been waged in collusion with other nations against Venezuela. Yet, that report, as many others, has fallen mostly on deaf ears at the UN, he says. The few who do pursue it in hopes of challenging the accepted narrative – namely that “We Americans are the good guys, we know what is good for the world, we bring them democracy and human rights” – are often “ostracized, mobbed, ignored,” De Zayas says.

But that doesn’t excuse the “unprofessional journalists” who choose to ignore the findings, which are public domain and available for anyone to explore and challenge. “It was and is unprofessional of the journalists to suppress information,” he says. “If they disagree with the findings and recommendations in my report, they should say so. But since they cannot disprove my findings, they prefer to ignore them.”

Of course, De Zayas, like Sisyphus, may be perpetually condemned to push his findings on institutions, not merely individuals, with core structures defined by “hardball politics, blackmail and twisting of arms,” as he candidly puts it. “Ambassadors have told me more than once what pressures they have been subjected to — not only from the US, but also from the UK and EU. Basically it is geopolitics and money — human rights have been weaponized in order to destabilize states where there is something to gain.”

Unfortunately, in Venezuela, one of the few remaining bastions of Socialism in Latin America and the Caribbean alongside Cuba and Bolivia, there is much the American empire wants to gain. But contrary to the idea the mainstream media wants to sell, Maduro’s socialist, democratically-elected government does not stand alone in the world, is not a dictatorship, and has more than enough support at home and abroad to withstand the empire and all its servants’ attacks.

Very Much Alive

That’s perhaps why the opposition and its international allies, including Canada, and the media that transmits its messages, are desperately trying to portray dissidence in the military, as it is the loyalty of that institution to Maduro which, to a large extent, is keeping the wolves at bay. But except for a few low-ranking and in-between dissident officers, one “attache” quoted in the Toronto Star, and one air force general, the truth is the military has remained steadfastly loyal to Maduro, to the Bolivarian Revolution and Constitution and, above all, to the People.

In fact, it didn’t take but a day following Guaido’s unconstitutional declaration for those in high commands, and virtually all of the military, to openly and publicly support Maduro and denounce Guaido.

“We, the Homeland’s soldiers, do not accept a president imposed in the shadow of obscure interests and self-proclaimed outside of the law,” Padrino Lopez, Venezuela’s Defence Minister, Tweeted in Spanish on the 24th of January, reported Sputnik News.

That same day, Maduro delivered a speech from inside Venezuela’s Supreme Court alongside other delegates and the military’s various high commanding officers.

Additionally, while the media continues hyping the number of countries that are backing Guaido, the number that support Maduro are also rising. Yet, in a world where geopolitics reigns, perhaps more important than how many, is who is supporting Maduro and who is supporting a US-led coup. For instance, among the top US supporters are Brazil, who is currently led by an extremist right-wing fascist; Ecuador, led by a traitor of that country’s Citizen’s Revolution who is currently leading the nation down a neoliberal path; and Colombia, a major and recognized violator of human rights, to name just a few.

Supporting Maduro since the beginning have been Bolivia and Cuba’s public pride – two nations whose social policies have lifted millions out of poverty (facts that are well-documented), and, in the case of Cuba, produced some of the best and most internationalist-oriented doctors who’ve assisted nations in emergencies despite their governments’ ideological differences. Other international heavy players like Mexico, Russia, China, Turkey and Iran have also come out in support of Maduro. And though many people may raise legitimate critiques of some of those countries, most will nevertheless certainly and conveniently ignore the fact that the US’ and Canada’s official recognition of Guaido actually violates international law, as De Zayas, the international law expert, explains. That should matter to a country like Canada that is “ostensibly committed to democracy, the rule of law and human rights,” De Zayas argues, pointing to the “arbitrarily” selective nature in which international law and human rights abuses are pursued: “It’s human rights a la carte – today yes, tomorrow no. For some victims yes, for others not.”

Venezuela by and for Venezuelans

The Lima Groups’ meetings over the next few months, says Gordon, will likely continue to focus on how to oust Maduro – either by rushing military action or by waiting and hoping Maduro loses more support. The Americans have certainly not taken a military invasion off the table. However, says Gordon, what’s more likely is that they all will opt for backing a military coalition in which “the US was not the major player” but led instead by Colombians and Brazilians, with “some smaller role for the US in terms of direct military intervention, and some small role for Canada.”

To Gordon, the possibility that the US-led opposition will fully realize the coup is “definitely” real. “I think if they feel they can do it with little bloodshed, they will,” he says. “But whether they can or not, is another question.” That’s why international solidarity movements are crucial. Though he doesn’t believe they alone can deter a coup if a coup is coming, he says it’s still “very important…to let governments know not everyone buys into what they’re doing.”

Burbano is more hopeful. He considers the solidarity of labour movements across state lines imperative to challenging the status quo and, more importantly, defending the onslaught of attacks from the empire and its servants. “The best thing the labour movement in Canada can do is…build links with the labour movement [in Venezuela],” he says, “and get a better sense of what social movements are saying on the ground.”

At the very least, the solidarity actions which are happening across Canada prove that not everyone is drinking the kool-aid. Canada’s largest union, CUPE, representing over 700,000 workers has publicly denounced Canada, the US and Guaido for their attempts to foment a coup, according to a released statement. CUPE “rejects any attempt by the Canadian government to interfere with the democratic processes and sovereignty of the Venezuelan people,” the public statement says. Memebers of Canada’s NDP have also denounced Canada’s move, most notably Nikki Ashton.

It would be interesting to know what minister Freeland, whose constituent office is in downtown Toronto, where many of the solidarity actions have taken place, thinks of all this. Unfortunately, neither she nor anybody from her office provided comment for this story, despite multiple requests made. The minister must be busy preparing for talks with Lima Group members, including other human rights abusers, set to take place Monday, February 4th in Ottawa.

One thing is for certain: Venezuelans and Venezuelans alone will fix their own problems, and as long as the People speak up – not coup plotters or foreign governments – the Bolivarian Revolution will live to struggle yet another day.

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Featured image: Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland in Switzerland announcing Canada’s support for Guaido. Photo: Alan Santos

In our new book, we describe a ‘Propaganda Blitz’ as a fast-moving campaign to persuade the public of the need for ‘action’ or ‘intervention’ furthering elite interests. Affecting great moral outrage, corporate media line up to insist that a watershed moment has arrived – something must be done!

A classic propaganda blitz was triggered on January 23, when Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó declared himself ‘interim President’. This was presented as dramatic new evidence that the people of Venezuela had finally had enough of Nicolas Maduro‘s ‘regime’.

In reporting this news the following day, the BBC website featured a disturbing graphic of a captive with arms tied behind his back being tortured. The caption read:

‘Inside Venezuela’s secret torture centre’

Perfectly on cue, the BBC's regime change propagandists – veterans of earlier campaigns in Iraq, Libya and Syria – move into overdrive https://t.co/kW6FOK3Xir More of the same discussed here https://t.co/0M4iI1wGna pic.twitter.com/4VTjMKpNIR

— Media Lens (@medialens) January 24, 2019

The image linked to a complex interactive piece that allowed readers to explore the torture centre. There was also a long report on the same centre. The interactive report included this statement by a former prisoner, Rosmit Mantilla:

‘In a country like Venezuela there’s no difference between being in or out of prison. You are equally persecuted and mistreated, and you can die either way.’

Venezuela, then, is a giant gulag. The interactive piece had clearly taken a good deal of time and effort to produce – odd that it should appear on the same day that news of Guaidó’s coup attempt was reported. The BBC followed this up with a piece on January 25 openly promoting ‘regime’ change:

‘Venezuela’s Maduro “could get Amnesty”

‘Self-declared leader Guaidó also appeals to the powerful army, after receiving foreign backing.’

Another openly pro-regime change front page from the BBC. pic.twitter.com/ajQbORNjJm

— Media Lens (@medialens) January 25, 2019

In fact, Guaidó, also received foreign rejection from China, Russia, Turkey, Greece, Syria and Iran. On January 29, the BBC front page headline read:

‘Venezuela, “living under dictatorship”

‘The opposition leader tells the BBC President Maduro has abused power, and renews calls for polls.’

Echoing the BBC’s ‘amnesty’ front page story, the Guardian’s Simon Tisdall, also talked up the merits of the coup:

‘It seems clear that Juan Guaidó, the opposition leader, has the backing of many if not most Venezuelans.’

A remarkable claim, given that George Ciccariello-Maher reported in The Nation that an opinion poll in Venezuela conducted between January 7-16 had found that 81 per cent of Venezuelans had never heard of Juan Guaidó. But then this is the same Simon Tisdall who wrote in 2011:

‘The risky western intervention had worked. And Libya was liberated at last.’

The Guardian may currently be Guaidó’s greatest UK cheerleader. After the opposition leader gave the paper an exclusive interview, former Guardian journalist Jonathan Cook tweeted:

‘Extraordinary even by the Guardian’s standards. Juan Guaido, the CIA’s pick to lead a coup against Venezuela’s govt, gives the paper one of his first interviews – and it simply acts as a conduit for his propaganda. It doesn’t even pretend to be a watchdog’

On February 1, Cook added:

‘Oh look! Juan Guaido, the figurehead for the CIA’s illegal regime-change operation intended to grab Venezuela’s oil (as John Bolton has publicly conceded), is again presented breathlessly by the Guardian as the country’s saviour’

The BBC continues to administer a daily dose of propaganda. On January 31, the big morning news story was:

‘Venezuela opposition “speaking to army”

‘Opposition leader Juan Guaidó says his team has held talks with the army about regime change’

This is the BBC in full Propaganda Blitz mode, keeping the 'regime' change narrative top of the news page.

Imagine what would happen to a US political leader who admitted this – life in jail, for sure, probably the death penalty https://t.co/8JFOsYIat3

— Media Lens (@medialens) January 31, 2019

As we noted, if a US version of Guaidó made that admission in public, he would soon be paid a visit by Navy Seals, perhaps shot on the spot and dumped at sea, or bundled away to a life on death row for probable later execution.

On February 4, the front page of the BBC website featured a heroic picture of Guaido’s mother kissing her son on the forehead at a protest rally. Sombre, stoic, the saviour’s head appears bowed by the weight of the hopes and expectations of his people (people who, until recently, had no idea who he was and had never voted for him). This was a pure propaganda image. More will certainly follow. We discussed earlier BBC efforts here.

‘Tyranny’ As A Motive For Corporate Media Concern

The BBC, of course, is not alone in promoting the view that Venezuela is a ‘dictatorship’. The Times offered a typically compassionate ‘view on Venezuelan protests against Maduro’:

‘paradise lost – A ruthless dictator has driven his people to the brink’.

The reference to ‘paradise lost’ recalled a famously foolish remark on Venezuela made by BBC journalist John Sweeney in the Literary Review in 2013:

‘The country should be a Saudi Arabia by the sea; instead the oil money has been pissed away by foolish adventurism and unchecked corruption.’

Apart from any obvious issues of head-chopping tyranny, the fact is that Saudi Arabia is ‘by the sea’.

The Economist focused on:

‘How to hasten the demise of Venezuela’s dictatorship

‘Recognising an interim president instead of Nicolás Maduro is a start’.

The Mail on Sunday wrote of the ‘despot of Venezuela’. In the Telegraph, Ross Clark discussed ‘brutal dictatorships like Venezuela and Zimbabwe’. The editors of the Sun appeared to be holding a vigil for the suffering people of Venezuela:

‘We hope too that Venezuelans finally topple Nicolas Maduro, the crooked hard-left tyrant Corbyn once congratulated, and rebuild their economy.’

The Sun’s Westminster correspondent Kate Ferguson reported that John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, was backing ‘the hard-left Venezuelan despot Nicolas Maduro’. The Express wrote of ‘the corrupt regime in Venezuela’.

Writing in The Australian, Walter Russell Mead observed that ‘dictator Nicolas Maduro clings to power’. (Walter Russell Mead, ‘Moscow savours latest Latin American crisis to destabilise region,’ The Australian, 31 January 2019)

Under the title, ‘Venezuelan spring,’ Mary Anastasia O’Grady wrote in the Wall Street Journal:

‘The latest Venezuelan effort to topple dictator Nicolas Maduro is a pivotal moment in Latin American history…’

The Guardian habitually uses the term ‘regime’ to signal the illegitimacy of the Maduro government.

An emotional Minister for Europe, Sir Alan Duncan – who once worked as a trader of oil and refined products, initially with Royal Dutch Shell, and who, in 1989, set up Harcourt Consultants, which advises on oil and gas matters – told Parliament:

‘The UK and our partners cannot and will not stand by and allow the tyranny of Maduro’s regime to continue. He has caused endless suffering and oppression to millions of his own people…

‘The people of Venezuela do not need the weasel words of a letter to The Guardian, from assorted Stalinists, Trotskyists, antisemites and, apparently, dead people, and also from members of Labour’s Front Bench. What they need is our solidarity with the legitimate, elected, social democratic president of the National Assembly: interim President of Venezuela, Juan Guaidó.’

Writing in the Independent, Patrick Cockburn commented in September 2016:

‘Sir Alan does have a long record of befriending the Gulf monarchies, informing a journalist in July that Saudi Arabia “is not a dictatorship”.’

Sir Alan tweeted:

‘The dictatorial abuses of Nicolás Maduro in #Venezuela have led to the collapse of the rule of law and human misery and degradation.’

We replied:

‘How much human misery and degradation did *you* cause by voting for war on oil-rich Iraq in 2003 and by supporting oil-rich Saudi tyrants attacking famine-stricken Yemen? Your compassion for the people of oil-rich Venezuela is completely and utterly fake.’

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also tweeted:

‘We stand with the people of #Venezuela as they seek to build a better life. We cannot ignore the suffering or tyranny taking place in this proud nation. Neither should other countries who care about freedom and prosperity.’

Political analyst Charles Shoebridge commented:

‘now speaking of “US standing with the people of #Venezuela against tyranny”, when just days ago he was also speaking of the US standing with US allied repressive tyrannies such as UAE Saudi Arabia Bahrain’

Glenn Greenwald made the same point, adding:

‘I’d have more respect for the foreign policy decrees of US officials if they’d just admit what everyone knows – “we want to change this country’s government to make it better serve our interests” – rather than pretending they give the slightest shit about Freedom & Democracy.’

Writing on the Grayzone website, Dan Cohen and Max Blumenthal describe how:

‘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.’

Almost entirely overlooked in ‘mainstream’ coverage, the New York Times reported last September:

‘The Trump administration held secret meetings with rebellious military officers from Venezuela over the last year to discuss their plans to overthrow President Nicolás Maduro, according to American officials and a former Venezuelan military commander who participated in the talks.’

Associated Press reported last week:

‘The coalition of Latin American governments that joined the U.S. in quickly recognizing Juan Guaido as Venezuela’s interim president came together over weeks of secret diplomacy that included whispered messages to activists under constant surveillance and a high-risk foreign trip by the opposition leader challenging President Nicolas Maduro for power, those involved in the talks said.

‘In mid-December, Guaido quietly traveled to Washington, Colombia and Brazil to brief officials on the opposition’s strategy of mass demonstrations to coincide with Maduro’s expected swearing-in for a second term on Jan. 10 in the face of widespread international condemnation, according to exiled former Caracas Mayor Antonio Ledezma, an ally.’

Labour MP, Chris Williamson, virtually a lone honest voice on this issue in the UK Parliament, commented:

‘Donald Trump, who received nearly 3m fewer votes than Hillary Clinton, throws his weight behind a guy [Guaidó] who didn’t even stand in last year’s Venezuelan presidential election and UK foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, gives Trump his servile support’

Williamson was impressively rational in this interview with Going Underground. Sir Alan remains unimpressed, commenting shamefully of Williamson in Parliament:

‘I’m astonished he’s even been prepared to show his face in this House today.’

Lack Of Free Elections As A Motive For Corporate Media Concern

As we have seen, the corporate media’s first great reason for opposing Maduro is that he is a ruthless ‘dictator’. This label is credible only if he prevents free elections, which of course are intolerable to any self-respecting tyrant.

Again, corporate media are as one in their opinion. The Guardian’s Latin America correspondent, Tom Phillips, writes that Maduro was ‘re-elected last May in a vote widely seen as fraudulent’. The ‘impartiality’ of Phillips’ reporting on Venezuela is clear even from the tweet ‘pinned’ to his Twitter feed:

‘It is 20 years since Hugo Chávez’s election kicked off his ill-fated Bolivarian dream.’

A Guardian editorial noted that Maduro had won a ‘dodgy presidential vote boycotted by the opposition’. The Economist went further: ‘The election he won in May was an up-and-down fraud.’ Ross Clark in the Telegraph:

‘Opposition politicians have been jailed, while observers in last May’s election reported inflated vote tallies.’

The Observer editors opined on January 27:

‘Nicolás Maduro was re-elected Venezuela’s president last May by fraudulent means, as regional governments and independent observers noted at the time, and his leadership lacks legitimate authority.’

Echoing its positions on earlier ‘regime change’ efforts that brought utter catastrophe to Iraq and Libya, the Observer added:

‘Given this grim record, Venezuela would be well rid of him and the sooner the better. If Maduro truly has the people’s best interests at heart, he should recognise that he has become an obstacle to national renewal – and step aside.’

Venezuela needs ‘national renewal’, or ‘modernisation’ in Blairspeak. Like the Guardian, the Observer then insisted that reasonable options ’emphatically do not include US intervention in Venezuela’. Nobody should be fooled by this apparent anti-war sentiment. US media analyst Adam Johnson of FAIR made the point:

‘I love this thing where nominal leftists run the propaganda ball for bombing a country 99 yards then stop at the one yard and insist they don’t support scoring goals, that they in fact oppose war.’

A further prime example of propaganda ball-running was supplied by The Intercept’s Mehdi Hasan:

‘I’m no expert on Venezuela but I’m pretty sure you can think Maduro is a horrible/bad/authoritarian president *and* also think it’s bad for the US to back coups or regime change there.’

Beyond the ‘mainstream’, credible voices have argued that last May’s elections were free and fair. Human rights lawyer Daniel Kovalik of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, writing for Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, commented:

‘I just returned from observing my fourth election in Venezuela in less than a year. Jimmy Carter has called Venezuela’s electoral system “the best in the world,” and what I witnessed was an inspiring process that guarantees one person, one vote, and includes multiple auditing procedures to ensure a free and fair election.

‘I then came home to the United States to see the inevitable “news” coverage referring to Venezuela as a “dictatorship” and as a country in need of saving. This coverage not only ignores the reality of Venezuela, it ignores the fact that the U.S. is the greatest impediment to democracy in Venezuela, just as the U.S. has been an impediment to democracy throughout Latin America since the end of the 19th century.’

More than 150 members of the international electoral accompaniment mission for the elections published four independent reports. Their members ‘include politicians, electoral experts, academics, journalists, social movement leaders and others’. The mission’s General Report concluded:

‘We the international accompaniers consider that the technical and professional trustworthiness and independence of the National Electoral Council of Venezuela are uncontestable.’

The Council of Electoral Experts of Latin America, a grouping of electoral technicians from across the continent, many of whom have presided over electoral agencies, commented:

‘The process was successfully carried out and that the will of the citizens, freely expressed in ballot boxes, was respected…the results communicated by the National Electoral Council reflect the will of the voters who decided to participate in the electoral process.’

The African Report:

‘Our general evaluation is that this was a fair, free, and transparent expression of the human right to vote and participate in the electoral process by the Venezuelan people, and that the results announced on the night of May 20 are trustworthy due to the comprehensive guarantees, audits, the high tech nature of the electoral process, and due to the thirteen audits carried out previous to and on the day of elections which we witnessed.

‘We can also conclude that the Venezuelan people who chose to participate in the electoral process of May 20 were not subject to any external pressures.’

And also the Caribbean Report:

‘The mission was satisfied that the elections were conducted efficiently in a fair and transparent manner. All of the registered voters who wanted to exercise their right to vote participated in a peaceful and accommodating environment. Based on the process observed, the mission is satisfied that the results of the elections reflect the will of the majority of the voters in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.’

If all of this has been ignored in the current debate, it is because corporate media in fact do not care about free elections in Venezuela.

Consider the elections held in Iraq on January 30, 2005. On the BBC’s main evening news that month, reporter David Willis talked of ‘the first democratic election in fifty years’ (Willis, BBC News at Ten, January 10, 2005). A Guardian leader referred to ‘the country’s first free election in decades’. The Times, the Financial Times, the Telegraph, the Sunday Telegraph, the Observer, the Independent, the Express, the Mirror, the Sun and numerous other media repeated the same claim hailing Iraq’s great ‘democratic election’.

But this was all nonsense. Iraq was not just under illegal, superpower occupation; invading armies were waging full-scale war against the Iraqi resistance. Just weeks before the election, Fallujah, a city of 300,000 people, was virtually razed to the ground by US-UK forces. Six weeks before the election, the UN reported of the city that, ’70 per cent of the houses and shops were destroyed and those still standing are riddled with bullets.’ A quarter of a million people had been displaced from this one city alone by the onslaught. One year later, The Lancet reported 655,000 excess Iraqi deaths as a result of the 2003 invasion.

There was obviously no question of a free election under these lawless, extremely violent conditions. The corporate press was not the least bit interested or concerned. Indeed, our search of the LexisNexis media database at the time of the elections showed that there had not been a single substantive analysis of the extent of press freedom in Iraq under occupation anywhere in the UK press over the previous six months. And yet the media were all but unanimous in describing the elections as free and fair.

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Featured image is from The Mantle

On Tuesday evening, Trump delivered his State of the Union Address, delayed because of 35 days of government shutdown, DLT and undemocratic Dems sharing blame.

A possible shutdown resumption looms on February 15 if things aren’t resolved – or a state of emergency declared by Trump when none exists over the great US border crisis hoax while permanent war on humanity rages endlessly, supported by both right wings of the nation’s war party.

The key takeaway from Trump’s SOTU address is all politicians lie. Believe NOTHING they say. Follow only what they do.

Trump is a serial liar, time and again saying one thing and doing another, proving he and rule by hardline extremists can never be trusted.

Their record speaks for itself, including endless wars of aggression, one-sided support for monied interests, contempt for ordinary people everywhere, consistently breaching the rule of law, continuing the lurch toward full-blown homeland tyranny – along with risking nuclear war with Russia, Iran, perhaps even North Korea and/or China.

Today is the most perilous time in world history. Daily events should scare everyone at a time when endless warmaking and handing the nation’s wealth to its privilege class inflict enormous harm on most Americans and others abroad.

At the same time, an ongoing attempt aims to replace democratic governance in Venezuela with a US proxy regime,  perhaps by military intervention if other Trump regime methods fail – the fate of the nation and its people hanging in the balance.

Trump’s theme was “choosing greatness” in a nation posing humanity’s greatest threat, run by its criminal class, a gangster state,  not democracy.

Rule of the people in America means of, by, and for its privileged class exclusively, most others exploited.

The world’s richest nation doesn’t give a hoot about its most disadvantaged citizens, including combat veterans, treated with disdain – lied to about democracy building abroad, Washington’s deadliest export, their mission all about pursuing imperial dominance worldwide.

Trump saying

“(t)ogether we can break decades of political stalemate. We can bridge old divisions, heal old wounds, build new coalitions, forge new solutions, and unlock the extraordinary promise of America’s future. The decision is ours to make” – belies America’s deplorable state.

His regime and Congress share blame for heading the nation into an economic and financial abyss, a fiscal nightmare, a class of civilizations with sovereign independent states, backing terrorism instead of combating it, the nation’s destructive agenda supported by establishment media instead of sounding the alarm about what’s happening.

Trump’s address was beginning-to-end deception and Big Lies. Jobs he promised to protect are largely low-pay/poor-or-no benefit part-time or temp rotten ones.

Free trade he promotes isn’t fair, serving corporate interests exclusively at the expense of the general welfare and threat of ecocide.

Warmaking is prioritized over “rebuild(ing) and revitaliz(ing) our nation’s infrastructure.” Prescription drugs and other healthcare costs are increasingly unaffordable for most Americans, not the other way around as Trump pledged to work for earlier and last night.

The “immigration system” he supports excludes Blacks, Latinos, and Muslims from the wrong countries – white Anglo-Saxons and others like them welcomed.

A “foreign policy that puts America’s interest first” prioritizes exploiting others nations and their people so the US privileged class can benefit at their expense.

That’s what “winning for our country” is all about, not “sav(ing) (increasingly eroding) freedom(s)…redef(ying) the middle class,” disappearing in plain sight, not “more prosperous than ever before,” or “creat(ing) a new standard of living for the 21st century.”

Ordinary Americans are experiencing a declining “quality of life” in a nation increasingly becoming a ruler-serf society, poverty its leading growth industry, along with warmaking on humanity at home and abroad.

At a time of protracted main street Depression, real unemployment exceeding 20%, no “unprecedented economic boom, a boom that has rarely been seen before” exists – except for the nation’s privileged class, benefitting by exploiting the great majority of Americans and countless millions abroad.

Wages fail to keep pace with inflation. Social justice is fast eroding. It’s on the chopping block for elimination altogether.

The great December 2017 GOP tax cut heist for the rich at the expense of everyone else will likely increase the federal debt to around $35 trillion by 2028.

In 1981, the national debt was less than 32% of GDP. Today it’s a ticking time bomb exceeding 105% of GDP, growing by over $1 trillion annually, heading for $2 trillion annually by the mid 2020s, according to David Stockman, the national debt to increase by about “$17 trillion over the next 10 years,” he estimates.

He called DLT “the Great Disrupter…the mad man in the Oval Office,” pursuing a ruinous agenda, heading the country for a “fiscal calamity now unfolding,” adding:

“(T)here is exactly zero chance of any legislative action to stem Washington’s exploding red ink” based on how things are going.

Trump bragged about “cut(ing) more regulations in a short period of time than any other administration during its entire tenure” – ignoring the enormous economic, financial, and ecological harm it’s causing.

“We must be united at home to defeat our adversaries abroad,” he roared, affirming the nation’s permanent war agenda in less than so many words.

Washington is responsible for human wreckage worldwide, nations held captive to their demands. Imperial caused crises result in humanitarian disasters in one country after another, the same is true in impoverished US inner cities by exploitive economic and financial policies.

The nation I grew up in no longer exists. It was never beautiful. Today it’s unsafe and unfit to live in. Imperial madness threatens to destroy planet earth to own it.

Regime change begins at home, challenging authority essential, nonviolent revolution the only solution, making America work for all its people, transforming swords into plowshares for a new era of peace, equity and justice, polar opposite how things are now.

People power alone can save us, collective resistance for change, indifference no longer an option.

There is no alternative (TINA). The choice between freedom or fascism is simple – living free or under the yoke of tyrannical rule.

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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Featured image is from USA Today

For more than 30 years, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) has been one of the cornerstones of the international security system. This ended on February 2, 2019 when the US officially suspended its participation in the Treaty. Washington said that it will fully terminate the treaty in 6 months if Russia does not comply with its ultimatum – the “verifiable” destruction of what Secretary of State Mike Pompeo described as “INF-violating missiles, their launchers and associated equipment”. US President Donald Trump said in an official statement that the US “will move forward with developing” its “own military response options” and will work with NATO members and other allies “to deny Russia any military advantage from its unlawful conduct.” By this statement, Trump in fact announced that the US is restoring production and deployment of INF-banned weapons.

On the same day, Russia also halted participation in the Treaty. President Vladimir Putin said that Russia will no more initiate talks to try and save the deal and publicly gave a green light to development of a mid-range hypersonic missile and a ground-based model of the sea-launched cruise missile Kalibr.

The US withdrawal from the Treaty can be traced back to 2013-2014, when Washington, during the administration of President Obama, started to accuse Russia of violating the INF. The US claimed that between 2008 and 2011, a ground-based cruise missile was tested at the Kapustin Yar test site (Russia’s Astrakhan region) that achieved a range greater than 500 km which is prohibited under the Treaty. Under the Trump administration, Washington and the NATO leadership continued to accuse Russia of violating the INF. US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis and the Permanent US Representative to NATO Kay Bailey Hutchison have stated that Moscow has a new 9M729 missile, describing it as a land-based version of the Kalibr submarine launched, medium-range missile. This attitude is based on the assertion that Russia understates the officially disclosed characteristics of the missiles under development and currently equips the OTMS Iskander (operational tactical missile system) with missiles violating the Treaty.

The White House National Security Adviser John Bolton is also a longtime supporter as well as initiator of the idea of withdrawal from the agreement. He has repeatedly said that the bilateral nature of the treaty is its disadvantage. He claimed that the INF Treaty is limiting the ability of Moscow and Washington to strengthen their potential, while the threat of building up weapons of this type is increasing from third parties – in particular from China and Iran. According to this point of view, the main reason of the US withdrawal from the INF is the strengthening of the Chinese nuclear potential, as well as the emergence of new types of intermediate and shorter range missiles in its arsenal. Therefore, the United States’ decision to withdraw from the treaty is not so much due to the fact that there is any evidence of Russia having prohibited missiles, but rather because China is increasing its capabilities in intermediate and shorter-range missiles. As a result of this reality, the United States feels limited in its ability to counter such a military threat.

However, the aforementioned reasons are largely just a formal pretext. The underlying reasons to withdraw from the contract are different.

The U.S. Armed Forces have held the dominant position on the planet for the past 25 years. The absence of an equal opponent has led to the U.S. Army and Navy’s complacency and relaxation, and if these negative tendencies are not stopped, they will also lead to a degrading of readiness and capability. The U.S. military-industrial complex produced its last nuclear warhead in 1991. The last U.S. ground-based intercontinental ballistic missile was commissioned in 1986, and then their production was discontinued. The production of the Trident II (D5) submarine-launched ballistic missile was discontinued in 2010. In order to eliminate the scientific and technical gap in the field of nuclear missile weapons, the US Department of Defense adopted the Nuclear Posture Review program in 2018, the implementation of which requires 400 billion dollars. In this regard, the main reason for the US withdrawal from the INF Treaty can be considered President Trump’s attempt to saturate the domestic military-industrial complex with money, launch new weapons designs and then, of course, sell these weapons. Thus, the question arises, other than the U.S. military, who will buy such weapons? Only those nations who have small militaries, or weapons systems that are too old and under threat of actual physical destruction. Trump has repeatedly stated that NATO countries spend too little on their defense contributions to the organization. But in order to force European countries to buy US weapons, the usual anti-Russia and Iran rhetoric is not enough. More radical means are needed to this end, such as coercion, manipulation and threats. The most sophisticated of these methods is the US withdrawal from the INF Treaty. Now, European countries will likely be forced to buy US air defense/missile defense systems and spend astounding amounts of money that will finance the US military-industrial complex. The accusations against Russia are used as a pretext for the United States to save face on the international stage.

From its turn, Russia is concerned by the deployment of weapons in Europe, which are in one way or another a likely violation of the INF. These include unmanned combat aerial vehicles, which, due to a combination of characteristics, can carry or are themselves intermediate-range missiles. Of similar concern is the transfer of the Mk-41 launchers of the ship-based combat information and control system Aegis from ships to land-based facilities (the Aegis Ashore program). In Romania, the Aegis Ashore facility is based at the Debeselu air base (3 batteries with 8 SM-3 Block IB missiles) and in Poland a second installation is currently under construction at the village of Redzikovo. These launchers are not only platforms for SM-3 anti-ballistic missiles, but also potentially for Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles. The positioning of these intermediate range missiles on land is forbidden under the INF Treaty. In addition, a number of Russian military experts have expressed concern over the development of the United States X-51A Waverider Hypersonic Cruise Missile. This hypersonic missile is not subject to the INF Treaty, but it has the characteristics of a shorter-range cruise missile. Furthermore, the United States is actually violating the INF when it tests its anti-ballistic missile systems. In order to test missile defense systems, intermediate- and shorter-range mock missiles are used for the Hera, MRT, Aries, LV-2, Storm, Storm-2, and MRBM complexes. The Russian Defense Ministry also said on February 2 that the US had been preparing production facilities for INF-banned missiles since at least June 2017.

Either way, both the US and Russia have developed and are developing intermediate and short range missiles in one way or another. Both nations are able to fully continue developing missiles as mentioned above, and commission them into active use. Therefore, the irrevocable withdrawal from the treaty could unleash a new arms race similar to that experienced in the 1980s.

Furthermore, with the release of Russia and the United States from the INF Treaty, the START-3 (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) loses its meaning, and as a result, the entire non-proliferation system starts to collapse. Europe and especially its eastern countries become hostage to the created situation. This fact will greatly complicate the already quite complex US relations with its European allies. As for the US, the consequences of the exit for them will not be as dire as they would be for Russia. In the event of a conflict, only the bases and locations of the US Armed Forces in Europe would be in range of intermediate and shorter range missiles. Russia on the other hand, cannot provide a reciprocal answer to the US withdrawal from the INF Treaty. Russia does not have military bases near US territory, where a large number of intermediate and shorter range missiles could be deployed. However, this does not mean that Moscow does not have weapons in its arsenal other than intercontinental ballistic missiles, to counterbalance the threat from the United States. In addition to the traditional US deterrence factor; the threat of guaranteed nuclear annihilation, recently a new generation of cruise missiles began being delivered to the Russian Navy and strategic aviation. It is obvious that these missile programs will be revised to reflect the new strategic realities post-INF, and will be accelerated accordingly. It is worth noting that, due to the small size of the Russian military relative to that of the Soviet Union, it is not realistic to expect military actions in the European theater with the use of combined armed forces. In the event of a conflict, the Russian military leadership may have to create a zone of continuous destruction of the infrastructure, or even a zone of radioactive contamination with tactical conventional and nuclear weapons, which will be delivered via intermediate and short range ballistic missiles. This zone of destruction would most likely be created along its borders from where the enemy predominantly attacked Russia in the 19th and 20th centuries – Eastern Europe.

Consistently nulling the system of strategic missile restrictions with Russia, the United States does not want and does not intend to abide by the previous agreement or, alternatively, build a multilateral system of agreements in which China, Pakistan and India could participate. Consequently, the United States intends to continue to dictate its conditions to the entire world. Supremacy in the field of strategic offensive weapons, an effective missile defense system, and the deployment of intermediate and shorter range ballistic missiles in Europe or the Pacific is nothing more than a dangerous utopia that does not add security to the United States or its allies.

More than thirty years after the signing of one of the fundamental agreements in the field of global security on both sides of the ocean, possible nuclear annihilation once again became one of the key factors threatening European security.

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“Towards a World War III Scenario: The Dangers of Nuclear War” 

by Michel Chossudovsky

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ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-5-3
Year: 2012
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Michel Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), which hosts the critically acclaimed website www.globalresearch.ca . He is a contributor to the Encyclopedia Britannica. His writings have been translated into more than 20 languages.

Reviews

“This book is a ‘must’ resource – a richly documented and systematic diagnosis of the supremely pathological geo-strategic planning of US wars since ‘9-11’ against non-nuclear countries to seize their oil fields and resources under cover of ‘freedom and democracy’.”
–John McMurtry, Professor of Philosophy, Guelph University

“In a world where engineered, pre-emptive, or more fashionably “humanitarian” wars of aggression have become the norm, this challenging book may be our final wake-up call.”
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Michel Chossudovsky exposes the insanity of our privatized war machine. Iran is being targeted with nuclear weapons as part of a war agenda built on distortions and lies for the purpose of private profit. The real aims are oil, financial hegemony and global control. The price could be nuclear holocaust. When weapons become the hottest export of the world’s only superpower, and diplomats work as salesmen for the defense industry, the whole world is recklessly endangered. If we must have a military, it belongs entirely in the public sector. No one should profit from mass death and destruction.
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One Step Closer to Nuclear Oblivion: US Sabotages the INF Treaty

By Federico Pieraccini, February 06, 2019

The Trump administration announced on February 1 that the country was suspending its participation in the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF treaty) for 180 days pending a final withdrawal. Vladimir Putin, in a meeting with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrovand Defence Minister Sergey Shoygu, announced on Saturday that the Russian Federation is also suspending its participation in the treaty in a mirror response to Washington’s unilateral decision.

U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Lists Sacred Land Outside Chaco Culture National Historical Park in Newest Fracking Lease Sale

By Ashley Curtin, February 06, 2019

Just as the government shutdown ended, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management quietly listed many new sites in their attempt to expand the sale of oil and gas leases. Among those sites includes land outside Chaco Culture National Park and other public land revered by Native Americans, the Associated Press reported.

Brexit Poll: 80% of UK Adults Disapprove of Government’s Handling of Brexit Negotiations

By ORB International, February 06, 2019

This month’s ORB International Brexit Confidence tracker poll shows 80% of UK adults disapprove of the way the government is handling the Brexit negotiations, the highest figure recorded since this tracker poll began in November 2016

Twitter Greenlights Venezuela’s Pro-Opposition Online Blitz – Shuts Down Genuine Opponents

By Alexander Rubinstein, February 06, 2019

Shady anonymous actors are waging an information war manipulating social media with automated posts in an apparent attempt to manufacture a faux consensus for regime change in Venezuela.

The Future of Statehood: Israel & Palestine

By Richard Falk and Correio Braziliense, February 06, 2019

It is difficult at this stage to interpret the significance of the recent dissolution of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), which serves as the Parliament of the Palestinian Authority that governs the West Bank and enjoys formal recognition as the representive of the Palestinian people internationally.

The Lima Group: Conspiracy to Destroy Venezuela

By Mark Taliano, February 06, 2019

The “Lima group”, which convened in Canada on Feb. 4, 2019, represents a group of governments opposed to Venezuela’s elected government.

U.S. “Military Aid” to Al Qaeda, ISIS-Daesh

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, February 06, 2019

The Pentagon has lost control of its allies, according to CNN. The unspoken truth is that Saudi Arabia and the UAE are acting on behalf of the US. And Washington is responsible for the death of tens of thousands of Yemeni civilians.

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Important analysis which provides an understanding of Washington’s relentless threats directed against Venezuela. Please forward this article.

Firt published in October 2016

Hugo Chavez defied the most powerful interests, and he refused to bow down… I believe there is a very strong possibility that President Chavez was assassinated. — Eva Golinger

MW– Do you think that Hugo Chavez was murdered and, if so, who do you think might have been involved?

Eva Golinger–  (image right) I believe there is a very strong possibility that President Chavez was assassinated. There were notorious and documented assassination attempts against him throughout his presidency. Most notable was the April 11, 2002 coup d’etat, during which he was kidnapped and set to be assassinated had it not been for the unprecedented uprising of the Venezuelan people and loyal military forces that rescued him and returned him to power within 48 hours. I was able to find irrefutable evidence using the US Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), that the CIA and other US agencies were behind that coup and supported, financially, militarily and politically, those involved. Later on, there were other attempts against Chavez and his government, such as in 2004 when dozens of Colombian paramilitary forces were captured on a farm outside of Caracas that was owned by an anti-Chavez activist, Robert Alonso, just days before they were going to attack the presidential palace and kill Chavez.

There was another, lesser-known plot against Chavez discovered in New York City during his visit to the United Nations General Assembly in September 2006. According to information provided by his security services, during standard security reconnaissance of an event where Chavez would address the US public at a local, renowned university, high levels of radiation were detected in the chair where he would have sat. The radiation was discovered by a Geiger detector, which is a handheld radiation detection device the presidential security used to ensure the President wasn’t in danger of exposure to harmful rays. In this case, the chair was removed and subsequent tests showed it was emanating unusual amounts of radiation that could have resulted in significant harm to Chavez had it gone undiscovered. According to accounts by the presidential security at the event, an individual from the US who had been involved in the logistical support for the event and had provided the chair was shown to be acting with US intelligent agents.

There were numerous other attempts on his life that were thwarted by the Venezuelan intelligence agencies and particularly the counterintelligence unit of the Presidential Guard that was charged with discovering and impeding such threats. One other well known attempt was in July 2010 when Francisco Chavez Abarca (no relation), a criminal working with Cuban-born terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, responsible for bombing a Cuban airliner in 1976 and killing all 73 passengers on board, was detained entering Venezuela and later confessed he had been sent to assassinate Chavez. Just five months earlier, in February 2010, when President Chavez was at an event near the Colombian border, his security forces discovered a sniper set up just over a quarter of a mile away from his location, who was subsequently neutralized.

While these accounts may sound like fiction, they are amply documented and very real. Hugo Chavez defied the most powerful interests, and he refused to bow down. As head of state of the nation without the largest oil reserves on the planet, and as someone who openly and directly challenged US and Western domination, Chavez was considered an enemy of Washington and its allies.

So, who could have been involved in Chavez’s assassination, if he was assassinated? Certainly it’s no far stretch to imagine the US government involved in a political assassination of an enemy it clearly – and openly – wanted out of the picture. In 2006, the US government formed a special Mission Manager for Venezuela and Cuba under the Directorate of National Intelligence. This elite intelligence unit was charged with expanding covert operations against Chavez and led clandestine missions out of an intelligence fusion center (CIA-DEA-DIA) in Colombia.  Some of the pieces that have been coming together include the discovery of several close aides to Chavez who had private, unobstructed access to him over prolonged periods, who fled the country after his death and are collaborating with the US government. If he were assassinated by some kind of exposure to high levels of radiation, or otherwise inoculated or infected by a cancer-causing virus, it would have been done by someone with close access to him, whom he trusted.

MW– Who is Leamsy Salazar and how is he connected to the US Intelligence Agencies?

Eva Golinger– Leamsy Salazar was one of Chavez’s closest aides for nearly seven years. He was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Venezuelan Navy and became known to Chavez after he waved the Venezuelan flag from the roof of the presidential guard’s barracks at the presidential palace during the 2002 coup, as the rescue of Chavez was underway. He became a symbol of the loyal armed forces that helped defeat the coup and Chavez rewarded him by bringing him on as one of his assistants. Salazar was both a bodyguard and an aide to Chavez, who would bring him coffee and meals, stand by his side, travel with him around the world and protect him during public events. I knew him and interacted with him many times. He was one of the familiar faces protecting Chavez for many years.  He was a key member of Chavez’s elite inner security circle, with private access to Chavez and privileged and highly confidential knowledge of Chavez’s comings and goings, daily routine, schedule and dealings.

After Chavez passed away in March 2013, because of his extended service and loyalty, Leamsy was transferred to the security detail of Diosdado Cabello, who was then president of Venezuela’s National Assembly and considered one of the most powerful political and military figures in the country. Cabello was one of Chavez’s closest allies. It should be noted that Leamsy remained with Chavez throughout most of his illness up to his death and had privileged access to him that few had, even from his security team.

Shockingly, in December 2014, news reports revealed that Leamsy had secretly been flown to the US from Spain, where he was allegedly on vacation with his family. The plane that flew him was said to be from the DEA. He was placed in witness protection and news reports have stated he is providing information to the US government about Venezuelan officials involved in a high level ring of drug trafficking. Opposition-owned media in Venezuela claim he gave details accusing Diosdado Cabello of being a drug-kingpin, but none of that information has been independently verified, nor have any court records or allegations been released, if they exist.

Another explanation for his going into the witness protection program in the US could include his involvement in the assassination of Chavez, possibly done as part of a CIA black op, or maybe even done under the auspices of CIA but carried out by corrupt elements within the Venezuelan government. Before the Panama Papers were released, I had accidentally discovered and was investigating a dangerous corrupt, high level individual within the government, who Chavez had previously dismissed, but who returned after his death and was placed in an even more influential, powerful position.  This individual also appears to be collaborating with the US government. People like that, who let greed obscure their conscience, and who are involved in lucrative criminal activity, could have also played a role in his death.

For example, the Panama Papers exposed another former Chavez aide, Army Captain Adrian Velasquez, who was in charge of security for Chavez’s son Hugo. Captain Velasquez’s wife, a former Navy Officer, Claudia Patricia Diaz Guillen, was Chavez’s nurse for several years and had private, unsupervised access to him. Furthermore, Claudia administered medicines, shots and other health and food-related materials to Chavez over a period of years. Just one month before his deadly illness was discovered in 2011, Chavez named Claudia as Treasurer of Venezuela, placing her in charge of the country’s money. It’s still unclear as to why she was named to this important position, considering she had previously been his nurse and had no similar experience. She was dismissed from the position right after Chavez passed away. Both Captain Velasquez and Claudia appeared in the Panama Papers as owning a shell company with millions of dollars. They also own property in an elite area in the Dominican Republic, Punta Cana, where properties cost in the millions, and they have resided there since at least June 2015. The documents show that right after Chavez passed away and Nicolas Maduro was elected president in April 2013, Captain Velasquez opened an off-shore company on April 18, 2013 through the Panamanian firm Mossack Fonesca, called Bleckner Associates Limited.  A Swiss financial investment firm, V3 Capital Partners LLC, affirmed they manage the funds of Captain Velasquez, which number in the millions. It’s impossible for an Army Captain to have earned that amount of money through legitimate means. Neither him nor his wife, Claudia, have returned to Venezuela since 2015.

Captain Velasquez was especially close with Leamsy Salazar.

MW– Can you explain the suspicious circumstances under which Salazar was flown out of Spain to the safety of the United States on a plane belonging to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)?  Doesn’t that strike you as a bit strange? At the very least, this suggests that Salazar was acting as an agent for a country that is openly hostile towards Venezuela? That makes him either a collaborator or a traitor. Do you agree?

Eva Golinger– Of course it was highly suspicious that Salazar was flown out of Spain, where he was allegedly on vacation with his family, and taken to the United States on a DEA plane. There is no question that he was collaborating with the US government and betrayed his country. What remains to be seen is what his exact role was. Did he administer the murderous poison to Chavez, or was it one of his partners, such as Captain Velasquez or the nurse/treasurer Claudia?

While this all may sound very conspiracy theory-ish, these are facts that can be verified independently. It is also true, according to declassified secret US documents, that the US Army was developing an injectable radiation weapon to use for political assassinations of select enemies as far back as 1948. The Church Commission hearings into the Kennedy Assassination also uncovered the existence of an assassination weapon developed by CIA to induce heart attacks and soft-tissue cancers. Chavez died of an aggressive soft-tissue cancer. By the time it was detected it was too late. There is other information out there documenting the development of a “cancer virus” that was going to be weaponized and allegedly used to kill Fidel Castro in the 1960s. I know most of that seems like science fiction, but do your research and see what really exists. I don’t believe everything I read either. As a lawyer and investigative journalist, I need hard evidence, and multiple, verifiable sources. Even if we just go on the official US Army document from 1948, it’s a fact that the US government was in the process of a developing a radiation weapon for political assassinations. More than 60 years later we can only imagine what technological capacities exist.

MW– Can you explain why the DEA was involved in this operation and not the CIA as many would expect?

Eva Golinger– I think CIA was involved. They work together on high-profile political cases, and they were operating out of the Intelligence Fusion Center in Colombia together. Why it was DEA and not CIA that brought Leamsy Salazar to the US has not yet been revealed, but I don’t think that means the CIA wasn’t involved in the whole operation.

MW– On a personal note, Hugo Chavez was a giant among men and a real hero. Would you please tell us what his loss has meant to you personally and how his death has impacted the people of Venezuela?

Eva Golinger– The loss of Hugo Chavez has been crushing. He was my friend and I spent nearly ten years as his advisor. The void he has left is impossible to replace. Despite his human flaws, he had a huge heart and genuinely dedicated himself to build a better country for his people, and a better world for humanity. He cared deeply about all people, but especially the poor, neglected and marginalized.

There is a picture taken of Chavez by a bystander, when he had been at an event in the center of Caracas and was walking through a large plaza that had been cleared by security. All of a sudden, he saw a young man, disheveled and seemingly on drugs, barely able to keep himself upright, wearing ragged clothes. To the horror of his security guards, Chavez went over to him and lovingly put his arm around him and offered him a cup of coffee. He didn’t judge the poor guy or reprimand him, or show disgust. He treated him like a fellow human being who deserved to be seen with dignity. He stayed there with him for a while, just telling stories and chatting like old friends. When he had to go, he told one of his guards to offer the man whatever help he needed.

There were no cameras there, no TV, no public. It wasn’t a publicity stunt. It was genuine, sincere care and concern for a fellow human in need. Despite being president and a powerful head of state, Chavez always saw himself as an equal to all people.

His unexpected death has had a tragic toll on Venezuela. Sadly, those he left in charge have been unable to manage the country through this difficult times. A combination of corruption and external sabotage by opposition forces (with foreign support) has crippled the economy. Mismanagement has been widespread and destructive. US agencies and their allies in Venezuela have seized the opportunity to further destabilize and destroy all remaining remnants of chavismo. Now they are trying to tarnish and erase Chavez’s legacy, but I believe this is an impossible task. Even if the current government doesn’t survive the vicious attacks against it, Chavez’s memory in the millions of people he impacted and improved the lives of, will weather the storm. “Chavismo” has become an ideology founded on principles of social justice and human dignity. But do people miss him terribly? Yes.

Eva Golinger is winner of the International Award for Journalism in Mexico (2009), named “La Novia de Venezuela” by President Hugo Chávez, is an Attorney and Writer from New York, living in Caracas, Venezuela since 2005 and author of the best-selling books, “The Chávez Code: Cracking US Intervention in Venezuela” (2006 Olive Branch Press), “Bush vs. Chávez: Washington’s War on Venezuela” (2007, Monthly Review Press)

Since 2003, Eva has been investigating, analyzing and writing about US intervention in Venezuela using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to obtain information about US Government efforts to undermine progressive movements in Latin America.

A version of this interview appeared on Telesur at: http://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/Golinger-Chavez-Assassination-Attempts-Documented-Very-Real-20160413-0025.html

Article originally published by Global Research in 2005, which points to previous attempts to assassinate President Hugo Chavez.

This empire, unlike any other in the history of the world, has been built primarily through economic manipulation.  “How do we know that the CIA was behind the coup that overthrew Hugo Chávez?” asked historian William Blum in 2002.

“Same way we know that the sun will rise tomorrow morning. That’s what it’s always done and there’s no reason to think that tomorrow morning will be any different.”

Now we have a bit more evidence the CIA and the FBI connived with reactionary elements to not only briefly overthrow Chávez, abolish the constitution and the National Assembly, but later assassinate the Venezuelan State Prosecutor, Danilo Anderson. He was killed by a car bomb in Caracas on November 18, 2004, while investigating those who were behind the coup. Giovani Jose Vasquez De Armas, a member of Colombia’s right wing paramilitary group called the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, claims he was in charge of logistics for the plot to kill Danilo Anderson. Vasquez De Armas told the Attorney General’s office that those planning the killing, “all discussed the plan with the help of the FBI and CIA.”

And the sun will rise tomorrow.

“According to the Attorney General, Vasquez De Armas said that during a meeting in Darien, Panama, on September 4 and 6, 2003, an FBI Officer called ‘Pesquera’ and a CIA agent called ‘Morrinson,’ attended a meeting along with two of the plot’s alleged organizers, Patricia Poleo and Salvador Romani, as well as two of those who actually did the killing, Rolando and Otoniel Guevera,” writes Alessandro Parma. “An official from the Attorney General’s office, speaking on behalf of Vasquez De Armas, said that in Panama the FBI and the plotting Venezuelans agreed, ‘to take out Chavez and the Government.’ He said, ‘the meeting’s final objective was to kill President Chavez and the Attorney General.’”

None of this is new or particularly revelatory.  Steve Kangas writes:

“CIA operations follow the same recurring script. First, American business interests abroad are threatened by a popular or democratically elected leader. The people support their leader because he intends to conduct land reform, strengthen unions, redistribute wealth, nationalize foreign-owned industry, and regulate business to protect workers, consumers and the environment. So, on behalf of American business, and often with their help, the CIA mobilizes the opposition. First it identifies right-wing groups within the country (usually the military), and offers them a deal: “We’ll put you in power if you maintain a favorable business climate for us.” The Agency then hires, trains and works with them to overthrow the existing government (usually a democracy). It uses every trick in the book: propaganda, stuffed ballot boxes, purchased elections, extortion, blackmail, sexual intrigue, false stories about opponents in the local media, infiltration and disruption of opposing political parties, kidnapping, beating, torture, intimidation, economic sabotage, death squads and even assassination. These efforts culminate in a military coup, which installs a right-wing dictator. The CIA trains the dictator’s security apparatus to crack down on the traditional enemies of big business, using interrogation, torture and murder. The victims are said to be “communists,” but almost always they are just peasants, liberals, moderates, labor union leaders, political opponents and advocates of free speech and democracy. Widespread human rights abuses follow.”

Examples include the coup to overthrow the democratically elected leader Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran, the ouster of democratically elected Jacob Arbenz in Guatemala, one coup per year (between 1957-1973) in Laos, the installation of the murderous “Papa Doc” Duvalier in Haiti, the assassination of Rafael Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, the overthrow of Jose Velasco in Ecuador, the assassination of the democratically elected Patrice Lumumba in the Congo (later Zaire), the overthrow of the democratically elected Juan Bosch in the Dominican Republic, the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Joao Goulart in Brazil, the overthrow of the democratically elected Sukarno government in Indonesia, a military coup in Greece designed to install the “reign of the colonels” (when the Greek ambassador complained about CIA plans for Cypress, Johnson told him: “F— your parliament and your constitution”), the overthrow of the popular Prince Sahounek in Cambodia, the overthrow of Juan Torres in Bolivia, the overthrow and assassination of Salvador Allende in Chile, the assassination of archbishop Oscar Romero in El Salvador, and dozens of other incidents rarely if ever taught in American school history lessons.

As John Perkins (author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man), as a former respected member of the international banking community and National Security Agency economist, told Amy Goodman: “Basically what we were trained to do and what our job is to do is to build up the American empire. To bring—to create situations where as many resources as possible flow into this country, to our corporations, and our government…. This empire, unlike any other in the history of the world, has been built primarily through economic manipulation, through cheating, through fraud, through seducing people into our way of life, through the economic hit men.” Perkins’ job was “deal-making”:

It was giving loans to other countries, huge loans, much bigger than they could possibly repay. One of the conditions of the loan—let’s say a $1 billion to a country like Indonesia or Ecuador—and this country would then have to give ninety percent of that loan back to a U.S. company, or U.S. companies, to build the infrastructure—a Halliburton or a Bechtel. These were big ones. Those companies would then go in and build an electrical system or ports or highways, and these would basically serve just a few of the very wealthiest families in those countries. The poor people in those countries would be stuck ultimately with this amazing debt that they couldn’t possibly repay. A country today like Ecuador owes over fifty percent of its national budget just to pay down its debt. And it really can’t do it. So, we literally have them over a barrel. So, when we want more oil, we go to Ecuador and say, “Look, you’re not able to repay your debts, therefore give our oil companies your Amazon rain forest, which are filled with oil.” And today we’re going in and destroying Amazonian rain forests, forcing Ecuador to give them to us because they’ve accumulated all this debt. So we make this big loan, most of it comes back to the United States, the country is left with the debt plus lots of interest, and they basically become our servants, our slaves. It’s an empire. There’s no two ways about it. It’s a huge empire. It’s been extremely successful.

Most of the money for these loans, according to Perkins, is provided by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, the two premier neolib loan sharking operations (it is important to note that the Straussian neocon, Paul Wolfowitz, is now president of the World Bank, thus demonstrating how closely related the neocons and traditional neolibs are).

If the loan sharks are unable to steal natural resources (oil, minerals, rainforests, water) as a condition of repaying this immense debt, “the next step is what we call the jackals.”

Jackals are CIA-sanctioned people that come in and try to foment a coup or revolution. If that doesn’t work, they perform assassinations—or try to. In the case of Iraq, they weren’t able to get through to Saddam Hussein… His bodyguards were too good. He had doubles. They couldn’t get through to him. So the third line of defense, if the economic hit men and the jackals fail, the next line of defense is our young men and women, who are sent in to die and kill, which is what we’ve obviously done in Iraq.

Hugo Chávez is now between the assassination point of this neolib plan and invasion, when “our young men and women” will be “sent in to die and kill” Venezuelan peasants the same way they are now killing poor Iraqis. Of course, it remains to be seen if Bush can actually invade Venezuela—the neocon roster is teeming with targets, from Syria to Iran—and so we can expect the Bushcons and their jackals to continue efforts to assassinate Chávez, as Giovani Jose Vasquez De Armas reveals the CIA and the FBI are attempting to do, with little success. One notable failure by the jackals is Fidel Castro in Cuba, who experienced numerous assassination attempts and CIA counterinsurgency specialist Edward Lansdale’s Operation Mongoose (consisting of sabotage and political warfare), also known as the ‘’Cuba Project.’‘

As Blum notes, we know all of this is happening, same as we know the sun will come up tomorrow.

Kurt Nimmo is a photographer, multimedia artist and writer. You can visit his blog “Another Day in the Empire” at www.kurtnimmo.com/blog. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research

Important analysis which provides an understanding of Washington’s relentless threats directed against Venezuela. Please forward this article.

First published on March 11, 2013, following the death of Hugo Chavez.

President Hugo Chavez, who died on March 5, 2013 of cancer at age 58, marked forever the history of Venezuela and Latin America.

1. Never in the history of Latin America, has a political leader had such incontestable democratic legitimacy. Since coming to power in 1999, there were 16 elections in Venezuela. Hugo Chavez won 15, the last on October 7, 2012. He defeated his rivals with a margin of 10-20 percentage points.

2. All international bodies, from the European Union to the Organization of American States, to the Union of South American Nations and the Carter Center, were unanimous in recognizing the transparency of the vote counts.

3. James Carter, former U.S. President, declared that Venezuela’s electoral system was “the best in the world.”

4. Universal access to education introduced in 1998 had exceptional results. About 1.5 million Venezuelans learned to read and write thanks to the literacy campaign called Mission Robinson I.

5. In December 2005, UNESCO said that Venezuela had eradicated illiteracy.

6. The number of children attending school increased from 6 million in 1998 to 13 million in 2011 and the enrollment rate is now 93.2%.

7. Mission Robinson II was launched to bring the entire population up to secondary level. Thus, the rate of secondary school enrollment rose from 53.6% in 2000 to 73.3% in 2011.

8. Missions Ribas and Sucre allowed tens of thousands of young adults to undertake university studies. Thus, the number of tertiary students increased from 895,000 in 2000 to 2.3 million in 2011, assisted by the creation of new universities.

9. With regard to health, they created the National Public System to ensure free access to health care for all Venezuelans. Between 2005 and 2012, 7873 new medical centers were created in Venezuela.

10. The number of doctors increased from 20 per 100,000 population in 1999 to 80 per 100,000 in 2010, or an increase of 400%.

11. Mission Barrio Adentro I provided 534 million medical consultations. About 17 million people were attended, while in 1998 less than 3 million people had regular access to health. 1.7 million lives were saved, between 2003 and 2011.

 

 

12. The infant mortality rate fell from 19.1 per thousand in 1999 to 10 per thousand in 2012, a reduction of 49%.

13. Average life expectancy increased from 72.2 years in 1999 to 74.3 years in 2011.

14. Thanks to Operation Miracle, launched in 2004, 1.5 million Venezuelans who were victims of cataracts or other eye diseases, regained their sight.

15. From 1999 to 2011, the poverty rate decreased from 42.8% to 26.5% and the rate of extreme poverty fell from 16.6% in 1999 to 7% in 2011.

16. In the rankings of the Human Development Index (HDI) of the United Nations Program for Development (UNDP), Venezuela jumped from 83 in 2000 (0.656) at position 73 in 2011 (0.735), and entered into the category Nations with ‘High HDI’.

17. The GINI coefficient, which allows calculation of inequality in a country, fell from 0.46 in 1999 to 0.39 in 2011.

18. According to the UNDP, Venezuela holds the lowest recorded Gini coefficient in Latin America, that is, Venezuela is the country in the region with the least inequality.

19. Child malnutrition was reduced by 40% since 1999.

20. In 1999, 82% of the population had access to safe drinking water. Now it is 95%.

21. Under President Chavez social expenditures increased by 60.6%.

22. Before 1999, only 387,000 elderly people received a pension. Now the figure is 2.1 million.

23. Since 1999, 700,000 homes have been built in Venezuela.

24. Since 1999, the government provided / returned more than one million hectares of land to Aboriginal people.

25. Land reform enabled tens of thousands of farmers to own their land. In total, Venezuela distributed more than 3 million hectares.

26. In 1999, Venezuela was producing 51% of food consumed. In 2012, production was 71%, while food consumption increased by 81% since 1999. If consumption of 2012 was similar to that of 1999, Venezuela produced 140% of the food it consumed.

27. Since 1999, the average calories consumed by Venezuelans increased by 50% thanks to the Food Mission that created a chain of 22,000 food stores (MERCAL, Houses Food, Red PDVAL), where products are subsidized up to 30%. Meat consumption increased by 75% since 1999.

28. Five million children now receive free meals through the School Feeding Programme. The figure was 250,000 in 1999.

29. The malnutrition rate fell from 21% in 1998 to less than 3% in 2012.

30. According to the FAO, Venezuela is the most advanced country in Latin America and the Caribbean in the erradication of hunger.

31. The nationalization of the oil company PDVSA in 2003 allowed Venezuela to regain its energy sovereignty.

32. The nationalization of the electrical and telecommunications sectors (CANTV and Electricidad de Caracas) allowed the end of private monopolies and guaranteed universal access to these services.

33. Since 1999, more than 50,000 cooperatives have been created in all sectors of the economy.

34. The unemployment rate fell from 15.2% in 1998 to 6.4% in 2012, with the creation of more than 4 million jobs.

35. The minimum wage increased from 100 bolivars ($ 16) in 1998 to 247.52 bolivars ($ 330) in 2012, ie an increase of over 2,000%. This is the highest minimum wage in Latin America.

36. In 1999, 65% of the workforce earned the minimum wage. In 2012 only 21.1% of workers have only this level of pay.

37. Adults at a certain age who have never worked still get an income equivalent to 60% of the minimum wage.

38. Women without income and disabled people receive a pension equivalent to 80% of the minimum wage.

39. Working hours were reduced to 6 hours a day and 36 hours per week, without loss of pay.

40. Public debt fell from 45% of GDP in 1998 to 20% in 2011. Venezuela withdrew from the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, after early repayment of all its debts.

41. In 2012, the growth rate was 5.5% in Venezuela, one of the highest in the world.

42. GDP per capita rose from $ 4,100 in 1999 to $ 10,810 in 2011.

43. According to the annual World Happiness 2012, Venezuela is the second happiest country in Latin America, behind Costa Rica, and the nineteenth worldwide, ahead of Germany and Spain.

44. Venezuela offers more direct support to the American continent than the United States. In 2007, Chávez spent more than 8,800 million dollars in grants, loans and energy aid as against 3,000 million from the Bush administration.

45. For the first time in its history, Venezuela has its own satellites (Bolivar and Miranda) and is now sovereign in the field of space technology. The entire country has internet and telecommunications coverage.

46. The creation of Petrocaribe in 2005 allows 18 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, or 90 million people, secure energy supply, by oil subsidies of between 40% to 60%.

47. Venezuela also provides assistance to disadvantaged communities in the United States by providing fuel at subsidized rates.

48. The creation of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) in 2004 between Cuba and Venezuela laid the foundations of an inclusive alliance based on cooperation and reciprocity. It now comprises eight member countries which places the human being in the center of the social project, with the aim of combating poverty and social exclusion.

49. Hugo Chavez was at the heart of the creation in 2011 of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) which brings together for the first time the 33 nations of the region, emancipated from the tutelage of the United States and Canada.

50. Hugo Chavez played a key role in the peace process in Colombia. According to President Juan Manuel Santos, “if we go into a solid peace project, with clear and concrete progress, progress achieved ever before with the FARC, is also due to the dedication and commitment of Chavez and the government of Venezuela.”
Translation by Tim Anderson

 

First published by Global Research in March 2013

The late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was warned by Fidel Castro to be careful of a very specific attack, namely a quick jab from an infected needle. Such a warning coming from a leader who has reportedly been the target of CIA assassination plots more than 600 times in over 50 years, was sure to be heeded.

Was the illness of Hugo Chavez a completely deniable assassination by the CIA? William Blum spoke with the VOR’s John Robles and discussed this issue and more.

Robles: I’ve read your Anti-Empire report regarding Hugo Chavez. Can you give us your comments on speculation that he was assassinated by the CIA?

Blum: I cannot prove it of course, but I believe he was. It would be totally in keeping with the entire history of the CIA and its attitude towards people like Hugo Chavez.

The CIA has attempted to assassinate more than 50 foreign leaders and successfully at least half the time. And very few of them were as despised by the US government as Chavez was, I would say. So, there would be no reason at all to expect that the CIA would not at least plan on killing, and the nature of his ailment is very odd.

He went from a cancer, which would not go away despite several sessions of chemotherapy and what have you. Then it went to serious lung infections, which would not go away no matter what they did. And then it went to, suddenly, a massive heart attack. All in the same man with no apparent cause, he was only 58-years-old, and as far as we know he was a very healthy until this happened, it is all very odd.

And given the great motivation that the US Government and the persons in the CIA has put for killing a man like Hugo Chavez, I’m pretty sure that the CIA played a role in this.

Robles: Do you know or have you heard of any credible new technology or new programs that could deliver such a cancer?

Blum: The means would be a needle with a quick, sharp jab and what you need is getting one person close enough to Chavez to do that.

Chavez was always in the public eye, he was always embracing people. There must have been countless occasions in the past few years when he was vulnerable to a quick jab by a needle that would be the method of transmitting the ailments.

Robles: Did he ever complain that he had been poked by something in public? Were there any reports of anything like that happening that you had heard about?

Blum: He did mention that Fidel Castro warned him about just that. He said: “A quick jab with a needle, and they’ll do…I don’t know what!” Actually he was told by Fidel.

Robles: A quick jab with a needle. Do you think that happened with Fidel because he had become very ill?

Blum: Well, Fidel…According to Cuban intelligence, there were more than 600 attempts on the life of Fidel Castro by the CIA. There is an entire book on that subject by Cuban intelligence.

And many of the methods were pretty bizarre, including an exploding cigar, but over the course of 50 years the Cubans claim there were more than 600 attempts on his life and it may have taken just one with Chavez.

Robles: Have you heard anything from your sources or from where you get some of your information? Have you heard anything detailing any connection between these two US Air Force attaches that were expelled from the country and the death of Hugo Chavez?

Blum: No. I would assume that there is a connection but I don’t know if the Venezuelan government has actually said so.

Getting back to Chavez’s case, we have to keep in mind that four other South American leaders, prominent people on the left, all came down with cancer within the past year or two.

Robles: I think it was seven, wasn’t it, altogether?

Blum: The four that I named in my report…You can add the ones that you know just for my information… were Cristina Fernandez…

Robles: De Kirchner, right…

Blum: of Argentina, Dilma Rousseff of Brazil, Fernando Lugo of Paraguay, the former Brazilian head of state Lula da Silva. Who would you add into that list?

Robles: Well, and then of course Hugo Chavez himself…

Blum: Castro is one of them…

Robles: I would add Castro to the list and Kirchner’s husband who died of a mysterious heart attack as well.

Blum: Right.

Robles: We might add that as a mysterious illness, not exactly a cancer but…

Blum: Right! If the CIA was involved it doesn’t have to be cancer necessarily of course.

Robles: Oh, sure, it could be anything. Have you heard anything about cancer strains or any kind of killing weapons like this, any kind of biological weapons that would give maybe cancer-like symptoms, not exactly a certain type of cancer?

Blum: I very well may have read of such over the years. I have read so much about the CIA, but at the moment I can’t think of anything to supply you with that information. Although we do know, it is well known, that for decades the CIA was looking for a method of killing somebody which would not leave a trace. The CIA itself has used those words. For the entire period of the Cold War that was a major stated project of the CIA. But where that stands today, I have no idea.

Robles: Yes, of course that is all very secret and no one is going to talk about it, but perhaps there are some echoes or some whispers? Maybe somebody has come out and said something? What other reasons would you give to back up the argument that he was assassinated?

Blum: I will mention there is no one in the entire universe who was more hated, no leader more hated than Chavez was by the US government. In the eyes of the US power that be, Chavez was worse than Fidel Castro and Salvador Allende.

Robles: Why was he so hated?

Blum: Because he was the most outspoken leader in the world when it came to criticizing US foreign policy. He never pulled his punches for a moment, he made a claim that it was all crimes against humanity and the US leaders were war criminals, and he said so explicitly. It is unusual for a head of state to be talking that way. And at the UN he attacked Bush in front of the whole world.

Robles: Oh yes, I remember he said that the Devil had been there the day before or something, and it still smelled like sulfur.

Blum: Yes, Bush had spoken to the UN before Chavez from the same platform. And Chavez said there was a smell of sulfur in the air because of that.

Robles: That’s usually the domain of the United States, I mean… Isn’t it? I mean Bush was calling everybody the axis of evil, and all this stuff, branding everyone evil. Wasn’t that kind of a shock to see the same thing done to an American leader?

Blum: Yeah, it is a shock for anyone under any circumstances to be so outspoken in the criticism of the US foreign policy. It is a point in Chavez’s favor that he could have the honesty and the courage to say such things, which very much needed to be said.

Robles: So, you supported the way he stood up?

Blum: Well, in general yes. I think there certainly were times when he may have overdone it, even for me. I mean, he felt obliged to comment on everything under the sun, and I thought several times that he could have held off on saying certain things, they were not serving any good purpose. But that’s a minor criticism of his overall marvelous record.

Robles: You say he had a marvelous record. What do you think were his major achievements in your opinion?

Blum: What he’s brought to the poor people of Venezuela in the way of education and healthcare, and housing, and what have you. And what he brought to the rest of the South America, he formed various anti-US empire blocs which stood in the way of expansion of the US influence.

He and others formed a new…A counter to the OAS, the Organization of American States, which for decades has been dominated and corrupted by the US and Canada. And they formed a new organization in South America excluding the US and Canada. So it was that simple.

Robles: Do you think his achievements will continue or do you think the US will be successful in rolling back everything he did? Which of course I assume they would want to.

Blum: Yes, they would want to. But if Maduro who was chosen and backed by Chavez, wins, and he is expected to win in the election next month, then most of it will continue, I assume.

NATO website and articles:
http://rickrozoff. wordpress. com

The Trump administration announced on February 1 that the country was suspending its participation in the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF treaty) for 180 days pending a final withdrawal. Vladimir Putin, in a meeting with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Defence Minister Sergey Shoygu, announced on Saturday that the Russian Federation is also suspending its participation in the treaty in a mirror response to Washington’s unilateral decision.

The INF treaty was signed by the US and the USSR in 1987 at the height of negotiations that had begun years earlier and directly involved the leaders of the two countries. The treaty entered into force in 1988, eliminating missiles with a range of 500-1,000 kilometers (short to medium range) and 1,000-5,500 km (intermediate range). The treaty has always concerned land-based launchers and never sea- or air-launched missiles, a legacy of a bygone era where most nuclear warheads were positioned on missiles launched from the mainland. In subsequent years, thanks to technological advances, solutions like submarines, stealth bombers and the possibility of miniaturizing nuclear warheads became increasingly important in the military doctrines of both the US and Russia, nullifying the basis on which the INF treaty was initially signed, which was to avert a direct confrontation between Washington and Moscow on the European continent.

The INF treaty, together with the Strategic Arms Limitations Talks/Treaty (SALT treaty), signed by Washington and Moscow on the issue of long-range missiles, aimed to create a safer global environment by seeking to avoid the prospect of a nuclear exchange. It was also aimed at reducing the number of nuclear warheads owned by the US and the USSR, as well as generally reducing proliferation in line with the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). In particular, the INF treaty guaranteed a lasting peace on the European continent through Washington not deploying nuclear weapons in Europe aimed at the USSR and Moscow in turn not deploying systems capable of eliminating these European-based US missiles. The initial promoters of an INF agreement were obviously the European countries, who would have found themselves in the middle of a nuclear apocalypse in the event of war between Moscow and Washington.

With 1970s technology, the time between the launch and impact of a missile with a range of 500-5500 km was about 10-12 minutes; that was the amount of time Moscow and Washington’s leaders had during the Cold War to decide whether to retaliate and thereby launch WWIII. With today’s technology, the time to decide would probably be reduced to less than 5 minutes, making it all the more difficult to avert a nuclear exchange in the event of an accident or miscalculation. The INF treaty was thus a life-insurance policy for humanity that decreased the statistical probability of nuclear provocation or of an accident.

During the Cold War, the concept of mutually assured destruction (MAD) was central to the nuclear doctrines of the two great powers. The INF treaty served the purpose of taking concrete steps towards greatly reducing the possibility of mutually assured destruction.

With the unilateral withdrawal from the treaty by the US, all these safeguards and guarantees are lost, with all the consequences that ensue from such a reckless as dangerous act.

The American and European mainstream media have applauded the withdrawal from the INF, in the same way that they have applauded Trump whenever he has been pro-war. Former CIA and military personnel, as well as the former CEO’s of major arms manufacturers, have been eager to share their views as “experts”, literally invading television programs and thereby showing why they are paid lots of money to lobby for the military-industrial complex. They praised Trump’s move, blaming Moscow for the ending of the treaty, but in the end revealing the covert geopolitical reason why Washington decided to end the deal, namely, the fact that China is not bound by the same treaty.

These vaunted experts on MSNBC, CNN and Fox News alluded to the danger of Washington being bound by such a treaty while Beijing was not, thereby limiting Washington’s options in the Asia-Pacific. Trump and his staff view the INF treaty as an intolerable imposition that ties America’s hands in its efforts to contain China.

US foreign policy, especially under this administration, sees every kind of agreement, past or future, as a concession, and therefore a sign of weakness. Trump and his generals drafted the National Defense Posture, stating that the time of great-power competition is back and that Washington’s peer competitors were Moscow and Beijing. The return of great-power competition is an excuse to “strengthen the military”, as Trumps loves to say, and his decision is in line with the new defense posture review Trump approved, seeking to confront every adversary in any domain by all means. The newly announced Space Force is a reflection of this, seeking to put weapons in space in violation of all existing treaties. At the same time, the development of tactical nuclear weapons also expands the use of nuclear weapons in certain circumstances, pushing the envelope on the prohibition on the use of nuclear weapons. These new programs will end up draining even more money from taxpayers to fill the coffers of shareholders, CEOs and lobbyists for the big arms manufacturers.

To justify the withdrawal from the INF, the military-industrial complex, which drives US foreign policy, needed a suitable justification. Of course in a time of anti-Russia hysteria, the choice was obvious. Since 2014, the attention of so-called US experts has been focused on the 9M729 missile in particular, an evolution of the 9M728, used by the Iskander-K weapons system, a Russian technological gem with few equals.

NPO Novator, the company that produces the 9M729, reassures that the missile does not violate the INF treaty and has a range shorter than the 500 km limit (470 km). Moscow even organized an exhibition open to the public, with the missile on display along with its main features, inviting Washington to officially send its experts to view the characteristics of the 9M729. Washington refused, knowing full well that the missile does not violate the the INF, preferring instead to use the 9M729 as an excuse to abandonment the treaty.

Washington will suspend its participation in the treaty within 180 days, and Moscow has responded with an identical measure. With hysteria surrounding Russia (Russiagate) and the impossibility of Trump and Putin engaging in dialogue following the complete sabotaging of relations between Moscow and Washington, it is almost impossible that a fruitful dialogue can be created to seal a new agreement in the remaining 180 days. This, however, is not even the basic objective of the Trump administration. Unofficially, Trump says that he would rather include Beijing in the agreement with Moscow. But knowing that this goal is impossible to achieve, he is pursuing his broader objective of withdrawing the US from all major treaties, including the INF treaty.

In the specific case of withdrawing from the INF, there is little need to raise a big hue and cry as was the case with the Paris Agreement, as the media-intelligence-military apparatus has a lot to gain from this. This just goes to show how the MSM and their rolled-out “experts” thrive on war and the money that is to be made from it. There is a major psyop going on to convince the American public that the withdrawal from the INF treaty, and the resulting arms race with major nuclear-armed countries, is apparently the best way to keep America safe!

The withdrawal from the INF treaty opens the gates for a new nuclear-arms race that will bring great advantages to arms industries, with great returns for shareholders, executives and CEOs, all paid for by the American taxpayer. It is more than probable that the official defense budget in 2020, having to cover for the development of weapons previously prohibited by the INF treaty, could be more than 800 billion dollars, seeing an increase of tens of billions of dollars in the space of 12 months.

Moscow has for several years been accusing the US of malfeasance regarding various aspects of nuclear-weapons agreements. Russia’s defence minister stated to Tass News Agency:

“Two years before making public unfounded accusations against Russia of alleged INF Treaty violations, Washington not only took a decision, but also started preparations to production of missiles of intermediate and shorter range banned by the Treaty. Starting already June 2017, the program of expansion and upgrade of production facilities with the aims of developing intermediate and shorter range missiles banned by the Treaty was launched at Raytheon’s plant in the city of Tucson, Arizona. The plant is a major diversified enterprise of the US aerospace industry that produces almost all types of missile weapons. Over the past two years the space of the plant has increased by 44% – from 55,000 to 79,000 square meters, while the number of employees is going to rise by almost 2,000 people, according to official statements. Almost at the same time as production facilities expanded, on November 2017, Congress provided the first tranche amounting to $58 mln to Pentagon, directly pointing at the development of a land-based missile of intermediate range. Consequently, the nature and time of the works demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt that the US administration decided to withdraw from the INF Treaty several years before unfounded accusations against Russia of violating the Treaty were made public.”

The unilateral withdrawal by George W. Bush from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM Treaty) in 2002, citing the need for the US to protect itself from countries belonging to the Axis of Evil (Iran, Iraq, North Korea), was an excuse to deploy the Aegis system (land- or sea-based) in strategic areas around the Russian Federation, so as to diminish Moscow’s deterrent capacity for a nuclear second strike.

The Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System (Aegis BMD) is designed to be able to theoretically intercept Russian missiles in their initial boost phase, the period when they are the most vulnerable. Moscow has been openly questioning the rationale for the Aegis system deployed in Romania. According to Russian military experts, the possibility of reprogramming the system from defensive to offensive, replacing the conventional warheads used for intercepting missiles with nuclear-tipped cruise missiles, could be undertaken within an hour, without the Russian Federation possibly being aware of it. Putin has cited this specific case and its technical possibility more than once when pointing out that the US is already in violation of the INF treaty by deploying such systems in Romania.

The US unilaterally withdrew from the ABM treaty in 2002 in order to be able to disguise the deployment of an offensive system under the guise of an ABM system for the purported purposes of defending against Iran, thereby de facto violating the INF treaty, an excess of arrogance and presumption. Such perfidy caused Putin to make his famous 2007 Munich speech, where he warned the US and her allies of the consequences of reneging on such treaties and agreements. Deploying defensive systems close to the Russian border that can easily be converted into offensive ones with a nuclear capacity was a red line that could not be crossed.

At the time the West ignored Putin’s warnings, dismissive of the Russian leader. But only a few months ago, the Russian Federation finally showed the world that the warnings issued in 2007 were not empty bluster. Hypersonic weapons, a submarine drone and other cutting-edge systems were presented by Putin in March 2018, shocking Western military planners and analysts who had not taken Putin seriously back in 2007. These new technological breakthroughs provide Russia with the ability to eliminate targets by kinetic, conventional or nuclear means. Such offensive deployments near the Russian border as the ABM systems in Romania can now be eliminated within the space of a few minutes, with no possibility of being intercepted.

Putin recently said:

“The (US) has announced research and development works, and we will do the same. I agree with the Defense Ministry’s proposals to start the work on ‘landing’ Kalibr missiles and developing a new area to create a land-based hypersonic missile with intermediate range.”

Putin has already put his military cards on the table, warning 10 years ago what would happen if Washington continued in its duplicitous direction. As Putin said in March 2018: “They did not listen to us in 2007. They will listen to us now”.

The consequences of withdrawing from the INF treaty fall most heavily on the shoulders of the Europeans. Federica Mogherini indicated deep concern over Washington’s decision, as well as the new super-weapons that were either being tested or were already operational in Russia, causing consternation amongst the Western military establishment that had thought that Putin was bluffing in March 2018 when he spoke about hypersonic weapons.

The US military-industrial complex is rejoicing at the prospect of money rained down as a result of this withdrawal from the INF treaty. But in Europe (with the exception of Romania and Poland), nobody is too keen to welcome US missiles that have no defense against Russian hypersonic weapons. NATO’s trans-Atlantic arms lobby will try to push as many European countries as possible towards a new Cold War, with US weapons deployed and aimed at Moscow. It will be fun to see the reactions of European citizens facing the prospect of being annihilated by Russian missiles simply to please the CEOs and shareholders of Lockheed Martin and Raytheon. No doubt there will be some European politicians in countries like Poland keen to scream about the “Russian threat”, ready to throw tens of billions worth of Polish taxpayers’ money into useless and ineffective projects for the purposes of pleasing their American friends.

Are US generals even aware of how idiotic it is for the US to withdraw from the INF for Washington? Moscow is already ahead in the development of such systems, both land-based but above all sea- and air-launched, without forgetting the hypersonic variants of its conventional or nuclear missiles. Washington has a huge gap to close, exacerbated by the fact that in spite of heavy spending over many years, there is little to show for it as a result of massive corruption in the research-and-development process. This is not to mention the fact that there are few European countries willing to host offensive missile systems aimed at Russia. In reality, there is little real advantage for Washington in withdrawing from the INF treaty, other than to enrich arms manufacturers. It diminishes US military options strategically while expanding those of Beijing and Moscow, even as the latter oppose Washington’s unilateral withdrawal from the treaty.

The hope of expanding the INF treaty to include the US, Russia, China and the EU appears slim due to Washington’s intransigence. Washington only aims to increase expenditure for the development of weapons prohibited by the treaty, and in strategic terms, improbably hopes to find some Asian and European countries willing to host these systems aimed against China and Russia.

The world is certainly more dangerous following Washington’s decision, heading in a direction where there are less and less rules while there are more nuclear powers. For decades, the United States has been trying to achieve nuclear supremacy by overcoming the limitations of MAD, whereby Washington would be able to carry out a decapitating nuclear first strike without worrying about an opponent’s ability to launch a retaliatory second strike. It is precisely this type of thinking that is bringing humanity closer to the brink of destruction from a nuclear accident or miscalculation. The miniaturization of nuclear warheads and the apparently limited nature of “tactical nukes” further encourages the justification for using such weapons.

Moscow’s decision in 2007 to develop state-of-the-art weapons and focus on new technologies like hypersonic missiles guarantees that Russia and her allies have an effective deterrent against the attempts of the US to alter the nuclear balance of power, which otherwise threatens the future of humanity.

The withdrawal from the INF treaty is another worrying sign of the willingness of the US to push the world to the brink of catastrophe, simply for the purposes of enriching the CEOs and shareholders of it arms manufacturers through a nuclear arms race.

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Federico Pieraccini is an independent freelance writer specialized in international affairs, conflicts, politics and strategies. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from SCF

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“Towards a World War III Scenario: The Dangers of Nuclear War” 

by Michel Chossudovsky

Available to order from Global Research! 

ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-5-3
Year: 2012
Pages: 102
Print Edition: $10.25 (+ shipping and handling)
PDF Edition:  $6.50 (sent directly to your email account!)

Michel Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), which hosts the critically acclaimed website www.globalresearch.ca . He is a contributor to the Encyclopedia Britannica. His writings have been translated into more than 20 languages.

Reviews

“This book is a ‘must’ resource – a richly documented and systematic diagnosis of the supremely pathological geo-strategic planning of US wars since ‘9-11’ against non-nuclear countries to seize their oil fields and resources under cover of ‘freedom and democracy’.”
–John McMurtry, Professor of Philosophy, Guelph University

“In a world where engineered, pre-emptive, or more fashionably “humanitarian” wars of aggression have become the norm, this challenging book may be our final wake-up call.”
-Denis Halliday, Former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations

Michel Chossudovsky exposes the insanity of our privatized war machine. Iran is being targeted with nuclear weapons as part of a war agenda built on distortions and lies for the purpose of private profit. The real aims are oil, financial hegemony and global control. The price could be nuclear holocaust. When weapons become the hottest export of the world’s only superpower, and diplomats work as salesmen for the defense industry, the whole world is recklessly endangered. If we must have a military, it belongs entirely in the public sector. No one should profit from mass death and destruction.
–Ellen Brown, author of ‘Web of Debt’ and president of the Public Banking Institute   

A Review of Conspiracy Theories and Other Dangerous Ideas by Cass Sunstein (based on an earlier paper co-authored with Adrian Vermeule); In Defense of Troublemakers: The Power of Dissent in Life and Business by Charlan Nemeth; and Conspiracy Theories and the People Who Believe Them, edited by Joseph E. Uscinski

***

On January 25 2018 YouTube unleashed the latest salvo in the war on conspiracy theories, saying

“we’ll begin reducing recommendations of borderline content and content that could misinform users in harmful ways—such as videos promoting a phony miracle cure for a serious illness, claiming the earth is flat, or making blatantly false claims about historic events like 9/11.”

At first glance that sounds reasonable. Nobody wants YouTube or anyone else to recommend bad information. And almost everyone agrees that phony miracle cures, flat earthism, and blatantly false claims about 9/11 and other historical events are undesirable.

But if we stop and seriously consider those words, we notice a couple of problems. First, the word “recommend” is not just misleading but mendacious. YouTube obviously doesn’t really recommend anything. When it says it does, it is lying.

When you watch YouTube videos, the YouTube search engine algorithm displays links to other videos that you are likely to be interested in. These obviously do not constitute “recommendations” by YouTube itself, which exercises no editorial oversight over content posted by users. (Or at least it didn’t until it joined the war on conspiracy theories.)

The second and larger problem is that while there may be near-universal agreement among reasonable people that flat-earthism is wrong, there is only modest agreement regarding which health approaches constitute “phony miracle cures” and which do not. Far less is there any agreement on “claims about 9/11 and other historical events.” (Thus far the only real attempt to forge an informed consensus about 9/11 is the 9/11 Consensus Panel’s study—but it seems unlikely that YouTube will be using the Consensus Panel to determine which videos to “recommend”!)

YouTube’s policy shift is the latest symptom of a larger movement by Western elites to—as Obama’s Information Czar Cass Sunstein put it—“disable the purveyors of conspiracy theories.” Sunstein and co-author Adrian Vermeule’s 2008 paper “Conspiracy Theories,” critiqued by David Ray Griffin in 2010 and developed into a 2016 book, represents a panicked reaction to the success of the 9/11 truth movement. (By 2006, 36% of Americans thought it likely that 9/11 was an inside job designed to launch wars in the Middle East, according to a Scripps poll.)

Sunstein and Vermuele begin their abstract:

Many millions of people hold (sic) conspiracy theories; they believe that powerful people have worked together in order to withhold the truth about some important practice or some terrible event. A recent example is the belief, widespread in some parts of the world, that the attacks of 9/11 were carried out not by Al Qaeda, but by Israel or the United States. Those who subscribe to conspiracy theories may create serious risks, including risks of violence, and the existence of such theories raises significant challenges for policy and law.

Sunstein argues that conspiracy theories (i.e. the 9/11 truth movement) are so dangerous that some day they may have to be banned by law. While awaiting that day, or perhaps in preparation for it, the government should “disable the purveyors of conspiracy theories” through various techniques including “cognitive infiltration” of 9/11 truth groups. Such “cognitive infiltration,” Sunstein writes, could have various aims including the promotion of “beneficial cognitive diversity” within the truth movement.

What sort of “cognitive diversity” would Cass Sunstein consider “beneficial”? Perhaps 9/11 truth groups that had been “cognitively infiltrated” by spooks posing as flat-earthers would harbor that sort of “beneficial” diversity? That would explain the plethora of expensive, high-production-values flat earth videos that have been blasted at the 9/11 truth community since 2008.

Why does Sunstein think “conspiracy theories” are so dangerous they need to be suppressed by government infiltrators, and perhaps eventually outlawed—which would necessitate revoking the First Amendment? Obviously conspiracism must present some extraordinary threat. So what might that threat be? Oddly, he never explains. Instead he briefly mentions, in vapidly nebulous terms, about “serious risks including the risk of violence.” But he presents no serious evidence that 9/11 truth causes violence. Nor does he explain what the other “serious risks” could possibly be.

Why did such highly accomplished academicians as Sunstein and Vermuele produce such an unhinged, incoherent, poorly-supported screed? How could Harvard and the University of Chicago publish such nonsense? Why would it be deemed worthy of development into a book? Why did the authors identify an alleged problem, present no evidence that it even is a problem, yet advocate outrageously illegal and unconstitutional government action to solve the non-problem?

The too-obvious answer, of course, is that they must realize that 9/11 was in fact a US-Israeli false flag operation. The 9/11 truth movement, in that case, would be a threat not because it is wrong, but because it is right. To the extent that Americans know or suspect the truth, the US government will undoubtedly find it harder to pursue various “national security” objectives. Ergo, 9/11 “conspiracy theories” are a threat to national security, and extreme measures are required to combat them. But since we can’t just burn the First Amendment overnight, we must instead take a gradual and covert “boil the frog” approach, featuring plenty of cointelpro-style infiltration and misdirection. “Cognitive infiltration” of internet platforms to stop the conspiracy contagion would also fit the bill.

It is quite possible, perhaps even likely, that Sunstein and Vermeule are indeed well-informed and Machievellian. But it is also conceivable that they are, at least when it comes to 9/11 and “conspiracy theories,” as muddle-headed as they appear. Their irrational panic could be an example of the bad thinking that emerges from groups that reflexively reject dissent. (Another, larger example of this kind of bad thinking comes to mind: America’s disastrous post-9/11 policies.)

The counterintuitive truth is that embracing and carefully listening to radical dissenters is in fact good policy, whether you are a government, a corporation, or any other kind of group. Ignoring or suppressing dissent produces muddled, superficial thinking and bad decisions. Surprisingly, this turns out to be the case even when the dissenters are wrong.

Scientific evidence for the value of dissent is beautifully summarized in Charlan Nemeth’s In Defense of Troublemakers: The Power of Dissent in Life and Business (Basic Books, 2018). Nemeth, a psychology professor at UC-Berkeley, summarizes decades of research on group dynamics showing that groups that feature passionate, radical dissent deliberate better, reach better conclusions, and take better actions than those that do not—even when the dissenter is wrong.

Nemeth begins with a case where dissent would likely have saved lives: the crash of United Airlines Flight 173 in December, 1978. As the plane neared its Portland destination, the possibility of a problem with the landing gear arose. The captain focused on trying to determine the condition of the landing gear as the plane circled the airport. Typical air crew group dynamics, in which the whole crew defers to the captain, led to a groupthink bubble in which nobody spoke up as the needle on the fuel gauge approached “E.” Had the crew included even one natural “troublemaker”—the kind of aviator who joins Pilots for 9/11 truth—there almost certainly would have been more divergent thinking. Someone would have spoken up about the fuel issue, and a tragic crash would have been averted.

Since 9/11, American decision-making elites have entered the same kind of bubble and engaged in the same kind of groupthink. For them, no serious dissent on such issues as what really happened on 9/11, and whether a “war on terror” makes sense, is permitted. The predictable result has been bad thinking and worse decisions. From the vantage point of Sunstein and Vermeule, deep inside the bubble, the potentially bubble-popping, consensus-shredding threat of 9/11 truth must appear radically destabilizing. To even consider the possibility that the 9/11 truthers are right might set off a stampede of critical reflection that would radically undermine the entire set of policies pursued for the past 17 years. This prospect may so terrify Sunstein and Vermeule that it paralyzes their ability to think. Talk about “crippled epistemology”!

Do Sunstein and Vermeule really think their program for suppressing “conspiracy theories” will be beneficial? Do YouTube’s decision-makers really believe that tweaking their algorithms to support the official story will protect us from bad information? If so, they are all doubly wrong. First, they are wrong in their unexamined assumption that 9/11 truth and “conspiracy theories” in general are “blatantly false.” No honest person with critical thinking skills who weighs the merits of the best work on both sides of the question can possibly avoid the realization that the 9/11 truth movement is right. The same is true regarding the serial assassinations of America’s best leaders during the 1960s. Many other “conspiracy theories,” perhaps the majority of the best-known ones, are also likely true, as readers of Ron Unz’s American Pravda series are discovering.

Second, and less obviously, those who would suppress conspiracy theories are wrong even in their belief that suppressing false conspiracy theories is good public policy. As Nemeth shows, social science is unambiguous in its finding that any group featuring at least one passionate, radical dissenter will deliberate better, reach sounder conclusions, and act more effectively than it would have without the dissenter. This holds even if the dissenter is wrong—even wildly wrong.

The overabundance of slick, hypnotic flat earth videos, if they are indeed weaponized cointelpro strikes against the truth movement, may be unfortunate. But the existence of the occasional flat earther may be more beneficial than harmful. The findings summarized by Nemeth suggest that a science study group with one flat earther among the students would probably learn geography and astronomy better than they would have without the madly passionate dissenter.

We could at least partially solve the real problem—bad groupthink—through promoting genuinely beneficial cognitive diversity. YouTube algorithms should indeed be tweaked to puncture the groupthink bubbles that emerge based on user preferences. Someone who watches lots of 9/11 truther videos should indeed be exposed to dissent, in the form of the best arguments on the other side of the issue—not that there are any very good ones, as I have discovered after spending 15 years searching for them!

But the same goes for those who watch videos that explicitly or implicitly accept the official story. Anyone who watches more than a few pro-official-story videos (and this would include almost all mainstream coverage of anything related to 9/11 and the “war on terror”) should get YouTube “suggestions” for such videos as September 11: The New Pearl Harbor, 9/11 Mysteries, and the work of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth. Exposure to even those “truthers” who are more passionate than critical or well-informed would benefit people who believe the official story, according to Nemeth’s research, by stimulating them to deliberate more thoughtfully and to question facile assumptions.

The same goes for other issues and perspectives. Fox News viewers should get “suggestions” for good material, especially passionate dissent, from the left side of the political spectrum. MSNBC viewers should get “suggestions” for good material from the right. Both groups should get “suggestions” to look at genuinely independent, alternative media brimming with passionate dissidents—outlets like the Unz Review!

Unfortunately things are moving in the opposite direction. YouTube’s effort to make “conspiracy videos” invisible is being pushed by powerful lobbies, especially the Zionist lobby, which seems dedicated to singlehandedly destroying the Western tradition of freedom of expression.

Nemeth and colleagues’ findings that “conspiracy theories” and other forms of passionate dissent are not just beneficial, but in fact an invaluable resource, are apparently unknown to the anti-conspiracy-theory cottage industry that has metastasized in the bowels of the Western academy. The brand-new bible of the academic anti-conspiracy-theory industry is Conspiracy Theories and the People Who Believe Them (Oxford University Press, 2019).

Editor Joseph Uscinski’s introduction begins by listing alleged dangers of conspiracism: “In democracies, conspiracy theories can drive majorities to make horrible decisions backed by the use of legitimate force. Conspiracy beliefs can conversely encourage abstention. Those who believe the system is rigged will be less willing to take part in it. Conspiracy theories form the basis for some people’s medical decisions; this can be dangerous not only for them but for others as well. For a select few believers, conspiracy theories are instructions to use violence.”

Uscinski is certainly right that conspiracy theories can incite “horrible decisions” to use “legitimate force” and “violence.” Every major American foreign war since 1846 has been sold to the public by an official theory, backed by a frenetic media campaign, of a foreign conspiracy to attack the United States. And all of these Official Conspiracy Theories (OCTs)—including the theory that Mexico conspired to invade the United States in 1846, that Spain conspired to sink the USS Maine in 1898, that Germany conspired with Mexico to invade the United States in 1917, that Japan conspired unbeknownst to peace-seeking US leaders to attack Pearl Harbor in 1941, that North Vietnam conspired to attack the US Navy in the Gulf of Tonkin in 1964, and that 19 Arabs backed by Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, and everybody else Israel doesn’t like conspired to attack the US in 2001—were false or deceptive.

Well over 100 million people have been killed in the violence unleashed by these and other Official Conspiracy Theories. Had the passionate dissenters been heeded, and the truths they told about who really conspires to create war-trigger public relations stunts been understood, none of those hundred-million-plus murders need have happened.

Though Conspiracy Theories and the People Who Believe Them generally pathologizes the conspiracy theories of dissidents while ignoring the vastly more harmful theories of official propagandists, its 31 essays include several that question that outlook. In “What We Mean When We Say ‘Conspiracy Theory’ Jesse Walker, books editor of Reason Magazine, exposes the bias that permeates the field, pointing out that many official conspiracy theories, including several about Osama Bin Laden and 9/11-anthrax, were at least as ludicrously false and delusional as anything believed by marginalized dissidents.

In “Media Marginalization of Racial Minorities: ‘Conspiracy Theorists’ in U.S. Ghettos and on the ‘Arab Street’” Martin Orr and Gina Husting go one step further:

“The epithet ‘conspiracy theorist’ is used to tarnish those who challenge authority and power. Often, it is tinged with racial undertones: it is used to demean whole groups of people in the news and to silence, stigmatize, or belittle foreign and minority voices.” (p.82)

Unfortunately, though Orr and Husting devote a whole section of their article to “Conspiracy Theories in the Muslim World” and defend Muslim conspiracists against the likes of Thomas Friedman, they never squarely face the fact that the reason roughly 80% of Muslims believe 9/11 was an inside job is because the preponderance of evidence supports that interpretation.

Another relatively sensible essay is M R.X. Dentith’s “Conspiracy Theories and Philosophy,” which ably deconstructs the most basic fallacy permeating the whole field of conspiracy theory research: the a priori assumption that a “conspiracy theory” must be false or at least dubious:

“If certain scholars (i.e. the majority represented in this book! –KB) want to make a special case for conspiracy theories, then it is reasonable for the rest of us to ask whether we are playing fair with our terminology, or whether we have baked into our definitions the answers to our research programs.” (p.104). Unfortunately, a few pages later editor Joseph Uscinski sticks his fingers in his ears and plays deaf and dumb, claiming that “the establishment is right far more often than conspiracy theories, largely because their methods are reliable. When conspiracy theorists are right, it is by chance.” He adds that conspiracy theories will inevitably “occasionally lead to disaster” (whatever that means). (p.110).

I hope Uscinski finds the time to read Nemeth’s In Defense of Troublemakers and consider the evidence that passionate dissent is helpful, not harmful. And I hope he will look into the issues Ron Unz addresses in his American Pravda series.

Then again, if he does, he may find himself among those of us exiled from the academy and publishing in The Unz Review.

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Featured image is from The Unz Review

“Oil and gas has already devastated our state’s air quality, water quality and flow, and public health. It’s clear the Trump administration will stop at nothing to sacrifice public interest for private profits.”

***

Just as the government shutdown ended, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management quietly listed many new sites in their attempt to expand the sale of oil and gas leases. Among those sites includes land outside Chaco Culture National Park and other public land revered by Native Americans, the Associated Press reported.

The Great Chaco Region in New Mexico, which includes Chaco Canyon, is a major center of ancient Pueblo culture and a UNESCO World Heritage Site,” EcoWatch reported.

“Oil and gas has already devastated our state’s air quality, water quality and flow, and public health,” Rebecca Sobel, senior climate and energy campaigner for WildEarth Guardians, said. “It’s clear the Trump administration will stop at nothing to sacrifice public interest for private profits.”

Prior intense protests and public pressure regarding cultural and environmental concerns caused former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to postpone a lease sale in the Great Chaco Region.

A new protest period, which will accept public comment, will begin on Feb. 11 and run through Feb. 20. An auction is scheduled for March 28, which will include more than 50 parcels in New Mexico and Oklahoma that will be up for grabs, EcoWatch reported.

About 90 percent of the Great Chaco Region is currently leased, but the New Mexico BLM wants to expand oil and gas development to as close to the park’s 10-miles, no drilling buffer zone, where more fossil fuel can be found, EcoWatch reported.

Newly elected Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, just signed an executive order to combat climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, many New Mexicans are looking to “newly elected state and federal representatives to finally address fracking impacts.”

“We’re looking to New Mexico’s newly elected state and federal representatives to finally address fracking impacts, and with this week’s Executive Order on Climate and a slew of proposed statewide bills aimed at enforcement and accountability around oil and gas, we hope New Mexico can tun the tide and reign in this dangerous industry, protecting our people and sacred landscapes,” Sobel said.

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Ashley is an editor, social media content manager and writer at NationofChange. Before joining NoC, she was a features reporter at The Daily Breeze – a local newspaper in Southern California – writing a variety of stories on current topics including politics, the economy, human rights, the environment and the arts. Ashley is a transplant from the East Coast calling Los Angeles home.

Featured image is from Dot Nielsen/Flickr

This month’s ORB International Brexit Confidence tracker poll shows 80% of UK adults disapprove of the way the government is handling the Brexit negotiations, the highest figure recorded since this tracker poll began in November 2016

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Full tables are available here, and charts are here,

Methodology:

N=2,014 interviews conducted among a representative sample of the GB adult population February 1st-3rd 2019. The statistical margin of error at the 95% confidence level is + 2.2%.

1. Do you approve or disapprove of the way in which the Government is handling the Brexit negotiations?

• Approve 20% (-5)
• Disapprove 80% (+5)

2. How strongly do you agree or disagree with the following statement?  I think the Prime Minister has got the right deal for Britain in the Brexit negotiations

• Strongly agree 3%
• Agree 16%
• Disagree 30%
• Strongly disagree 31%
• Don’t Know 20%

NET

• Agree 18%
• Disagree 62%

3. How strongly do you agree or disagree with the following statement?  Britain will be economically better off post Brexit

• Strongly agree 11%
• Agree 26%
• Disagree 19%
• Strongly disagree 23%
• Don’t Know 21%

NET

• Agree 37% (+2)
• Disagree 41% (-1)

4. How strongly do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Post-Brexit, I think I personally will be financially better off

• Strongly agree 4%
• Agree 18%
• Disagree 27%
• Strongly disagree 20%
• Don’t Know 31% (-2)

NET

• Agree 22% (+2)
• Disagree 47% (-)

5. How strongly do you agree or disagree with the following statement?  Having greater control over immigration is more important than having access to free trade with the EU

• Strongly agree 15%
• Agree 25%
• Disagree 26%
• Strongly disagree 19%
• Don’t Know 15%

NET

• Agree 40%
• Disagree 45%

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Shady anonymous actors are waging an information war manipulating social media with automated posts in an apparent attempt to manufacture a faux consensus for regime change in Venezuela.

***

As the U.S.-backed coup attempt in Venezuela continues to take shape, shady anonymous actors are waging an information war manipulating social media with automated posts in an apparent attempt to manufacture a faux consensus for regime change in the online theater.

If you’ve been on Twitter since January 23, you could be forgiven for thinking that the only pastimes in Venezuela are protesting and replying to anyone and everyone on the platform critical of Washington’s clear collusion with the Venezuelan opposition in its quest for regime change.

Juan Guaido — who had a mere 90,000 followers on Twitter around the time of the coup attempt one year prior, and 340,000 around January 23, 2019 – has since skyrocketed on the platform, currently enjoying a following of more than 1,100,000.

While the phenomenon has not yet been linked to manipulation by the opposition, it raises questions about the online influencers who have tried to turn the previously little-known figure into a household name the world over.

An “immense campaign” and Twitter’s perverse response

Meanwhile, Twitter disinformation researcher and data visualization artist Erin Gallagher uncovered an immense campaign sympathetic to the right-wing Venezuelan opposition that used a variety of tools and applications to artificially inflate the reach of certain posts.

“The Venezuelan opposition is far from censored on Twitter,” she wrote. “To the contrary, their trends generate billions of impressions every day.”

Gallagher’s bombshell report was dropped on Thursday. The following day, Twitter took action — but not against the pro-opposition network. The company banned “764 accounts located in Venezuela” that it said used “spammy” political content “similar to that utilized by potential Russian [Internet Research Agency] accounts” and 1,200 accounts it said “appear” to be “engaged in a state-backed influence campaign targeting domestic [Venezuelan] audiences.” Those accounts have been characterized online as “pro-Maduro.”

The apparent double standard wasn’t confined just to Twitter, however. The Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRL), often the mainstream media’s go-to institution of “experts” on such matters, claimed in a blog post that it “did not find clear evidence of automated amplification of hashtags trending around the protests” against Maduro on January 23 (#23E), the day of Maduro’s inauguration, Gallagher noted.

The DFRL post, entitled “Protests Go Viral in Venezuela,” primarily took aim at the government for allegedly censoring the web and perhaps gaming hashtags on Twitter.

DFRL is an arm of the neoconservative Atlantic Council think tank, which is funded by NATO, Gulf monarchies, and the arms industry. Twitter has previously worked closely with the DFRL in countering alleged state-backed disinformation campaigns.

Gallagher wrote that she was “shocked at the contrast between the way DFRLab portrayed Venezuelan social media versus what I’ve been monitoring for 1.5 years.”

In that time, Gallagher discovered a hashtag — #TeamHDP — that was “used by an anonymous group of right-wing political hackers who have attacked the Venezuelan government, leaked documents online,” and doxxed Chavistas. Another hashtag employed by the network was #LaListaJustin, (Justin’s List, which is named after a fake Justin Bieber account that was a primary pusher of #TeamHDP). The #LaListaJustin released hacked documents showing personally identifiable information (such as home addresses, etc.) of Maduro supporters, members of the military, police, and their spouses and families.

The revelation is particularly troubling because the Venezuelan opposition has used vigilantism to enact violent retribution on Chavistas and public officials.

Apparently spearheading the #TeamHDP hashtag is a Miami-based company called DolarToday, which is used by financial websites and media to report on black market exchange rates for Venezuela’s currency, the bolivar. Maduro has previously accused DolarToday of manipulating exchange rates and fueling an economic war against his country

User-to-user network for 18,116 #23E tweets from Jan 24 to Jan 28. Erin Gallagher | Medium

Between January 24 and January 28, DolarToday was a “central influencer of the #23E hashtag,” Gallagher wrote.

The company’s own Twitter account “averages” 349 tweets per day, but picks up steam around uprisings in Venezuela. Gallagher found more than 1,000 tweets per day around the attempted coup.

Beyond its own Twitter account, DolarToday’s tweets are reposted by a network of other accounts. One such artificially amplified message accused the late president Hugo Chavez of being a “perverted drug addict.”

DolarToday has two applications, SWAT Comunicacional and another named after itself. The apps allow users to log in and allow DolarToday to automatically repost the company’s tweets.

Gallagher wrote that she has “never seen anything with such a  tremendous reach” as the Venezuelan opposition #TeamHDP hashtag, which was associated with hacking and doxxing (which is against Twitter’s terms of service.)

The researcher concluded that “Venezuelan opposition social media networks are engaging in inauthentic coordinated activity on Twitter.” Such “coordinated inauthentic activity,” it should be noted, has been the primary explanation given by social-media giants such as Twitter and Facebook as their reason for purging tens of thousands of accounts, including those of independent reporters.

A double standard beta-tested in Syria

Twitter and the DFRL appear to be turning a blind eye to violations of Twitter policy from pro-opposition networks while taking aim at allegedly pro-government disinformation operations, while neither has provided evidence of such a campaign by the government.

In many ways, the war in Syria served as a testing ground for propaganda tools — from the U.S.-funded “civil defense” group White Helmets to U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters, who were portrayed as defenders of an anarchist commune in the north.

But Venezuela today exists in an even more precarious position online due to the advent of institutions and “experts” that have made a name for themselves in the frenzy that has followed allegations that Russia used coordinated inauthentic behavior to sway the 2016 presidential elections; even more so because social-media giants like Twitter and Facebook have acquiesced.

For example, back in July, Twitter and Facebook were unaware of any state actors manipulating social media besides Russia. Since then, they have levied such accusations against Iran, and now Venezuela.

With these institutions now revealing their allegiances to the U.S. regime-change machine, and the usual suspects (the Atlantic Council, for example) in full lockstep, it becomes incumbent on social-media users to ignore the “experts” and come to their own conclusions about the facts on the ground in Venezuela.

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Alexander Rubinstein is a staff writer for MintPress News based in Washington, DC. He reports on police, prisons and protests in the United States and the United States’ policing of the world. He previously reported for RT and Sputnik News.

Featured image: A composite image of screenshots of Twitter accounts involved in online Venezuelan opposition social media campaigns. Image | MintPress News

Interview with a Brazilian journalist Rodrigo Craveiro on behalf of Correio Braziliense: (Jan. 30, 2019) on current prospects of Palestinian national movement.

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Fatah, Hamas, the Future of Statehood and Peace Prospects

Rodrigo Craveiro: With the dissolution of government do you see any risk for unity among all Palestinian factions? Why?

Richard Falk: It is difficult at this stage to interpret the significance of the recent dissolution of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), which serves as the Parliament of the Palestinian Authority that governs the West Bank and enjoys formal recognition as the representive of the Palestinian people internationally. The PLO continues to exist as an umbrella framework to facilitate coordination among Palestinian political factions aside from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which have never been associated with the PLO. It seems that dissolution of the PLC is related to the prospect of new leadership of the Palestinian Authority, especially the speculation that the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas will soon retire, and be replaced. It is also possible that this move is an attempt by the PA to create a stronger basis for creating an actual Palestinian state in an atmosphere in which the Oslo diplomatic framework has been superseded.

Without the prospect of a diplomatic resolution of the conflict by negotiation between the parties, the Abbas leadership is trying to establish for Palestine the status of an international state by way of its own unilateral moves. Israel on its side it trying by its unilateral initiatives to create its own expanded state that extends Israeli sovereignty over all or most of the West Bank, which remains legally ‘occupied’ despite a variety of fundamental encroachments on Palestinian autonomy. In other words we are witnessing contradictory moves by both Israel and Palestine to achieve their goals by unilateral political moves rather than through international diplomacy under U.S. auspices based on a negotiated agreement reflecting compromise. In the process both the PA and Israel are in the process abandoning earlier pretensions of democratic governance. This move by Abbas to dissolve the PLC is most accurately interpreted as the further de-democratization of Palestine, and the establishment of a more robust autocratic governing structure that does not inspire trust among many Palestinians and their supporters throughout the world. The failure, for instance, of the PA to back BDS is indicative of the gap between global solidarity initiatives and the timid leaders provided the Palestinian national movements by Abbas leadership in Ramallah.

RC: How do you analyze the role of Hamas inside the political life of Palestinian people?

RF: It is again difficult to be too definite about the role of Hamas at this time. This is partly because Hamas is likely affected by the changes in the tactics and leadership of the Palestinian Authority, which continues to be internationally regarded as the sole representative of Palestinian interests while being subject to criticism and rejection by large segments of the Palestinian people, especially those spread about the world by being refugees, exiles, and displaced persons., For some time, Hamas has indicated its willingness to agree to a long-term truce (or hudna)with Israel lasting up to 50 years, but only on condition that Israel withdraws from the West Bank and East Jerusalem as well as Gaza, and ends the blockade that has been used to deny the entry and exit of goods and people to Gaza ever since 2007. It is possible that a different leadership in Israel as a result of the April elections will produce a new Israeli approach to Gaza, which could include some kind of grant of autonomy or even independence as one type of alternative policy or intensified coercion that sought to destroy Hamas and its military capabilities as another.

What remains clear is that Hamas, as opposed to the PA, has been a consistent source of resistance to Israeli occupation and expansionism, although evidently willing to pursue its goals by political tactics rather than armed struggle. It is Israel that has insisted that Hamas is a terrorist organization, refusing even to consider establishing a ceasefire regime of indefinite length. It is also the case that Hamas is rooted in Islamic beliefs and practices, which are resented by secularized Muslims and non-Muslim Palestinians. This tension has erupted at various times in the course of the decade of Hamas governance in Gaza. Nevertheless, Hamas has popular support throughout occupied Palestine, and one explanation for the failure of the PA to hold elections is the anticipation that Hamas would likely be the winner, or at least make a strong showing.

RC: Do you consider Hamas a danger for peace efforts building by Palestinian factions with Israel in future? Why?

RF: There is no doubt that if the Palestinian Authority persists in excluding Hamas from participation in shaping the future of the national movement that the friction of recent years will continue, if not intensify. It is also possible that any new, post-Abbas PA leadership will try with increased motivation to find an embracing political framework that brings together the secular factions with those of religious persuasion, and especially Hamas. If the Trump ‘deal of the century’ is made public in coming months, and is treated as a serious proposal that is accepted as a basis of negotiation by the Palestinian Authority, then it would test whether the Palestinian people will be represented in a manner that joins in a single political actor secular and religious forces. The people of Gaza have suffered for many years, the conditions of poverty and environmental hazards are becoming more severe, with shortages of medical supplies, health hazards from polluted drinking water, astronomical levels of unemployment, and the absence of nutritious food creating emergency conditions for the entire civilian population of Gaza of about two million. Given these realities it is almost certain that Hamas will seek to pursue a more viable future for Gaza, but as the Great March of Return has demonstrated in recent months, the population, despite years of demoralization, retains a strong will to resist oppressive conditions of Israel domination.

RC: Until now all efforts to overcome the division between Hamas and Fatah didn’t work. Why? Why is it difficult to achieve a common sense?

RF: I believe the principal reasons that all attempts to achieve a sustainable accommodation tween Hamas and Fatah have failed relate to both ideology and questions of trust. This failure has also been a consequence of Israel’s overt and covert feverish efforts to promote Palestinian disunity and fragmentation. Israel’s emphasis on a politics of fragmentation in addressing the Palestinian challenge is expressed in many ways, including establishing separate governance regimes for the West Bank, Gaza, and Jerusalem, as well as for the Palestinian minority living in Israel and the refugees in neighboring countries.

On ideology there are two main sources of division between Fatah and Hamas—the secular/religious divide, and the greater readiness of Fatah to accept and legitimate the permanence of the Israeli state than is Hamas. For Hamas Israel remains a usurper of Palestine, and such a illegitimate state that can never be formally accommodated, although as suggested, Hamas is prepared to accept a truce of long duration without altering its underlying claims to exercise sovereignty over the whole of historic Palestine. If such a truce was to be agreed upon by Israel it would amount to a de facto acceptance of Israel, and vice versa. If the truce held, it could lead to some kind of indefinite extension that would allow both governing leaderships to feel that they achieved their primary goals, in other words, a win/win outcome.

Fatah, at least since 1988, as well as the PLO, has been willing to normalize relations with Israel and to agree to a territorial division of Palestine along the 1967 boundaries, provided that the arrangement provided for the retention of East Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state. As matters now stand, it is almost unimaginable that Israel would accept the Hamas approach to a future relationship, and given the continuing expansion of the settlements it seems unlikely that Israel would agree to the emergence of a sovereign Palestinian state under any conditions, that is, even if Hamas did not exist.

It is quite likely that Israel would seek to impose a one-state solution by annexing the West Bank in a manner similar to their annexation of the city of Jerusalem. The unresolved tensions between Fatah and Hamas are in my judgment less fundamental than is Israel’s increasing clarity about rejecting any negotiated compromise on such core issues as territory, refugees, and Jerusalem. Israel seems to regard the present situation as one in which it feels almost no pressure to compromise, and instead that it is possible for Tel Aviv to push forward toward an end of the conflict by claiming victory, a view endorsed by Zionist extremists and seemingly supported by the Trump diplomacy to date. I find these perspectives to be shortsighted and unsustainable. Even should the Palestinian leadership is forced given present realities to accept a political surrender, such an induced outcome will produce a ceasefire not a lasting peace. In this post-colonial age denying the Palestinian people their fundamental right of self-determination is almost certain to be unable to withstand the tests of time.

RC: In your opinion what is the recipe or formula to make all Palestinians join together in pursuing common goal, which is the establishment of Palestine State?

RF: I have partially given my answer to this question in earlier responses to your questions. In essence, I am arguing that given the present outlook in Israel, as well as regional and global considerations.

It is not possible to envision the establishment of a Palestinian state even if Palestinians were able to achieve unity and went on to accept the 1967 boundaries excluding the Israeli settlement blocs along the border. Israel no longer hides its intention to expand its state boundaries to encompass the whole of ‘the promised land,’ considered a biblical entitlement within the dominant view of the Zionist project.

As earlier suggested, Israel will do its best to disrupt Palestinian efforts to overcome the cleavages in their movement so as to keep the Palestinian movement as fragmented as possible. As long as the United States continues its unconditional support Israel seems able to ignore the adverse character of international public opinion, as exhibited at the UN and elsewhere. Israel makes little secret of the absence of any  pressure to seek a political compromise. Ever since the 1990s a political compromised has been assumed to mean an independent  Palestinian state. Only recently, as Israel’s expansionism has made a Palestinian state a diplomatic non-starter and even a political impossibility has the idea of a single state embracing both peoples gained traction.

This shift to a one-state approach has taken to two forms: a single democratic secular state in which the expansionist goals of Zionism are renounced, and no longer would a Jewish state as such exist. Jews would have to accept equality of treatment within such a non-ethnic state, although the establishment of a Jewish homeland might be possible. The alternative single statehood model would be to absorb all Palestinians into a single Jewish state of Israel, perhaps conferring full or more likely partial citizenship rights to Palestinians. Both of these statehood models are post-diplomatic, as is the PA effort to establish a state of its own while enduring a prolonged occupation.

The Israeli version of a single state outcome of the struggle is more in keeping with present realities than is the Palestinian version. Such as assessment also gains strength by noting that the main Arab neighbors of Israel, in particular Egypt and Saudi Arabia, have withdrawn support for Palestinian national aspirations, and are actively cooperating with Israel, giving an Arab priority to the containment of extremist threats to their governments and to their sectarian rivalry with Iran. All in all, the regional and global geopolitical trends of late remove almost all incentives on the Israeli side to do anything other than to manage the favorable status quo until the moment arrives when it seems right to declare and claim that the boundaries of New Israel encompass of the entire territory managed between the two world wars as the British Mandate of Palestine.

As matters now stand it is utopian to anticipate a Palestinian state or a single secular democratic state, but these conditions that seem currently so favorable to Israel are unstable and deceptive, and unlikely to last. There are signs that a position of balanced support as between  Israel and Palestine is gaining strength in the West, especially among the American public. Account should also be taken of a growing global solidarity movement that has become more militant, and exerts greater pressure on Israel, especially by way of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Campaign (BDS). In this respect, conditions could change rapidly as happened in South Africa in the early 1990s against all expectations and expert opinion at the time. Israel is increasing regarded as an apartheid state, which the Knesset itself virtually acknowledged by enacting in 2018 the Basic Law of the Nation-State of the Jewish People. Finally, it should be appreciated that by virtue of Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, apartheid is classified as a crime against humanity. The experience of South Africa, although very different in its particular, is instructive with respect to the untenability over time of apartheid structures of control over a resisting ethnicity. Whatever the governance arrangement, Palestinian resistance will produce a cycle of insurgent and repressive violence, and this can provide stability for Israel only so long as its apartheid regime remains in place. If the apartheid regime is dismantled it would be accompanied by the end of any claim to impose a Jewish state on the Palestinian people.

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Featured image: Palestinian take cover as Israeli forces fire at protesters at the Gaza border on 14 December 2018 [Mohammed Asad/Middle East Monitor]

Over the past week tens of thousands of pounds have been spent on Facebook adverts promoting a ‘no deal’ Brexit. It is not possible to find out who is funding these highly targeted campaigns, despite new regulations intended to make political messaging on Facebook more transparent.

Over the seven days to last Saturday, spending by campaigners pushing for ‘no deal’ far outstripped that of anti-Brexit groups. Some of these paid-for Facebook adverts described pro-EU MPs as “traitors” and “globalist scumbags”.

A single pro-Brexit group with almost no public presence spent almost £50,000 on Facebook. Britain’s Future – which does not declare its funders and has no published address – is running hundreds of very localised targeted ads pushing for ‘no deal’.

Politicians and campaigners have called for greater transparency of political advertising. Labour MP Ben Bradshaw said: “We have no idea who these people are or where their money comes from. It shows again how unfit for purpose the rules are that govern online campaigning and the use of data.”

‘Don’t let them steal Brexit’

Some of the adverts claim that a ‘no deal’ Brexit “will reduce barriers to world trade and cut prices”, a claim contradicted by most economists. Britain’s Future has also run over 100 adverts in the last week urging voters in specific Labour constituencies to write to their MP.

These targeted adverts include messages such as “Don’t let them steal Brexit” and include a link for voters to email their MP. Politicians have reported receiving a significant number of pro-’no deal’ messages in recent weeks.

Over the past week, anti-Brexit groups have spent far less money on Facebook adverts than pro-’no deal’ outfits, reversing a trend that had seen generally anti-Brexit groups spend more money on Facebook since last October.

Over the last four months, the People’s Vote and Best for Britain campaigns spent £266,369 and £183,943, respectively. Neither of these anti-Brexit groups is fully transparent either: both publish some details about themselves, such as addresses, but do not publish full details of all funders and donors. During the same time period, Britain’s Future has spent more than £200,000 on Facebook ads.

While anti-Brexit spending has slowed down in recent weeks, however, adverts pushing a ‘no deal’ Brexit have spiked. Britain’s Future has spent more than £110,000 on Facebook ads since mid-January. It is not clear where the money for this huge ad push has come from.

The only person publicly identified with the group is Tim Dawson, a former ‘Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps’ scriptwriter. Dawson is listed as editor on Britain’s Future’s website.

In November, Dawson told the BBC that he was “raising small donations from friends and fellow Brexiteers” after it was reported that a paid-for Britain’s Future advert topped Google searches for “what is the Brexit deal” ahead of the UK government’s own site. Dawson has yet to respond to queries from openDemocracy about the source of his funding.

Dawson has written for The Spectator, Spiked and other right-wing publications. In last year’s local election, he ran as a Conservative candidate in Hulme, in Manchester. He finished a distant sixth.

During the 2016 EU referendum Vote Leave and other campaigns spent almost £4m on social media adverts, including erroneous warnings that Turkey was joining the EU. Britain’s Future’s adverts are far more geographically targeted than Vote Leave’s were, and appear to be focused on influencing Labour MPs not to back Theresa May’s withdrawal bill on 14 February, which would increase the chances of a ‘no deal’ Brexit.

Brexit Defence Force

Some paid-for pro-Brexit ads on Facebook are more sinister. A group called ‘Brexit Defence Force” paid hundreds of pound for adverts that included messages about “remoaner Globalist scumbags” and calling for a ‘no deal’ Brexit.

In one advert posted this week (below), John Bercow, the Speaker of the House of Commons, was described as “a Saboteur amongst us” and a “nasty little globalist scumbag”. Above a cartoon image of a witch in a long black hooded cloak a message says “Burkow must go”.

It is impossible to find out who is actually paying for these adverts. Under rules introduced by Facebook last year, all political advertising in the UK has to be labelled and those placing the adverts to verify they are living at a UK postal address.

But Facebook’s new rules, introduced following concerns about social media campaigning during the Brexit referendum and the 2016 US presidential election, do not force an advertiser to declare the ultimate source of the money for any political campaign. For groups such as Brexit Defence Forces and others it is simple to place adverts without having to disclose who is actually paying for them.

Sam Jeffers, co-founder of Who Targets Me?, which tracks political adverts, said  “While there are circumstances where anonymity for campaigners is necessary, we don’t think any of these campaigns are performing a democratic service by hiding their true identity.”

Last month, Facebook removed threats of violence against pro-EU MPs made in response to a paid-for Brexit Defence Force advert. But Facebook ruled that the advert itself – which accused anti-Brexit MPs of “treason” – did not breach its community standards.

As well as paid for ‘no deal’ adverts, many popular pro-Brexit Facebook sites have shared images depicting the European Union as Nazis and Theresa May as a traitor. Others have even used iconography from 1930s Germany to spread a hardline pro-Brexit message.

Another obscure anti-Brexit outfit, We are the 52%, has spent more than £4,000 over the last seven days. We are the 52%, which has spent almost £25,000 on Facebook ads since October, has also been pushing for a ‘no deal’ Brexit.

We are the 52% appears to be affiliated with Nigel Farage’s Leave Means Leave. The only person publicly connected with the group is former Vote Leave activist Theodora Dickinson (below).

Dickinson also runs a website that offers political communications services including “social media solutions for candidates and elected representatives”. openDemocracy has contacted We are the 52% to ask what the source of the funding for its Facebook adverts is but has yet to receive a response.

Labour’s Ben Bradshaw said:

“This is the latest example of shady groups that keep their identity secret pushing misleading and factually inaccurate hard-Brexit ads on social media. We have no idea who these people are or where their money comes from. It shows again how unfit for purpose the rules are that govern online campaigning and the use of data.”

Liberal Democrat MP Tom Brake said:

“There is a clear agenda from a clique of comfortable businessmen and donors to block attempts at preventing a chaotic No-Deal scenario – the very worst Brexit outcome.

“We must uncover the true nature of murky pro-Brexit groups like Britain’s Future, to help finally debunk their propaganda and lay bare the true devastation of the Brexit these secretive groups are desperate for.”

Sam Jeffers said:

“People spending large sums to influence voters and MPs should be transparent by default. Equally, Facebook could implement stronger rules to force greater transparency on organisations who want to reach people through its service. As soon as possible, we want to see new rules for transparency of political campaigns, to reassure the voting public that the messages they see can be trusted – wherever they see them.”

London. A bleak London assailed by daily news about Brexit negotiation, prospects of food shortages and higher prices in the event of a no-deal with the European Union, provides the perfect apocalyptic backdrop for headlines. The city is ailing; the residents are panicked; and the authorities are gloomy.     

Such environments are ideal for talk about emergencies.  One doing much filling on London airtime is that of knife crime.  Not that knife crime in of itself is unusual: for years, stabbing implements have made their way into broader law and order issues in the city’s policing scene, a good number featuring errant youth.  These have encouraged a wide array of myths masquerading as solid fact: London, the city of the “no-go” area; Londonistan, city of perpetual, spiralling crime.

In 2008, Britain’s public institutions – political and public – became darkly enraptured with knife crime afflicting inner city areas, with a heavy focus on London.  Stabbings were reported in lurid fashion; threats to urban safety were emphasised.  As Peter Squires noted in a fairly withering examination of the phenomenon in British Politics,

“The knife crime ‘epidemic’, as it came to be called, coincided with a series of youth justice policy measures being rolled out by the government, and significantly influenced them.”

Kevin Marsh of the BBC, writing at the same time, wondered how best a news organisation might report such crime figures.

“How much does tone and prominence distort the real picture?  Is some coverage self-fulfilling prophecy?  Does it spread fear and anxiety way beyond the rational?” 

Marsh would admit that being a victim of a knife crime was “very, very unlikely”; and that young men, in the main, did not carry knives; “most young people are not components of what some politicians are calling the ‘broken society’.”

For all that, Marsh found himself admitting that “it’s part of the purpose of our media to draw things to our attention, however crudely.”  The crude element remains the sticking point, resisting nuance, despite the hope that reporters might help “us citizens really think hard about possible solutions”.

Knife crime has become the bread and butter of lazy reportage, one hitched to the coattails of the broken society argument.  Describing a broken fence is easier fare than describing a mended one; solutions remain dull, academic matters.  The emergency narrative tends to emerge ahead each time; matters of social causes and complexity receive short shrift.  In 2017, Gary Younge turned his noise up at the panic merchants, and deemed teenage knife crime “a tabloid obsession, blamed on feral youth running riot in our cities.”  Such fears speaks to an obsession with decay and decline; youth go wrong if society does not go right. 

In 2018, knife crime became a meme of terror.  The Express shouted with “London BLOODBATH” in a June headline, and subsequently began using it as a running title for any knife-related crime.  Political parties also capitalised on the atmosphere. In the east London borough of Havering, a local Conservative leaflet, buttering up electors ahead of the March local elections, promised mayhem.  “Mayor Khan and Corbyn’s men are desperate to grab power in our Town Hall, so get ready for… A London crimewave with even less police.”  In Lewisham East, UKIP candidate David Kurten added his bit in a by-election with a leaflet featuring the words “STOP THE KARNAGE” placed across a picture of a knife.

The dreary world of knife crime figures is erratic.  Between 2008 and 2014, offences involving knives or sharp instruments fell from 36,000 recorded offences to 25,000.  Then came an increase in 2015/6 – a nudge to 28,900.  The figures on death occasioned by knife crime are even more inscrutable, prompting Spiked Online to conclude that there was “no huge upsurge in knife violence because society overall is becoming less violent, and crime in general is falling.”  This was not to say that no concern should be felt: the issue is particular in London, and its effects disproportionate on young working-class black men. A possible explanation?  Not just indigence or exclusion, but nihilism and plain susceptibility. 

Barely two months into this year, and the rounds of panic are in full swing.  As always, it’s the deceptive field of statistics dragged out to give a picture of clear, bolt-the-doors-and-hide doom.  It began with a spate of violent actions on New Year’s Eve, which saw four young men stabbed to death in London, prompting London Mayor Sadiq Khan to berate the government for its squeeze on youth services, policing and education. 

Police statistics, pounced upon by the Evening Standard just in time for the evening commute on Monday, suggest that 41 percent across London’s boroughs involve those between the green years of 15 to 19.  Eight percent range from the even greener 10 to 14.

The Standard’s Martin Bentham sliced and spliced the announcement from the police with maximum, terrifying effect, all assisted by a picture perfect grim background of law enforcement officials at a crime scene on Caledonia road. 

“The new figures came as a Scotland Yard chief warned that attacks in the capital were also becoming ‘more ferocious’ as offenders were ‘more and more young’ tried to kill or injure by ‘getting up close and stabbing someone several times’. 

Descriptions on police tactics follow, resembling those of urban battle plans keen on frustrating potential attacks.  Chief Superintendent Ade Adelekan, head of the Met’s Violent Crime Task Force is quoted as claiming that “some progress” is being made.  There was also a more frequent use of search and “other tactics” including “the deployment of ‘embedded’ plain clothes officers to work with uniformed counterparts” in acts of prevention. 

As Younge rightly notes, such realities are “more complex – and we cannot save lives if we do not understand it.”  But understanding is a term absent in times of panic. These are times rich for exploitation.  With Brexit having become the great psychodrama, all else is ripe for distraction and manipulation.

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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne.  He is a frequent contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]

Featured image is from iNews

Spanish rail equipment manufacturer CAF announced, on Friday, that it had refused to participate in a tender to build a section of the railway in occupied East Jerusalem as it violates international law.

An international tender to build and operate Jerusalem’s second light rail line has many companies rejecting to participate as they are fearful of arousing political opposition, since the proposed “Green Line” runs into parts of the city occupied by Israel during the Six-Day War in 1967.

The proposed Green Line, a project that could cost as much as 5 billion shekels ($1.4 billion) and stretch along 22 kilometers, proved to be problematic as it reaches Mount Scopus and Gilo.

The company, which is one of the most important Spanish companies in the field of railways, said it

“refuses to build a section of the railway in Jerusalem because the Israeli government included in the section a Palestinian land that will be confiscated in violation of the resolutions of international legitimacy.”

Representatives of the company’s workers who objected to the company’s participation in the construction of the section explained that the problem lies in the fact that the railway will pass through Palestinian lands to serve illegal settlements in East Jerusalem.

CAF stressed,

“Any project in any city of the world, especially Jerusalem, must respect in its implementation human rights and international legitimacy.”

CAF added,

“The General Assembly of the United Nations and the International Court of Justice, through various resolutions, have said that they are against the occupation of land through which will pass the section of the railway.”

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Featured image is from Ma’an News Agency

At a time when the eyes of the world are closely watching his country, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has given an exclusive interview to RT Spanish, speaking about the threats of war and of foul play in politics.

The “Lima group”, which convened in Canada on Feb. 4, 2019, represents a group of governments opposed to Venezuela’s elected government. 

More accurately, the group consists of plotters, conspirators, who are criminals under International Law.

.

Ken Stone of the Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War, February 4, 2019.

International criminal lawyer Christopher C. Black explains quite clearly in “The Lima Group: International Outlaws”[1] that

(t)he 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. (from NEO)

Not only are Lima group members conspiring to overthrow the sovereign nation of Venezuela, but the Canadian government is also pledging 53 million dollars to further this agenda.

The legitimate Venezuelan government will not have access to these funds.  In fact, Canada and its co-conspirators against Venezuela have been waging a criminal economic war against the country which has so far has cost Venezuela about 20 billion dollars, so the pledge is insulting at the very least, and again, it obviates root causes. If imperialist countries were to cease waging criminal economic warfare against Venezuela, there would be no need for “humanitarian” or any other aid in the first place.

In this short video, Doug Brown discusses the toll that economic warfare exacts on victim populations:

Doug Brown of the Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War 

On a more personal note, I would like to offer my opinion to Venezuelans:

If you support the “opposition” in Venezuela, you are supporting US military intervention. I have seen firsthand what “military intervention” looks like in Syria. Your country will be destroyed, looted, plundered. Your infrastructure will be destroyed. Your economy will be destroyed. Death squads and bombing raids and terrorism will plague your country for years, decades. Hundreds of thousands, maybe millions will die. Russia and China have a strong legitimate presence in Venezuela, and Venezuela is a lynch pin country. Venezuela will not go gently into that good night.

Let us all hope that the rule of international law, and values of common sense and decency, will prevail.

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Mark Taliano is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) and the author of Voices from Syria, Global Research Publishers, 2017.

Note

[1] Christopher C. Black, “The Lima Group: International Outlaws.” 4 February, 2019, New Eastern Outlook.
(https://journal-neo.org/2019/02/04/the-lima-group-international-outlaws/) Accessed 5 February, 2019.

---

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Mark Taliano combines years of research with on-the-ground observations to present an informed and well-documented analysis that refutes  the mainstream media narratives on Syria. 

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Author: Mark Taliano

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The United States has been working with oligarchs in Venezuela to remove President Maduro since he came to office in 2013 after the death of Hugo Chavez and was re-elected that year. After he won re-election to another six-year term in 2018, the regime change planners sought new strategies to remove Maduro, including an assassination attempt last August. The coup campaign escalated recently with the self-appointment of president Juan Guaido, who President Trump and US allies have recognized. Now, the ongoing coup attempt is escalating through a strategy of humanitarian intervention.

Trump has been talking openly about war to take control of Venezuela’s vast oil reserves since mid-2017. Pentagon and former administration officials, who have since been removed from office, opposed the action. Now, Trump is surrounded by neocons who share his goal of removing Maduro and taking control of the country’s natural resources. War is an option being openly considered.

The US has no excuse to legally attack Venezuela. As Defense One reports,

“International law forbids ‘the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.’”

There are two exceptions mentioned in the UN Charter: self-defense and authorization by the U.N. Security Council, neither of which have been met in Venezuela. Domestically, Trump would also need the US Congress to authorize an attack, which is unlikely with a Democratic-controlled House not because Democrats oppose war but because they oppose Trump.

The United States has also claimed a highly questionable right to use force for “humanitarian intervention.” For example, the US and NATO 1999 intervention in Kosovo was a humanitarian intervention that became a war.

After a long-term economic war that has sought to starve Venezuela of resources and has cost the country billions of dollars annually, the United States is now claiming there is a humanitarian crisis in Venezuela. It is moving to use this humanitarian crisis it helped to create as a path to war with Venezuela, with the help of US proxies, Colombia and Brazil. The tactic is to proclaim a humanitarian crisis in Venezuela requiring a humanitarian intervention and then to bring troops in to provide humanitarian aid as the BBC explains. Once the foot is in the door, it is simple to manufacture an excuse for conflict.

This weekend, the humanitarian intervention began to unfold when the coup president, Juan Guaido, announced the imminent distribution of humanitarian aid. Guaido announced the aid would be gathered at three points, and Venezuela’s army would be pressured to allow it into the country. The collection centers will be in Colombia, Brazil and on an island in the Caribbean. He announced aid will begin to be distributed in the coming days. He claimed the Venezuela military will have to make a decision whether or not to let this aid in to Venezuela. Guaido said he wants the people to play a supportive role by staying in the streets with demonstrations that will be announced soon.

Also over the weekend, National Security Adviser John Bolton said the US will send “critical supplies” requested by Guaido. Previously, Bolton has openly called for a military coup and sanctions to starve millions of Venezuelans into submission. On Twitter, USAID administrator Mark Green shared images of boxes embossed with the US flag en route to Venezuela.

Answering the call of President Guaido, the U.S. is mobilizing & transporting humanitarian aid for the people of #Venezuela. I applaud the hard work of USAID, the State Department and their partners in preparing critical supplies to move forward this weekend. https://t.co/JR9poraxWl

— John Bolton (@AmbJohnBolton) February 3, 2019

Elliot Abrams, who has a long history of war crimes and was convicted in the Iran-Contra scandal, said the US government is considering opening a “humanitarian corridor” and has maintained contacts with Brazil and Colombia on the issue. He acknowledged that Maduro’s “cooperation” would be necessary to transport the aid to the country. El Pais reported,

“The opening of this supply channel could require the participation of troops, whether Americans or from another country in the region, something that Chavism interprets as a clear threat.”

Vice President Mike Pence spoke this week about the deployment of humanitarian assistance with Carlos Vecchio, Guaidó’s ambassador to the United States, as well as Julio Borges, appointed as representative to the Lima Group. Borges will ask the Lima Group, which meets in Canada this week, for the “urgent” opening of a humanitarian corridor. Canada has played a junior role in the ongoing coup. Trudeau, who also levied economic sanctions against Venezuela, promised $53 million in humanitarian aid. Media critical of the coup have been denied access to these meetings

The United States launched this major operation in coordination with the right-wing governments of Colombia and Brazil, the most belligerent anti-Maduro allies of Guaido. The US National Security Council confirmed on Saturday that the deployment of aid has already begun.  The initial aid will contain medicines, surgical supplies, and nutritional supplements. It was scheduled to come from USAID to Bogota on Monday and then be moved for storage in a collection center in the border city of Cúcuta, the main entrance route for Venezuelans migrating to Colombia. Cúcuta has a high presence of Colombian paramilitaries and smuggling mafias and is where those who attempted to assassinate Nicolas Maduro last year were trained.

One of the goals of the humanitarian aid is to divide the Venezuela military which has refused to recognize Guaido. They seek to deepen the pressure on the military in order to break the solidarity of the Maduro government. TIME Magazine reports,

“The aid has become something of a litmus test for the military’s backing of Maduro.”

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), said on Twitter that,

“Military & police leaders in #Venezuela must now decide to either help food & medicine reach people, or help #Maduro instead.”

UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, who has not recognized Guaido, said the United Nations “will not be part of” distributing the aid, as it wants to maintain “credibility” in order to help “find a political solution to the crisis.”

El Pais reports that

“Diplomats from several Latin American countries and from the more moderate sectors of the opposition fear that this will serve as a pretext to drag the conflict into the military.”

President Maduro has repeatedly rejected the entry of humanitarian aid because he knew it would provide justification for foreign intervention. He knows the US seeks Venezuela’s oil and other resources, “gold, gas, iron, diamonds, other material riches.”

Maduro called on the international community to stop the US threats of war against Venezuela. He said a war would be a blood bath, a David and Goliath struggle that would “leave Trump bloodstained.” Maduro said the Venezuelan people were prepared to defend their “sacred“ land from a US military invasion, but emphasized that he “prayed to God” such a conflict will never occur. Trump’s “military aggression” must be rejected so that “peace prevails.”

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Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers co-direct Popular Resistance where this article was originally published.

Featured image: A protest outside the United States Consulate in Sydney on January 23 2019 to demand no US intervention in Venezuela. Photo: Peter Boyle

Anyone for world peace over endless wars, as well as supporting cooperative Russian/US relations is vulnerable to character assassination attacks.

Am I a “Russian agent”, “asset” or “troll” for explaining hard truths on major domestic and geopolitical issues, for opposing Washington’s destructive imperial agenda, for slamming the notion that might makes right, for working daily for world peace, equity and justice, for being against the US aim to rule the world, risking its destruction by endless wars of aggression against one country after another?

On February 2, Dem Rep. Tulsi Gabbard officially announced her candidacy for US president, after indicating earlier she’d run, saying the following:

“We must stand up…against powerful politicians from both parties who sit in ivory towers thinking up new wars to wage (and) new places for people to die…(treating troops) as political pawns and mercenaries for hire in wars around the world.”

“(T)he issue of war and peace” motivated her to run for president. In spring 2017, she stopped accepting political contributions from US weapons and munitions makers.

She joins a crowded field with numerous other announced Dem aspirants for the nation’s highest office – calling for “end(ing) regime change wars that have taken far too many lives and undermined our security by strengthening terrorist groups like al Qaeda.”

Like virtually all others in Washington, she’s far short of a profile in courage. A former DNC vice chair, she largely votes along party lines, including on issues demanding opposition.

She backs the US-installed putschist regime in Ukraine,  saying America can’t stand “idly by while Russia continues to degrade the territorial integrity of” the country.

No “Russian aggression” exists anywhere, or threats against other nations, or meddling in foreign elections. Yet Gabbard urged “more painful (illegal) sanctions” on Moscow.

In 2017, she supported the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), imposing illegal sanctions on Russia, Iran and North Korea.

She’s on the right side of opposing “counterproductive wars of regime change” – in Syria and elsewhere.

She accused “the US government (of) violating (the) law” by aiding ISIS and al-Qaeda, saying:

“The CIA has…been funneling weapons and money through Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar and others who provide direct and indirect support to groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda.”

To her credit, she’s likely a voice in the wilderness in Washington, perhaps the only congressional member publicly stating what’s been going on in Syria, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

ISIS, al-Qaeda, its al-Nusra offshoot, and other terrorist groups are US creations, used as proxy troops, serving Washington’s imperial agenda.

For partially challenging longstanding establishment policies, an NBC News character assassination report accused her of serving “Russia’s propaganda machine,” calling her “a controversial Hawaii Democrat,” a “favorite” of Russian websites RT, Sputnik News, and Russia Insider, adding:

Her announcement “may be the first stirrings of an upcoming Russian campaign of support for Gabbard” – accusing her of being “a pawn for Moscow.”

“Gabbard was mentioned on the three sites about twice as often as two of the best known Democratic possibilities for 2020, Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders.”

She responded to NBC News, saying it “used journalistic fraud to smear any adversary of the establishment wing of the Democratic Party – whether on the left or the right – as a stooge or asset of the Kremlin,” adding:

“(T)he neocon/neolib warmongers will do anything to stop me.”

NBC News used fake news provided by New Knowledge.

It’s a company with longstanding ties to the US National Security Agency and Pentagon, part of the endless Russia bashing campaign, caught red-handed fabricating fake news for undemocratic Dems in last year’s Alabama Senate race, falsely claiming Russian meddling, not a shred of evidence suggesting the Kremlin interfered in foreign elections anywhere.

New Knowledge was involved with Oxford University’s Computational Propaganda Research Project’s (COMPROP) disinformation report on alleged Russian use of social media platforms to help Trump triumph over Hillary.

Cold hard facts debunked the fake news claims. Google explained that accounts linked to Russia spent $4,700 for advertising in 2016.

Facebook said US presidential candidates spent “1000x more than any problematic ads we’ve found” – admitting virtually no evidence of Russian use of the platform for improper meddling.

Twitter found no accounts of “obvious Russian origin.” RT, RT America and RT en Espanol spent $274,100 for 1,823 US ads – none supporting one US presidential aspirant over another.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the total amount spent by candidates for all offices in US 2016 elections was around $6.5 billion, including for primary races.

The amount spent by 2016 presidential aspirants was $2.4 billion, including for primaries. In all races, Republicans and Dems each spent around 48% of the total amount (96% combined).

Trump spent $398 million compared to Hillary’s $768 million, nearly double DLT’s amount.

What possible impact could a minute fraction of these amounts connected to Russia have on their campaigns, especially when their ads supported no US candidates.

No Russian meddling occurred online or any other way, no credible evidence suggesting it, nothing connecting Gabbard to the Kremlin.

As explained above, she supported legislation imposing illegal sanctions on Russia, along with falsely accusing the country of “aggression” in Ukraine.

NBC News stands by its fake news report. Anyone opposing Washington’s imperial agenda is vulnerable to be attacked by US major media, operating as mouthpieces for wealth, power, and privilege.

As long as she remains in the race to become Dem nominee for president, Gabbard will be subjected to vilifying character assassination attacks – falsely connecting her to Russia and likely other damning accusations with no validity.

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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

If Guaidó comes to power and privatizes PDVSA, U.S. oil companies — with Chevron and Halliburton leading the pack — stand to make record profits in the world’s most oil-rich nation, as they did in Iraq following the privatization of its national oil industry after U.S. intervention.

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For much of the past twenty years, critics of U.S. foreign policy have noted that it is often countries with sizeable oil reserves that most often find themselves the targets of U.S.-backed “humanitarian” interventions aimed at “restoring democracy.” Analysis of the nearly two-decades-long U.S. effort aimed at regime change and “democracy promotion” in Venezuela has long linked such efforts to the fact that the South American country has the world’s largest proven oil reserves.

However, the current U.S. effort to topple the government led by Chavista politician Nicolás Maduro has become notable for the openness of the “coup architects” in admitting that putting American corporations – Chevron and Halliburton chief among them — in charge of Venezuelan oil resources is the driving factor behind this aggressive policy.

Last week, Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) – a key player in the Trump administration’s push for regime change in Caracas – tweeted:

Biggest [American] buyers of Venezuelan oil are Valero Energy & Chevron. Refining heavy crude from Venezuela supports great jobs in Gulf Coast. For the sake of these U.S. workers I hope they will begin working with administration of President [Juan] Guaidó & cut off illegitimate Maduro regime.”

In January, the U.S. government recognized Juan Guaidó of the U.S.-funded and CIA-linked Popular Will Party as the “legitimate” president of the country.

Biggest buyers of Venezuelan oil are @ValeroEnergy & @Chevron. Refining heavy crude from #Venezuela supports great jobs in Gulf Coast.

For the sake of these U.S. workers I hope they will begin working with administration of President Guaido & cut off illegitimate Maduro regime.

— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) January 24, 2019

A few hours after Rubio’s tweet, National Security Adviser John Bolton — who actively supported the U.S.-backed failed Venezuela coup in 2002  — appeared on Fox News and told host Trish Regan the following:

“We’re looking at the oil assets. That’s the single most important income stream to the government of Venezuela. We’re looking at what to do to that.”

Though that was a stunning admission in and of itself, Bolton didn’t stop there. He continued:

We’re in conversation with major American companies now that are either in Venezuela, or in the case of Citgo here in the United States. I think we’re trying to get to the same end result here…. 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.”

Bolton’s statements have garnered considerable attention in the alternative media community for their boldness, since leaked cables and documents have traditionally been the means through which the actual motivations of U.S. wars have been revealed. Largely overlooked, however, is the fact that Bolton stated that the Trump administration is working closely “with major American companies now that are either in Venezuela, or in the case of Citgo, here in the United States.” Given that Citgo is largely owned by Venezuela’s state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA), Bolton’s statement reveals that the corporations backing Washington’s regime-change push are those currently operating in Venezuela.

At present, there are only two American major oil and oil service companies with a significant presence in Venezuela – Chevron and Halliburton. However, Chevron is by far the leading American investor in Venezuelan oil projects, with Halliburton having written off much of its remaining business interests in the country just last year — losing hundreds of millions of dollars as a result.

These two companies have long been “historic partners” and have had a solid business relationship between them for decades. In addition, both have reaped the benefits of past U.S. interventions abroad — such as the Iraq War, where the U.S. government “opened” that country’s nationalized oil industry to American oil companies with military force.

Now with Venezuela’s nationalized oil industry in the crosshairs, Chevron and Halliburton are again set to benefit from Washington’s regime-change policies abroad. Furthermore, as Bolton’s recent statements suggest, these companies are also the top corporate sponsors of the current U.S.-backed coup to topple the government in Caracas.

Profitable but not Rockefeller-profitable

Chevron’s history in Venezuela is long and storied, as its presence in the country dates back more than a century. Over that time, Chevron’s presence in Venezuela has remained a constant despite the rule of drastically different governments, from military dictatorships to the socialist Chavista movement.

For much of its history in Venezuela, Chevron has had to deal with the Venezuelan government’s laws regarding oil production, particularly a 1943 law that held that foreign companies could not make greater profits from oil than they paid to the Venezuelan state. A few decades later in the 1960s, foreign corporations were made to manage their oil extraction projects in Venezuela by working closely with the Venezuelan Oil corporation, which later gave way to the current state oil company PDVSA, created in 1976. It was around this period that Halliburton first began work in Venezuela.

However, foreign corporations — particularly American ones — disliked having to settle for minority stakes in PDVSA projects and longed for the early days of Venezuela oil extraction when companies like Rockefeller-owned Standard Oil made wild profits off their Venezuelan oil assets.

After the “apertura petrolera” (or “oil opening” to foreign investment) in the early 1990s — and especially under the U.S.-backed government of Rafael Caldera, the president who immediately preceded Hugo Chávez — it seemed that the privatization of PDVSA was soon to become a reality and companies like Chevron, ExxonMobil and Halliburton enjoyed the “golden age” of American oil interests in Venezuela. However, Caldera’s fall from grace and the rise of Chavismo quickly shattered this decades-long dream of U.S. corporations and politicians.

Not only did Chávez end any possibility of PDVSA’s privatization, he also weakened what remaining influence transnational oil companies had over the state oil company. For instance, he appointed independent oil experts to PDVSA’s board of directors, upending years of precedent where PDVSA managers with close ties to international companies had been responsible for controlling the board’s membership.

Chávez further restricted corporate ownership on some oil projects to 49 percent and fired PDVSA’s then-president, replacing him with a political ally. These drastic changes, among others, led to a strike among many long-time PDVSA workers, a strike that immediately preceded the failed U.S.-backed coup attempt in April 2002.

Following the coup, Chávez dismantled a joint venture originally established in 1996 between PDVSA and the Venezuelan subsidiary of the U.S.-based company SAIC, known as INTESA. INTESA, per the agreement, had controlled all of PDVSA’s company data (and its secrets), which it then fed to the U.S. government and U.S. oil corporations until Chávez destroyed it. This is hardly surprising given that the managers of SAIC at the time included two former U.S. secretaries of defense and two former CIA directors. Though obviously a smart move for Chávez, it weakened an advantage of U.S. corporations who had inside information on PDVSA while INTESA was operational.

The tensions between the Chavista government and the U.S. government along with U.S. corporations only grew from there before reaching a crescendo in 2007. That year, Chávez announced a decree that would nationalize the remaining oil extraction sites under foreign company control, giving PDVSA a minimum 60 percent stake in all of those ventures. U.S. oil companies ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips left their Venezuelan operations behind as a result, losing billions in the process. The president of ExxonMobil at the time was Rex Tillerson — who would later become President Donald Trump’s first secretary of state.

Yet, during this time, Chevron, unique among American oil companies, saw an opportunity and spent the next several years cultivating close ties to the Chavista government and Chávez himself. Through the efforts of Chevron executive Ali Moshiri, Chevron blazed a new trail that would later serve as a model for foreign oil companies seeking to do business in Chavista-led Venezuela. Halliburton and another U.S.-based oil services company, Schlumberger, also decided to continue business in Venezuela.

During this time, the Venezuelan government through PDVSA and Chevron entered into several joint ventures, one of the most important of which became known as Petropiar, which blends Venezuela’s heavy crude oil with other substances to make it more easily transportable. However, Chevron — due to Chávez’s reforms of the oil sector — was forced to settle for minority stakes in all of these ventures.

Halliburton, which has historically been a main operator for Chevron-owned oil fields, again partnered with Chevron’s post-2007 ventures in Venezuela and operates the Petropiar and Petroboscan oil fields that both have minority Chevron ownership.

For years, Chevron’s bet on Chavismo paid off and the profits rolled in. Moshiri even appeared in public on several occasions with Chávez, who once even called the Chevron executive “a dear friend.” However, following Chávez’s death in 2013 and the beginning of the U.S-backed economic siege of Venezuela soon after — first through joint oil-price manipulation in cooperation with Saudi Arabia and then through sanctions — the profits of PDVSA, and thus Chevron, have fallen dramatically. During this time, Houston-based Schlumberger drastically scaled back its operations in Venezuela.

Since then, relations between the Maduro-led government and Chevron have deteriorated precipitously and now, with the current U.S. coup in motion, Chevron is poised to turn on the Chavista government with the hopes that profits will not only improve but exceed what they were during the heights of the Chevron-Chávez partnership.

Betting on regime change

As oil production has lagged and profits have continued to slide, tensions between Chevron and the Maduro government have grown dramatically since 2017, when the Maduro-led government began arresting employees of Petropiar — the joint venture between Chevron and PDVSA — during a controversial corruption probe. For Chevron, the issue exploded after the Venezuelan government last April arrested two Chevron employees working at Petropiar, who were detained for seven weeks for their alleged role in fraud. Those tensions — in combination with worries that Chevron’s Venezuela operations could become unprofitable in less than five years — resulted in a report published by the Wall Street Journalclaiming that Chevron was considering leaving Venezuela entirely.

However, despite media speculation in the U.S., Chevron denied that it was planning to leave Venezuela anytime soon, with Clay Neff, Chevron’s president for Africa and Latin America, telling Bloomberg, “we’re committed to Venezuela and we plan to be there for many years to come,” and adding that reports that Chevron would soon leave the country were “not accurate.” “We’ve been in the country for almost 100 years, we know how to operate, we’re a very experienced operator and we’re committed to our partner PDVSA,” Neff declared.

Halliburton’s activities in Venezuela have also taken a hard hit in recent years, with the company losing over $1 billion in investments since 2017. In 2017, Halliburton was forced to write off $647 million in Venezuelan investments and then was forced to sell $312 million more last year — its last remaining investments. Halliburton’s chief financial officer, Christopher Weber, told the New York Times last year that “the collapse of the Venezuelan currency and the worsening political climate,” as well as U.S. sanctions, were responsible for the decision. Halliburton later said in a statement that it planned on “maintaining its presence in Venezuela and is carefully managing its go-forward exposure.”

Since both Halliburton and Chevron announced their plans to “weather the storm” despite growing tensions, it has become more and more evident that both companies have found the U.S. government’s promise of increased control over Venezuela’s oil sector through privatization much more appealing than facing the prospect of maneuvering around recently imposed U.S. sanctions on PDVSA — which have been in the works for months — as well as the prospect of dwindling profits stemming from the continued decline of the Venezuelan economy and the degradation of its oil-sector infrastructure.

This raises the possibility that Chevron and Halliburton had decided to ride out the Venezuelan economic crisis and growing tensions with Maduro because it was betting on an aggressive regime-change policy toward the country. Indeed, some analysts have stated that planning on the current iteration of regime-change policy in Venezuela only began this past November, around the same time that Chevron decided to stick it out despite falling profits.

The fact that Chevron’s operations in Venezuela are expected to collapse in less than five years, as a result of the country’s oil sector and larger economic woes, lends further support to the possibility that Chevron sought to back a Washington-based effort to dramatically alter the Venezuelan government.

In Halliburton’s case, the fact that the company has already lost over a billion dollars in its Venezuelan investments since 2017 offers a different motive, one that involves not only recouping those losses but also gaining increased contracts in a post-coup Venezuela. Halliburton executives surely remember the $39.5 billion in profits they made following the U.S. invasion of Iraq. It is worth pointing out that, in media reports, Halliburton has stated its commitment “to the market in Venezuela,” signaling that it is interested in retaining a role in the country’s oil sector regardless of who governs it.

It should then come as no surprise that recent U.S. government sanctions on Venezuela’s oil sectors included exemptions for both Halliburton and Chevron. Equally unsurprising is the fact that the U.S.-backed “president” of Venezuela — Juan Guaidó — has already signaled his plans to open up Venezuela’s state oil assets to foreign corporations if he succeeds in ousting Maduro.

According to oil rating agency S&P Global Platts, Guaidó has already made “plans to introduce a new national hydrocarbons law that establishes flexible fiscal and contractual terms for projects adapted to oil prices and the oil investment cycle.” This plan would also create a “new hydrocarbons agency” that will “offer bidding rounds for projects in natural gas and conventional, heavy and extra-heavy crude” to international oil corporations.

The clear message here is that the U.S.-backed “president” of Venezuela is already signaling to his Washington backers that he will quickly privatize Venezuela’s state oil company if he succeeds in taking power, a move that has long been a key component of the platform of Venezuela’s U.S.-funded opposition, of which Guaidó is part.

Bolton’s recent statements have made it clear that Chevron and Halliburton are set to be the main benefactors of this privatization effort, as both are heavily invested in Venezuela and Chevron the only U.S. oil company still active in the country. The historically close relationship of both companies to the U.S. government, and covert coordination with the U.S. government in undermining or overthrowing governments in the recent past, also hint at their likely role in the current U.S. “meddling” in Venezuela.

Boosting profits through foreign intervention

If the U.S. succeeds in ousting Maduro and putting Guaidó in his place, it will only be the latest example of U.S. government policy that directly benefits the bottom lines of Chevron and Halliburton. In Chevron’s case, the company’s growth to become one of the largest oil companies in the world has consistently been aided by the U.S. establishment, regardless of whether Democrats or Republicans held the presidency. Indeed, as Seeking Alpha noted:

Chevron’s stocks gained a combined 247% under Presidents Reagan and George HW Bush. Under President George W Bush, its shares rose by 157%. Meanwhile, Chevron’s shares picked up 222% and 112% under Presidents Clinton and Obama, respectively.”

Notably, Chevron has also worked with past U.S. presidents in undermining democratically-elected governments in order to advance its business interests, with the most recent example taking place in Haiti. Cables published by WikiLeaks showed that Chevron, in 2006 and 2007, partnered with ExxonMobil and the U.S. government to undermine the presidency of former Haitian president René Préval after he forged a deal with Chávez’s PetroCaribe alliance that allowed Haiti to buy subsidized Venezuelan oil.

Furthermore, Chevron also benefited greatly from the U.S. invasion of Iraq and its representatives were among those who met with then-Vice President Dick Cheney in 2003 to plan Iraq’s “postwar” — i.e., post-invasion — industry that led Chevron to acquire ownership of several Iraqi oil fields. Notably, the family of then-President George W. Bush is one of Chevron’s largest shareholders. In addition, then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice was a Chevron executive throughout the 1990s, and was in charge of public policy for its board of directors immediately prior to joining the Bush administration. Rice even had a Chevron oil tanker named in her honor in 1993.

Though Chevron greatly benefited from the Bush administration’s destruction of Iraq, Halliburton came away the biggest winner from the Iraq war, making $39.5 billion off the conflict and its aftermath after being awarded numerous, lucrative contracts to “rebuild” the country. This outcome is unsurprising given that Cheney served as the company’s CEO for decades and retained $34 million in company stock throughout his tenure as U.S. vice president.

Iraq had been targeted by the Bush administration soon after Bush came to power, particularly following the formation of Cheney’s 2001 Energy Task Force, which called for the privatization of Iraq’s then-nationalized oil resources and reviewed maps of Iraq’s oil fields and lists of companies seeking contracts with Baghdad years before the war officially began.

Investing in a gung-ho president

Chevron’s hopes for a continued U.S. government policy that favors its growth domestically and globally have continued under the Trump administration and have been visible for some time, as evidenced by its $500,000 donation to Trump’s inaugural committee and their top executive’s praise for the “pro-business environment” cultivated by the Trump administration. Indeed, in March 2017, then-Chevron CEO John Watson told CNBC that he had already met with White House staff on “multiple occasions” in just the first three months of the administration and had been “encouraged by those meetings.” “We’ve seen a more pro-business environment … I think the approach they’re taking toward business — toward enabling our economy to grow again — is a real positive,” Watson added.

Halliburton too has long had high hopes for Trump given that the president held between $50,000 and $100,000 in company stock up until December 2016, when he sold his personal stocks to avoid “conflicts of interest” during his presidency. However, some of Trump’s earliest policy proposals were described by the media as directly benefiting Halliburton, including his administration’s push to open more publicly-held lands in the U.S. to oil drilling.

Furthermore, the recent scandal that forced Trump’s secretary of the interior, Ryan Zinke, to resign involved Zinke’s alleged corrupt dealings with Halliburton chairman David Lesar, suggesting that the Trump administration’s potential for a conflict of interest with Halliburton did not magically dissipate following Trump’s sale of his personal investments.

Since the early days of the administration, both Halliburton and Chevron have benefited directly from several Trump administration policies, both foreign and domestic. For instance, Chevron and Halliburton benefited substantially from the Trump administration’s tax cuts, which were recently found to have had “no major impact” on economic growth or company hiring practices but instead enabled mega-corporations to buy back stocks en masse in order to increase their companies’ stock prices. After the passage of those tax cuts, Chevron executives urged governments around the world to implement similar legislation.

In addition, consider Trump’s 2017 decision to withdraw from the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), which Reuters explained as “a global standard for governments to disclose their revenues from oil, gas, and mining assets, and for companies to report payments made to obtain access to publicly owned resources, as well as other donations.” Bloomberg noted at the time that the Trump administration’s decision to withdraw had followed “a long lobbying battle waged by the American Petroleum Institute, Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp.”

The involvement of top U.S. oil corporations like Chevron in the administration’s decision to withdraw from the EITI led Corinna Gilfillan, head of the U.S. Office at NGO Global Witness, to state that it was “Exxon and Chevron’s preference for secrecy that [had] made it impossible for the U.S. to comply.” Gilfillan then told Common Dreams:

When major Russian and Chinese oil companies are disclosing more information about their deals around the world than their U.S. counterparts, you have got to ask: what are Exxon and Chevron so desperate to hide?”

However, Chevron, for its part, has not agreed with every Trump policy, as the company did lob considerable criticism at the Trump administration last June over his imposition of steel tariffs during the first phase of the ongoing “trade war” with China. Yet, that criticism disappeared a few months later, when another Trump policy – his draconian sanctions targeting Iran’s oil sector – took effect. As the Washington Examiner noted this past November, Trump’s sanction policy targeting Iranian oil “has proved a lucrative one for the shareholders who own oil companies such as ExxonMobil and Chevron,” resulting in a jump for those companies’ third-quarter earnings “that topped Wall Street expectations by wide margins.”

The Examiner went onto note that Trump’s sanctions on Iranian oil exports led Chevron’s net income to more than double to $4.1 billion, with cash from operations reaching “the highest it has been in nearly five years.”

However, Halliburton’s reaction to Trump’s Iran policy is more mixed, given its considerable business interests in Iran and the fact that it had benefited from the Iran nuclear deal approved by the previous administration of Barack Obama. Yet, if the Trump administration’s regime-change policy targeting Iran succeeds, Halliburton will be among the top beneficiaries of that policy as well, given its already established presence in the country.

Now, with Venezuela’s massive oil resources in the Trump administration’s crosshairs, Chevron stands to gain once again from Trump’s foreign policy, which has been guided by oil politics in several instances.

Trump ready to test out his “Take the Oil” intervention policy

Though Trump has yet to make bold, Boltonesque public statements regarding the clear link between Venezuelan oil and his administration’s regime-change policy, his past statements regarding U.S. interventions in oil-rich nations elsewhere show that Trump has long backed U.S. intervention in foreign nations if it meant that the U.S. could secure that country’s natural resources, namely oil.

For instance, in 2011, Trump told the Wall Street Journal that he would support U.S.-backed intervention in Libya if the U.S. could “take the oil.” In the eight years since the U.S.-backed intervention, Libya remains without a central government and is now the site of rampant terrorist activity, a massive illegal arms trade, and a booming slave trade.

Watch | Trump says he would support Libya intervention if U.S. could “take the oil”

Then, in 2016, candidate Trump again asserted that the U.S. should “take the oil” when intervening or invading foreign nations. Trump told NBC News in September 2016 that the terror group Daesh (ISIS) emerged only because the U.S. had not taken Iraq’s oil after the 2003 invasion.

Trump also stated, with regard to Iraq, that:

We go in, we spent $3 trillion. We lose thousands and thousands of lives, and then look, what happens is we get nothing. You know, it used to be the victor belong the spoils. Now, there was no victor there, believe me. There was no victory. But I always said, take the oil.”

While Trump has not publicly touted his “take the oil” policy in relation to the current situation in Venezuela, he has done so privately during several White House meetings early on in his presidency. According to the Wall Street Journal:

Mr. Trump requested a briefing on Venezuela in his second day in office, often speaking to his team about the suffering of Venezuelan people and the country’s immense potential to become a rich nation through its oil reserves.”

Thus, Bolton’s as well as Senator Rubio’s frank admissions that the Trump administration’s Venezuela regime-change policy is about the oil and giving that oil to American companies, are clearly aligned with a policy that the president himself has long supported.

Washington’s gift to Big Oil: privatize PDVSA, no matter the human cost

As with Iraq, Libya and other U.S. oil-motivated interventions of the past, the destruction of Venezuela’s nationalized oil industry and its privatization to American oil companies — especially Chevron and Halliburton — is the guiding factor behind the U.S.’ current regime-change policy targeting Caracas. While past administrations attempted to obfuscate their “wars for oil” as “restoring democracy,” Trump administration officials and other “coup architects” have recently “gone off script” and overtly stated the guiding principle behind its Venezuela policy.

However, the timing of the Trump administration’s regime-change push in Venezuela is key. While companies like Chevron and Halliburton have been hemorrhaging profits in recent years, they have so far withstood the fallout due to the record high production of U.S. shale oil. Yet, the “golden age” of U.S. shale is quickly disappearing, with top industry insiders like Harold Hamm along with Halliburton’s rival company, Schlumberger, expecting shale output growth to slow by as much as 50 percent this year. Hamm is a close confidant of President Trump.

If this comes to pass, American oil companies will be in a bad way. Yet, if Guaidó comes to power and privatizes PDVSA, U.S. oil companies — with Chevron and Halliburton leading the pack — stand to make record profits in the world’s most oil rich nation, as they did in Iraq following the privatization of its national oil industry after U.S. intervention.

Worst of all, as the U.S.’ past interventions in Iraq and Libya and elsewhere have shown, Washington stands willing to kill untold thousands of innocent people in Venezuela — either through direct military intervention or a proxy war — to benefit American oil companies. Will the American people let yet another presidential administration destroy an entire nation for Chevron, Halliburton and other powerful American corporations?

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Whitney Webb is a staff writer for MintPress News and has contributed to several other independent, alternative outlets. Her work has appeared on sites such as Global Research, the Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire among others. She also makes guest appearances to discuss politics on radio and television. She currently lives with her family in southern Chile.

I predicted three weeks ago that the Senate bill on the Middle East, which was rejected three times while the government was shutdown, would quickly receive cloture by a comfortable margin to end debate and proceed to a full vote in the Senate after the federal bureaucracy reopened. That has proven to be the case. Senate Bill S.1 was approved on January 29^th 76 for votes to 22 against. Every Republican voted for it, minus only Rand Paul and Jerry Moran, who did not vote. The Republicans were joined by 25 Democrats, all of whom had previous voted “no” to embarrass the White House over the shutdown. Minority Leader Senator Chuck Schumer, who has described himself as Israel’s protector in the Senate, switched his vote as did notoriously pro-Israel Senators Ben Cardin and Bob Menendez. The bill must now be passed by the Senate, which is certain to take place, before being sent on to the House of Representatives for its approval, where there will certainly be some limited debate. It then will go to President Donald Trump for his signature.

Readers will recall that S.1 the Strengthening America’s Security in the Middle East Act of 2019, sponsored by the singularly ambitious though demonstrably brain dead Senator Marco Rubio from Florida, included $33 billion in guaranteed aid to Israel for the next ten years, an unprecedented gesture to America’s closest ally and best friend in the whole world, as Congress might describe it.

But the legislation also incorporated measures to criminalize criticism of Israel, referred to as the Combating BDS Act of 2019. It has been correctly observed that that portion of the bill is clearly unconstitutional as it limits free speech, which is guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States and is considered to be the bedrock of American civil liberties, but there is no guarantee that the Supreme Court will agree if and when the law is contested. Once free expression is abridged for Israel there will be no end to other grievance groups exploiting the precedent to silence criticism and effectively negate the First Amendment.

The potential destruction of the Bill of Rights is only one aspect of the power that Israel has over American policymakers. The widely ballyhooed election of several Congresswomen who appear willing to challenge the Israeli orthodoxy on Capitol Hill is already being countered by the establishment within the Democratic Party, demonstrating once again how deep the corruption of America’s political class by Israel has gone.

In an early December speech before a largely Jewish audience at the Israeli-American Council gathering in South Florida, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi demonstrated in no uncertain terms just how she and other Congressmen are more responsive to Israel and its supporters than they are to their own constituents. She said in response to a staged question during a “conversation” with Democratic Party top donor Israeli Haim Saban,

“I have said to people when they ask me, if this Capitol crumbled to the ground, the one thing that would remain would be our commitment to our aid, I don’t even call it our aid, our cooperation with Israel. That’s fundamental to who we are.”

Now “who we are” is a favorite expression used by a certain type of progressive that was made popular by the smooth talking but devious Barack Obama, meaning “I am taking the moral high ground so don’t ask me any questions or challenge what I have just said.” In Pelosi’s case she is saying precisely that, that American patronage of Israel is a moral imperative, a commitment forever that must be sustained no matter what Israel does and even if the United States itself should fall into ruin.

It is an absurd comment for someone who represents the people of her state and has taken an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution, the ultimate pander to a right-wing Jewish audience that is socially progressive and consistently votes Democratic, which Pelosi celebrated, while at the same time cheering the bloody repression of the Palestinian people. And while Israel’s cheering section is doing all that, it is also dragging the American people into wars that need not be fought and stealing the taxpayers’ dollars to give to the racist Kleptocrats in charge in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

Pelosi, like her partner in crime Senator Chuck Schumer, who also spoke at the conference, has a problem in paying for security along America’s southern border but she does not hesitate to send billions of dollars to Israel every year. One has to wonder at her priorities, but she knows that American Jews are more powerful and relevant to her party’s finances than doing the right thing would be, so there is no evidence of any hesitation on her part to throwing some Arabs and the outliers within her own party under the bus.

And Nancy also spoke of the dissidents in the Democratic Party, all five or so of them, saying

“Remove all doubt in your mind. It’s just a question of not paying attention to a few people who may want to go their own way…”

Apparently there is plenty of room under that bus for non-believers. And she also threw out a standard line of how “I believe that the establishment of the state of Israel was the greatest accomplishment of the twentieth century” while also unloading on the Arabs saying “We have to I think in Congress make it really clear to Palestinians that we expect them to be responsible negotiators and we haven’t seen a lot of that thus far.”

Apparently, Nancy is unaware that the “establishment” of Israel forced 700,000 people who had lived in Palestine for centuries out of their homes. And she apparently also has missed all those stories of Palestinian “terrorist” children and emergency workers being shot dead by Israeli snipers while they were “negotiating” such things as access to food, water, and medicines from the inside of the Gaza containment fence. Or maybe she’s forgotten about the towns in Israel that can legally ban Christian or Muslim residents as Israel is now officially a Jewish only state. Nancy Pelosi’s extreme efforts to demonstrate loyalty and devotion to a nation that the rest of the world views as a pariah is commendable, but only if one is a sociopath.

There is something completely dead at the heart of American politics which makes basic humanity unacceptable when confronted by a force for evil that has penetrated and manipulated both the national media and the governing political consensus. That is what Israel and its rabid band of supporters have done to the United States. First Amendment? Goodbye. If the U.S. government should crumble under the strain, don’t worry because our support for you is eternal. Kill a couple of hundred Arabs, shoot a few thousand more? No problem. It’s God’s will. And if Israel leads America into a nuclear war? Then we will do what we have to do to protect our ally.

Ask Pelosi and Schumer, “Have you been corrupted?” They will answer “No. Of course not. It is what we are.”

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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is www.councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected]. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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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.

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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.” He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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“Copyright Zambon Editore”

Capítulo 1

O NASCIMENTO DA BOMBA

1.1.O bombardeamento atómico de Hiroshima e Nagasaki

«Há dezasseis horas, um avião americano deixou cair uma bomba sobre Hiroshima, uma base importante do exército japonês. [ ] É uma bomba atómica. É uma consolidação da energia fundamental do universo. A força da qual o Sol extrai a sua energia»: assim anuncia o Presidente dos Estados Unidos, Harry Truman, na declaração de 6 de Agosto de 1945.   Três dias depois, no discurso radiofónico de 9 de Agosto, explica que «a primeira bomba atómica foi lançada sobre Hiroshima, uma base militar, porque neste primeiro ataque queríamos evitar, o mais possível, o massacre de civis».

Na realidade, Hiroshima não é uma base militar, como também não é Nagasaki, a cidade japonesa sobre a qual os Estados Unidos lançaram a segunda bomba atómica, em 9 de Agosto, o mesmo dia em que o Presidente Truman pronuncia o discurso radiofónico.

A bomba atómica de urânio de 15 kiloton (igual à potência explosiva de 15 mil toneladas de TNT) lançada sobre Hiroshima, sarcasticamente designada de Little Boy (rapazinho), matou imediatamente e nos seis meses seguintes, cerca de 140.000 pessoas – civis, na esmagadora maioria. Mas outras pessoas morreram nos anos seguintes, depois dos efeitos das radiações, embora muitos dos sobreviventes, os hibakusha, tenham sofrido efeitos biológicos a longo prazo. O número total de vítimas da bomba de Hiroshima, nos decénios seguintes, é estimado em mais de meio milhão. A bomba  atómica de plutónio de cerca de 22 kiloton, lançada sobre Nagasaki, (humoristicamente denominada Fatman = gorducho), mata imediatamente e nos meses seguintes 75.000 pessoas, na grande maioria civis, aos quais se juntaram muitos outros nos anos seguintes, enquanto muitos dos sobreviventes, sofreram os efeitos biológicos a longo prazo.

A justificação oficial do bombardeamento atómico de Hiroshima e Nagasaki é que só assim os Estados Unidos podem forçar o Japão à rendição, sem ter de pagar um preço elevado em vidas americanas. Na realidade o Japão está no limite extremo e não há necessidade de recorrer à bomba atómica para impôr-lhe a rendição. A verdadeira razão é outra. Enquanto Truman está na Conferência de Potsdam (7 de Julho a 2 de Agosto de 1945), juntamente com Churchill e Stalin, é-lhe comunicado secretamente que, a 16 de Julho, foi detonada em New Mexico, a primeira bomba atómica. O Projecto Manhattan, conduzido no máximo segredo desde Junho de 1942, tinha alcançado a sua meta. Truman tem agora a possibilidade de acabar a guerra com o Japão da maneira mais favorável aos Estados Unidos, impedindo que a União Soviética participe na invasão do Japão, decidida em Potsdam e de expandir, desse modo, a sua influência à região do Pacífico.

Para isso, ordena secretamente que a bomba atómica seja utilizada o mais rápido possível.Em 24 de Julho, dois dias antes da Declaração de Potsdam, na qual se intima o Japão à rendição incondicional, são escolhidas secretamente, como possíveis objectivos, quatro cidades japonesas: Hiroshima (com mais de 250 mil habitantes), Nagasaki (cerca de 200 mil), Kokura e Niigata (cada uma com 150 mil). As condições meteorológicas mais favoráveis, em 6 de Agosto, fazem cair a primeira escolha em Hiroshima. Três dias depois, a escolha cai sobre Nagasaki.

«A decisão de destruir Hiroshima e Nagasaki foi uma decisão política e não, uma decisão militar» ( ou seja, não foi ditada pela necessidade de derrotar militarmente o Japão), escreve a jornalista americana, Diana Johnstone. «A posse demonstrada dessa arma dava a Truman uma sensação de poder sentir-se livre para romper a promessa feita aos russos e de pressionar Moscovo, na Europa, de maneira ameaçadora. As bombas de Hiroshima e Nagasaki não mataram, apenas e sem motivo, centenas de milhares de civis. Elas abriram o caminho à Guerra Fria».

Os Estados Unidos procuram tirar a máxima vantagem do facto de, naquele momento, serem os únicos a possuir a arma atómica. Depois de tê-la definido, «a maior conquista que a ciência organizada já tinha realizado na História»,Truman sublinha na declaração de 6 de Agosto que, «mesmo não sendo habitual este governo esconder os seus conhecimentos à comunidade científica mundial, nas actuais circunstâncias, não se pretende divulgar os processos técnicos de produção.»

Ele sublinha, em seguida, que «a energia atómica pode exercer uma influência eficaz para a manutenção da paz mundial». O sentido é claro: dado que os Estados Unidos não pretendem divulgar os processos técnicos de produção, isto significa que serão eles, uma vez terminada a Segunda Guerra Mundial, a garantir a «paz mundial» servindo-se do monopólio das armas nucleares.

Manlio Dinucci

ÍNDICE DO LIVRO

Nota sobre o Autor

Nota da Redacção

1    O nascimento da Bomba 

1.1  O bombardeamento atómico de Hiroshima e Nagasaki

1.2  Os efeitos da explosão nuclear sobre uma cidade

1.3  Os efeitos da chuva radioactiva

1.4  O inverno nuclear

2    A corrida aos armamentos nucleares 

2.1  O confronto nuclear USA-URSS

2.2  Os mísseis balísticos intercontinentais

2.3  A crise dos mísseis em Cuba e a introdução da China entre as potências nucleares

2.4  A planificação do ataque nuclear 

2.5  O Tratado do Espaço Exterior e o Tratado de Não-Proliferação deArmas Nucleares

2.6  Os mísseis balísticos com ogivas múltiplas  

2.7  A bomba N

2.8  O Tratado dos Mísseis Anti-balísticos e da limitação das armas estratégicas 

2.9  A  Bomba secreta de Israel — Parte 1 + Parte 2 + Parte 3

2.10  A introdução da África do Sul, da Índia e do Paquistão entre as potências nucleares

3    O barril de pólvora nuclear

3.1  Um milhão de Hiroshimas

3.2  A «maleta nuclear»

3.3  Os falsos alarmes de ataques nucleares

3.4  Os acidentes com armas nucleares

3.5  Poluição radioactiva dos ensaios e das instalações nucleares

3.6  A ligação entre o nuclear militar e civil

3.7  Os acidentes nas centrais nucleares 

3.8  Os movimentos anti-nucleares durante a guerra fria

4    As guerras após a guerra fria 

4.1 O mundo numa encruzilhada

4.2  Golfo: a primeira guerra após a guerra fria

4.3  As armas de urânio empobrecido

4.4  A reorientação estratégica dos Estados Unidos 

4.5  A reorientação estratégica da NATO

4.6 A intervenção da NATO na crise balcânica e aguerra contra a Jugoslávia 

4.7  Campo de teste de bombardeiros de ataque nuclear e uso maciço de armas de urânio empobrecido 

4.8  A superação do Artigo 5 e a confirmação da liderança dos EUA.

4.9  O «Novo Modelo de Defesa» da Itália

4.10  A expansão da NATO para Leste, para a Rússia

5    A encenação do desarmamento 

5.1  As armas nucleares e o “escudo anti-míssil” na reestruturação das forças dos EUA

5.2  Os tratados START sobre redução de armas estratégicas

5.3  Proibição de testes nucleares e de testes “sub-críticos”

5.4  O Tratado de Moscovo e o novo START

5.5  A introdução da Coreia do Norte nas potências nucleares

5.6  Outros países capazes de fabricar armas nucleares

5.7  As armas químicas e biológicas 

6     A nova ofensiva USA/NATO 

6.1  11 de Setembro: grande-ataque terrorista via satélite 

6.2  11 de Setembro: as falhas da versão oficial

6.3  Afeganistão: o início da «guerra global ao terrorismo» 

6.4  A segunda guerra contra o Iraque

6.5  A guerra contra a Líbia

6.6  A guerra oculta contra a Síria e aformação do ISIS

6.7  O golpe de estado na Ucrânia

6.8  As guerras secretas com um rosto humanitário 

7    A Europa na frente nuclear 

7.1  A Europa no rearmamento nuclear do Prémio Nobel da Paz

7.2  Itália: porta-aviões nuclear USA/NATO no Mediterrâneo

7.3  A B61-12, a nova bomba nuclear USA para a Itália e para a Europa 

7.4  A ‘escalation’ USA/NATO na Europa

7.5  O «escudo» USA sobre a Europa 

8     Os cenários do Apócalipse 

8.1   A ‘escalation’ qualitativa do confronto nuclear

8.2   A preparação do ‘first strike’ nuclear

8.3  Armas electro-magnéticas e laser e aviões robot espaciais para a guerra nuclear

8.4   A ameaça mortal do plutónio e o aviso não escutado de Fukushima 

8.5   A ameaça do terrorismo nuclear 

8.6   As nano-armas: potenciais detonadores potenciais da guerra nuclear

9     No dia anterior, enquanto estamos a tempo

9.1   A estratégia  do Império Americano do Ocidente

9.2   O sistema bélico planetário dos Estados Unidos da América 

9.3   A atracagem da Itália à máquina de guerra USA/NATO

9.4  A desatracagem da Itália da máquina de guerra USA/NATO, 
para uma Itália soberana e neutra, liberta de armas nucleares 

APÊNDICE

 

Tradutora: Mania Luísa de Vasconcellos

“To wrongly name things is to add to the world’s ills”.

Let us adapt this quote attributed to Albert Camus to the Venezuelan contest. It would be something like “to recognise a parallel president is to serve the interests of foreign powers”. It seems like there have not been enough wars and refugees. In truth, who authorised France or Spain to appoint Guaidó as president of Venezuela, if not the controversial Donald Trump, US president?

By recognising Guaidó as interim president of Venezuela, French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian is following the same interventionist foreign policy that has yielded excellent results in Libya or Syria, as anyone can confirm. Have there not been enough wars and refugees? Let us take the example of Honduras. Edwin Espina, does the name ring a bell? This young Honduran activist has been in jail for a year in the inhuman prison cells of the Juan Orlando Hernández regime. His crime is to have denounced the electoral fraud at the end of 2017. Ten years ago, the US played a decisive role in the coup against Mel Zelaya, and since then, the situation in Honduras has gone from bad to worse. For months, thousands of Hondurans have been fleeing the country. But since Honduras hosts an important US military base, it is referred to as a “democracy”.

Leaders like Emmanuel Macron and Pedro Sanchez have shamefully bowed before Trump and insulted the national sovereignty of French and Spanish peoples by announcing they would recognise Guaidó at the end of the eight day deadline they gave president Maduro. How did we get here? The United States has disregarded the United Nations principles by introducing the notion of “responsibility to protect”. In other words, legitimising intervention under the pretext that a government would attack its own people. The formula is not foolproof, but is has worked several times.

During the February 2nd rally, Guaidó announced that “humanitarian aid” would soon arrive from Cucuta, the Colombian town right on the Venezuelan border, known as a transit point for all kinds of smuggling and for the presence of paramilitaries. The goal of the US is to use Colombia, or even Brazil, to re-create the pattern of “humanitarian corridors” that was put in place during the Syrian conflict. And, under the guise of delivering aid, traffic weapons and infiltrate mercenaries. Soon after this demonstration, national security advisor John Bolton called on the leadership of the Venezuelan army to execute a coup. The US would rather not intervene to blatantly, and that is where lackeys come in handy.

Meanwhile, in Avenida Bolívar, a massive chavista march against foreign intervention and in defense of the 20 year legacy of the Bolivarian Revolution was held. At the same time, as everyone saw, the streets of France were perfectly calm, and the yellow vests have grown bored of the cold and the humane treatment by the police. Carry on, nothing to see here. The crisis is over there in Venezuela. And if reality does not match the news, then the trick is to stoke the flames from abroad. US vice-president Mike Pence knows a thing or two about this. He insisted that all options are on the table, including bombing and destroying an entire country as was done in Iraq, because “it is not the moment for dialogue, but for action”… What is that you say? That tens of thousands took to the streets in France demonstrating against repression, because they no longer support Macron after a mere year and a half in office? Nonsense.

It does not take a seasoned journalist or intellectual to understand that Venezuela is now in the stage where the future of humanity is being played out. Either a world in which imperial chaos reigns, or one with a multipolar balance that respects the United Nations.

*

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Featured image is from Investig’Action

Die am 1. Februar von Außenminister Mike Pompeo angekündigte „Aussetzung“ des Washingtoner Vertrags über nukleare Mittelstreckensysteme (INF) hat den Countdown eingeleitet, der innerhalb von sechs Monaten die Vereinigten Staaten endgültig aus dem Vertrag herauszählen wird. Ab heute sehen sich die USA jedenfalls in der Lage, Waffen der im Vertrag verbotenen Kategorie – bodengestützte Mittelstreckenraketen (zwischen 500 und 5.500 km) – zu testen und einzusetzen.

Zu dieser Kategorie gehören die in den 80er Jahren in Europa aufgestellten Atomraketen – Pershing-2 ballistische Raketen, die von den Vereinigten Staaten in Westdeutschland aufgestellt wurden, und landgestützte Marschflugkörper, die von den Vereinigten Staaten in Großbritannien, Italien, Westdeutschland, Belgien und den Niederlanden aufgestellt wurden, unter dem Vorwand der Verteidigung der europäischen Verbündeten gegen die von der Sowjetunion auf deren eigenem Territorium aufgestellten ballistischen SS-20-Raketen.

Der 1987 von den Präsidenten Gorbatschow und Reagan unterzeichnete INF-Vertrag eliminierte alle Raketen dieser Kategorie, einschließlich der in Comiso (Sizilien) stationierten.

Der INF-Vertrag wurde von Washington in Frage gestellt, als die Vereinigten Staaten sahen, dass ihr strategischer Vorteil gegenüber Russland und China abnahm. Im Jahr 2014 beschuldigte die Obama-Regierung Russland ohne den geringsten Beweis, einen Marschflugkörper (Typ 9M729) getestet zu haben, der zu der vom Vertrag verbotenen Kategorie gehört. Und im Jahr 2015 gab sie bekannt, dass „die Vereinigten Staaten aufgrund der Verletzung des INF-Vertrags durch Russland den Einsatz von Bodenraketen in Europa in Betracht ziehen“. Dieser Plan wurde von der Trump-Administration bestätigt. Im Jahr 2018 genehmigte der Kongress die Finanzierung eines „Forschungs- und Entwicklungsprogramms für einen Marschflugkörper, der von einer straßenbasierten mobilen Plattform gestartet wurde“. Moskau seinerseits leugnete, dass sein Marschflugkörper gegen den Vertrag verstößt, und beschuldigten Washington im Gegenzug, in Polen und Rumänien Rampen für Abfangraketen (vom „Schild“) installiert zu haben, mit denen Marschflugkörper mit Atomsprengköpfen gestartet werden können.

In diesem Zusammenhang müssen wir uns an den geografischen Faktor erinnern – während eine in Europa stationierte US-Nuklearrakete mittlerer Reichweite Moskau treffen kann, kann eine ähnliche von Russland auf seinem eigenen Territorium stationierte Rakete die europäischen Hauptstädte erreichen, aber nicht Washington. Wenn wir das Szenario umkehren, ist es, wie wenn Russland seine nuklearen Mittelstreckenraketen in Mexiko installieren würde.

Der Plan der USA, den INF-Vertrag zu begraben, wurde von den europäischen Verbündeten der NATO voll unterstützt. Der Nordatlantikrat erklärte am 4. Dezember 2018, dass der „INF-Vertrag durch das Vorgehen Russlands“ in Gefahr sei, dem vorgeworfen wurde, „ein destabilisierendes Raketensystem“ eingesetzt zu haben. Der gleiche Rat hat gestern erklärt, dass er „die Maßnahmen der Vereinigten Staaten zur Aussetzung ihrer Verpflichtungen aus dem INF-Vertrag uneingeschränkt unterstützt“ und Russland aufgefordert, die verbleibenden sechs Monate zu nutzen, um „zu einer vollständigen Einhaltung des Vertrags zurückzukehren“.

Der Zusammenbruch des INF-Vertrags wurde auch durch den Beitrag der Europäischen Union unterstützt, die in der UN-Generalversammlung am 21. Dezember 2018 gegen die von Russland vorgelegte Resolution zur „Erhaltung und Umsetzung des INF-Vertrags“ stimmte, die mit 46 zu 43 Stimmen bei 78 Enthaltungen abgelehnt wurde. Die Europäische Union – von denen 21 ihrer 27 Mitglieder auch Mitglieder der NATO sind (das Vereinigte Königreich bleibt beim Austritt aus der EU Mitglied) – hat sich einstimmig für die Position der NATO ausgesprochen, die sich ihrerseits einstimmig für die der Vereinigten Staaten entschieden hat. Im Wesentlichen hat die Europäische Union also auch grünes Licht für den möglichen Einsatz neuer US-Atomraketen in Europa, einschließlich Italien, gegeben.

In einer Frage von dieser Bedeutung hat sich die Regierung Conte, wie auch die Vorgängerregierung, sowohl der NATO als auch der EU angeschlossen. Und über den gesamten politischen Kreis hinweg wurde keine einzige Stimme erhoben, um zu erklären, dass das Parlament darüber entscheiden sollte, wie es bei der UNO über den INF-Vertrag abstimmen soll. Und wieder wurde im Parlament keine Stimme erhoben, um zu fordern, dass Italien den Atomwaffensperrvertrag einhält und sich an die UNO bezüglich des Verbots von Kernwaffen hält, das die USA zwingt, ihre Atombomben B61 aus unserem Staatsgebiet abzuziehen und die noch gefährlicheren B61-12 nicht ab dem ersten Halbjahr 2020 zu installieren.

Da Italien mit den Muos und den Jtags in Sizilien auf seinem Territorium Atomwaffen und strategische Anlagen der USA besitzt, ist es als hochentwickelter Stützpunkt der US-Nuklearstreitkräfte und damit als Ziel russischer Streitkräfte wachsenden Gefahren ausgesetzt. Eine ballistische Mittelstrecken-Nuklearrakete benötigt zwischen 6 und 11 Minuten, um ihr Ziel zu erreichen. Ein schönes Beispiel für die Verteidigung unserer Souveränität, die in der Verfassung verankert ist, und für unsere Sicherheit, die die Regierung garantiert, indem sie den Migranten die Tür verschließt, sie aber weit öffnet, um US-Atomwaffen zuzulassen.

Manlio Dinucci

L’affossamento USA del Trattato INF e le complicità europee

il manifesto, 05. Februar 2019

Übersetzung aus dem Englischen: K.R.

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Relevant article selected from the GR archive, first published in February 2015.

Not Theory … Admitted Fact

There are many documented false flag attacks, where a government carries out a terror attack … and then falsely blames its enemy for political purposes.

In the following 42 instances, officials in the government which carried out the attack (or seriously proposed an attack) admits to it, either orally or in writing:

 

(1) Japanese troops set off a small explosion on a train track in 1931, and falsely blamed it on China in order to justify an invasion of Manchuria. This is known as the “Mukden Incident” or the “Manchurian Incident”. The Tokyo International Military Tribunal found:

“Several of the participators in the plan, including Hashimoto [a high-ranking Japanese army officer], have on various occasions admitted their part in the plot and have stated that the object of the ‘Incident’ was to afford an excuse for the occupation of Manchuria by the Kwantung Army ….” And see this.

(2) A major with the Nazi SS admitted at the Nuremberg trials that – under orders from the chief of the Gestapo – he and some other Nazi operatives faked attacks on their own people and resources which they blamed on the Poles, to justify the invasion of Poland.

(3) Nazi general Franz Halder also testified at the Nuremberg trials that Nazi leader Hermann Goering admitted to setting fire to the German parliament building in 1933, and then falsely blaming the communists for the arson.

(4) Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev admitted in writing that the Soviet Union’s Red Army shelled the Russian village of Mainila in 1939 – while blaming the attack on Finland – as a basis for launching the “Winter War” against Finland. Russian president Boris Yeltsin agreed that Russia had been the aggressor in the Winter War.

(5) The Russian Parliament, current Russian president Putin and former Soviet leader Gorbachev all admit that Soviet leader Joseph Stalin ordered his secret police to execute 22,000 Polish army officers and civilians in 1940, and falsely blame it on the Nazis.

(6) The British government admits that – between 1946 and 1948 – it bombed 5 ships carrying Jews attempting to flee the Holocaust to seek safety in Palestine, set up a fake group called “Defenders of Arab Palestine”, and then had the psuedo-group falsely claim responsibility for the bombings (and see this, this and this).

(7) Israel admits that in 1954, an Israeli terrorist cell operating in Egypt planted bombs in several buildings, including U.S. diplomatic facilities, then left behind “evidence” implicating the Arabs as the culprits (one of the bombs detonated prematurely, allowing the Egyptians to identify the bombers, and several of the Israelis later confessed) (and see this and this).

(8) The CIA admits that it hired Iranians in the 1950′s to pose as Communists and stage bombings in Iran in order to turn the country against its democratically-elected prime minister.

(9) The Turkish Prime Minister admitted that the Turkish government carried out the 1955 bombing on a Turkish consulate in Greece – also damaging the nearby birthplace of the founder of modern Turkey – and blamed it on Greece, for the purpose of inciting and justifying anti-Greek violence.

(10) The British Prime Minister admitted to his defense secretary that he and American president Dwight Eisenhower approved a plan in 1957 to carry out attacks in Syria and blame it on the Syrian government as a way to effect regime change.

(11-21) The former Italian Prime Minister, an Italian judge, and the former head of Italian counterintelligence admit that NATO, with the help of the Pentagon and CIA, carried out terror bombings in Italy and other European countries in the 1950s and blamed the communists, in order to rally people’s support for their governments in Europe in their fight against communism.

As one participant in this formerly-secret program stated: “You had to attack civilians, people, women, children, innocent people, unknown people far removed from any political game. The reason was quite simple. They were supposed to force these people, the Italian public, to turn to the state to ask for greater security” (and see this) (Italy and other European countries subject to the terror campaign had joined NATO before the bombings occurred).

And watch this BBC special. They also allegedly carried out terror attacks in France, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the UK, and other countries.

False flag attacks carried out pursuant tho this program include – by way of example only – the murder of the Turkish Prime Minister (1960), bombings in Portugal (1966), the Piazza Fontana massacre in Italy (1969), terror attacks in Turkey (1971), the Peteano bombing in Italy (1972), shootings in Brescia, Italy and a bombing on an Italian train (1974), shootings in Istanbul, Turkey (1977), the Atocha massacre in Madrid, Spain (1977), the abduction and murder of the Italian Prime Minister (1978), the bombing of the Bologna railway station in Italy (1980), and shooting and killing 28 shoppers in Brabant county, Belgium (1985).

(22) In 1960, American Senator George Smathers suggested that the U.S. launch “a false attack made on Guantanamo Bay which would give us the excuse of actually fomenting a fight which would then give us the excuse to go in and [overthrow Castro]“.

(23) Official State Department documents show that, in 1961, the head of the Joint Chiefs and other high-level officials discussed blowing up a consulate in the Dominican Republic in order to justify an invasion of that country. The plans were not carried out, but they were all discussed as serious proposals.

(24) As admitted by the U.S. government, recently declassified documents show that in 1962, the American Joint Chiefs of Staff signed off on a plan to blow up AMERICAN airplanes (using an elaborate plan involving the switching of airplanes), and also to commit terrorist acts on American soil, and then to blame it on the Cubans in order to justify an invasion of Cuba. See the following ABC news report; the official documents; and watch this interview with the former Washington Investigative Producer for ABC’s World News Tonight with Peter Jennings.

(25) In 1963, the U.S. Department of Defense wrote a paper promoting attacks on nations within the Organization of American States – such as Trinidad-Tobago or Jamaica – and then falsely blaming them on Cuba.

(26) The U.S. Department of Defense even suggested covertly paying a person in the Castro government to attack the United States: “The only area remaining for consideration then would be to bribe one of Castro’s subordinate commanders to initiate an attack on Guantanamo.”

(27) The NSA admits that it lied about what really happened in the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964 … manipulating data to make it look like North Vietnamese boats fired on a U.S. ship so as to create a false justification for the Vietnam war.

(28) A U.S. Congressional committee admitted that – as part of its “Cointelpro” campaign – the FBI had used many provocateurs in the 1950s through 1970s to carry out violent acts and falsely blame them on political activists.

(29) A top Turkish general admitted that Turkish forces burned down a mosque on Cyprus in the 1970s and blamed it on their enemy. He explained: “In Special War, certain acts of sabotage are staged and blamed on the enemy to increase public resistance. We did this on Cyprus; we even burnt down a mosque.” In response to the surprised correspondent’s incredulous look the general said, “I am giving an example”.

(30) The German government admitted (and see this) that, in 1978, the German secret service detonated a bomb in the outer wall of a prison and planted “escape tools” on a prisoner – a member of the Red Army Faction – which the secret service wished to frame the bombing on.

(31) A Mossad agent admits that, in 1984, Mossad planted a radio transmitter in Gaddaffi’s compound in Tripoli, Libya which broadcast fake terrorist trasmissions recorded by Mossad, in order to frame Gaddaffi as a terrorist supporter. Ronald Reagan bombed Libya immediately thereafter.

(32) The South African Truth and Reconciliation Council found that, in 1989, the Civil Cooperation Bureau (a covert branch of the South African Defense Force) approached an explosives expert and asked him “to participate in an operation aimed at discrediting the ANC [the African National Congress] by bombing the police vehicle of the investigating officer into the murder incident”, thus framing the ANC for the bombing.

(33) An Algerian diplomat and several officers in the Algerian army admit that, in the 1990s, the Algerian army frequently massacred Algerian civilians and then blamed Islamic militants for the killings (and see this video; and Agence France-Presse, 9/27/2002, French Court Dismisses Algerian Defamation Suit Against Author).

(34)    The United States Army’s 1994 publication Special Forces Foreign Internal Defense Tactics Techniques and Procedures for Special Forces – updated in 2004 – recommends employing terrorists and using false flag operations to destabilize leftist regimes in Latin America.   False flag terrorist attacks were carried out in Latin America and other regions as part of the CIA’s “Dirty Wars“. And see this.

(35) An Indonesian fact-finding team investigated violent riots which occurred in 1998, and determined that “elements of the military had been involved in the riots, some of which were deliberately provoked”.

(36) Senior Russian Senior military and intelligence officers admit that the KGB blew up Russian apartment buildings in 1999 and falsely blamed it on Chechens, in order to justify an invasion of Chechnya (and see this report and this discussion).

(37) According to the Washington Post, Indonesian police admit that the Indonesian military killed American teachers in Papua in 2002 and blamed the murders on a Papuan separatist group in order to get that group listed as a terrorist organization.

(38) The well-respected former Indonesian president also admits that the government probably had a role in the Bali bombings.

(39) As reported by BBC, the New York Times, and Associated Press, Macedonian officials admit that the government murdered 7 innocent immigrants in cold blood and pretended that they were Al Qaeda soldiers attempting to assassinate Macedonian police, in order to join the “war on terror”.

(40) Senior police officials in Genoa, Italy admitted that – in July 2001, at the G8 summit in Genoa – planted two Molotov cocktails and faked the stabbing of a police officer, in order to justify a violent crackdown against protesters.

(41) The U.S. falsely blamed Iraq for playing a role in the 9/11 attacks – as shown by a memo from the defense secretary – as one of the main justifications for launching the Iraq war. Even after the 9/11 Commission admitted that there was no connection, Dick Cheney said that the evidence is “overwhelming” that al Qaeda had a relationship with Saddam Hussein’s regime, that Cheney “probably” had information unavailable to the Commission, and that the media was not ‘doing their homework’ in reporting such ties. Top U.S. government officials now admit that the Iraq war was really launched for oil … not 9/11 or weapons of mass destruction.  Despite previous “lone wolf” claims, many U.S. government officials now say that 9/11 was state-sponsored terror; but Iraq was not the state which backed the hijackers.  (Many U.S. officials have alleged that 9/11 was a false flag operation by rogue elements of the U.S. government.).  

(42) Although the FBI now admits that the 2001 anthrax attacks were carried out by one or more U.S. government scientists, a senior FBI official says that the FBI was actually told to blame the Anthrax attacks on Al Qaeda by White House officials (remember what the anthrax letters looked like). Government officials also confirm that the white House tried to link the anthrax to Iraq as a justification for regime change in that country.

(43) Former Department of Justice lawyer John Yoo suggested in 2005 that the US should go on the offensive against al-Qaeda, having “our intelligence agencies create a false terrorist organization. It could have its own websites, recruitment centers, training camps, and fundraising operations. It could launch fake terrorist operations and claim credit for real terrorist strikes, helping to sow confusion within al-Qaeda’s ranks, causing operatives to doubt others’ identities and to question the validity of communications.”

(44) United Press International reported in June 2005:

U.S. intelligence officers are reporting that some of the insurgents in Iraq are using recent-model Beretta 92 pistols, but the pistols seem to have had their serial numbers erased. The numbers do not appear to have been physically removed; the pistols seem to have come off a production line without any serial numbers. Analysts suggest the lack of serial numbers indicates that the weapons were intended for intelligence operations or terrorist cells with substantial government backing. Analysts speculate that these guns are probably from either Mossad or the CIA. Analysts speculate that agent provocateurs may be using the untraceable weapons even as U.S. authorities use insurgent attacks against civilians as evidence of the illegitimacy of the resistance.

(45) Undercover Israeli soldiers admitted in 2005 to throwing stones at other Israeli soldiers so they could blame it on Palestinians, as an excuse to crack down on peaceful protests by the Palestinians.

(46) Quebec police admitted that, in 2007, thugs carrying rocks to a peaceful protest were actually undercover Quebec police officers (and see this).

(47) At the G20 protests in London in 2009, a British member of parliament saw plain clothes police officers attempting to incite the crowd to violence.

(48) Egyptian politicians admitted (and see this) that government employees looted priceless museum artifacts in 2011 to try to discredit the protesters.

(49) A Colombian army colonel has admitted that his unit murdered 57 civilians, then dressed them in uniforms and claimed they were rebels killed in combat.

(50) The highly-respected writer for the Telegraph Ambrose Evans-Pritchard says that the head of Saudi intelligence – Prince Bandar – recently admitted that the Saudi government controls “Chechen” terrorists.

(51) High-level American sources admitted that the Turkish government – a fellow NATO country – carried out the chemical weapons attacks blamed on the Syrian government; and high-ranking Turkish government admitted on tape plans to carry out attacks and blame it on the Syrian government.

(52) The former Ukrainian security chief admits that the sniper attacks which started the Ukrainian coup were carried out in order to frame others.

(53) Britain’s spy agency has admitted (and see this) that it carries out “digital false flag” attacks on targets, framing people by writing offensive or unlawful material … and blaming it on the target.

So Common … There’s a Name for It

The use of the bully’s trick is so common that it was given a name hundreds of years ago.

“False flag terrorism” is defined as a government attacking its own people, then blaming others in order to justify going to war against the people it blames. Or as Wikipedia defines it:

False flag operations are covert operations conducted by governments, corporations, or other organizations, which are designed to appear as if they are being carried out by other entities. The name is derived from the military concept of flying false colors; that is, flying the flag of a country other than one’s own. False flag operations are not limited to war and counter-insurgency operations, and have been used in peace-time; for example, during Italy’s strategy of tension.

The term comes from the old days of wooden ships, when one ship would hang the flag of its enemy before attacking another ship. Because the enemy’s flag, instead of the flag of the real country of the attacking ship, was hung, it was called a “false flag” attack.

Indeed, this concept is so well-accepted that rules of engagement for naval, air and land warfare all prohibit false flag attacks.

Leaders Throughout History Have Acknowledged False Flags

Leaders throughout history have acknowledged the danger of false flags:

“A history of false flag attacks used to manipulate the minds of the people! “In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“Terrorism is the best political weapon for nothing drives people harder than a fear of sudden death”.
– Adolph Hitler

“Why of course the people don’t want war … But after all it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship … Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”
– Hermann Goering, Nazi leader.

“The easiest way to gain control of a population is to carry out acts of terror. [The public] will clamor for such laws if their personal security is threatened”.
– Josef Stalin

Inquisitive observers of the Middle East’s politics would naturally wonder that why do the Western powers prop up the Gulf’s petro-monarchies, knowing fully well that they are the ones responsible for nurturing Islamic extremism. Does this not run counter to their professed goal of eliminating Islamic radicalism and terrorism?

Seemingly, the Western powers support the Gulf’s autocrats because it has been a firm policy principle of the Western powers to promote “political stability” in the Middle East instead of representative democracy. They are mindful of the ground reality that the mainstream Muslim sentiment is firmly against any Western military presence and intervention in the Middle East region.

In addition, the Western policymakers also prefer to deal with small cliques of Middle Eastern strongmen rather than cultivating a complex and uncertain relationship on a popular level, certainly a myopic approach which is the hallmark of so-called pragmatic politicians and statesmen.

Left to their own resources, the Persian Gulf’s petro-monarchies lack the manpower, the military technology and the moral authority to rule over forcefully suppressed and disenfranchised Arab masses, not only the Arab masses but also the South Asian and African immigrants of the Gulf states. One-third of the Saudi Arabian population is composed of immigrants. Similarly, more than 75% of UAE’s population is also comprised of expats from Pakistan, Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka.

The rest of the Gulf states, including Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman, also have a similar proportion of immigrant workers from the developing countries. Unlike the immigrants of the Western countries, however, who hold the citizenship status, the Gulf’s immigrants have lived there for decades and sometimes for generations, and they are still regarded as unentitled foreigners.

Regarding the Western powers interest in propping up the Gulf’s autocrats, it bears mentioning that in April 2016, the Saudi foreign minister threatened [1] 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 the 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 rough 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 more than half of world’s 1477 billion barrels of proven oil reserves.

No wonder then, 28,000 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 [2] 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, and over a period of 10 years, total sales could reach $350 billion.

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 global political and economic order, according to a January 2017 infographic [3] by the New York Times, 210,000 US military personnel are currently 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 chips in 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 28,000 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.

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Nauman Sadiq is an Islamabad-based attorney, columnist and geopolitical analyst focused on the politics of Af-Pak and Middle East regions, neocolonialism and petro-imperialism.

Notes

[1] Saudi Arabia Warns of Economic Fallout if Congress Passes 9/11 Bill:

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/16/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-warns-ofeconomic-fallout-if-congress-passes-9-11-bill.html?_r=0 

[2] The Obama administration’s arms sales offers to Saudi top $115 billion:

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-saudi-security-idUSKCN11D2JQ

[3] What the U.S. Gets for Defending Its Allies and Interests Abroad?

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/01/16/world/trump-military-role-treaties-allies-nato-asia-persian-gulf.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0

The corporate media is wholeheartedly behind the federal government’s push for regime change in Venezuela. The propaganda is thick and, as per usual, it is as much about what they don’t, as what they do, report. Here are some important developments that have largely been ignored by Canada’s dominant media:

• At the Organization of American States meeting called by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on January 25 the Canadian-backed interventionist resolution was defeated 18-16.
• The “Lima Group” of governments opposed to Venezuela’s elected president was established 18 months ago after Washington, Ottawa and others failed to garner the votes necessary to censure Venezuela at the OAS (despite the head of the OAS’s extreme hostility to Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro).
• Most of the world’s countries, with most of the world’s population, have failed to support the US/Canada push to recognize National Assembly head Juan Guaidó as president of Venezuela.
• The UN and OAS charters preclude unilateral sanctions and interfering in other countries’ affairs.
• UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur for sanctions, Idriss Jazairy, recently condemned US/Canadian sanctions on Venezuela.

As well, here are some flagrant double standards in Canadian policy the media have largely ignored:

• “Lima Group” member Jair Bolsonaro won the recent presidential election in Brazil largely because the most popular candidate, Lula Da silva, was in jail. His questionable election took place two years after Lula’s ally, Dilma Rousseff, was ousted as president in a ‘parliamentary coup’.
• Another “Lima Group” member, Honduras president Juan Orlando Hernandez, defied that country’s constitution a year ago in running for a second term and then ‘won’ a highly questionable
• “At the same time”as Canada and the US recognized Juan Guaidó, notes Patrick Mbeko, “in Democratic Republic of Congo they refuse to recognize the massive recent victory of Martin Fayulu in the presidential election, endorsing the vast electoral fraud of the regime and its ally Félix Tshisekedi.”

Beyond what the media has ignored, they constantly cite biased sources without offering much or any background. Here are a couple of examples:

• The Globe and Mail has quoted Irwin Cotler in two recent articles on Venezuela. But, the decades-long anti-Palestinian and anti-Hugo Chavez activist lacks any credibility on the issue. At a press conference in May to release an OAS report on alleged rights violations in Venezuela, Cotler said Venezuela’s “government itself was responsible for the worst ever humanitarian crisis in the region.” Worse than the extermination of the Taíno and Arawak by the Spanish? Or the enslavement of five million Africans in Brazil? Or the 200,000 Mayans killed in Guatemala? Or the thousands of state-murdered “subversives” in Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil?
• CBC and Canadian Press (to a slightly lesser extent) stories about former Venezuelan Colonel Oswaldo Garcia, whose family lives in Montréal, present him as a democracy activist. But, notes Poyan Nahrvar, Garcia participated in a coup attempt last year and then launched raids into Venezuela from Colombia until he was captured by the Venezuelan military.
• The media blindly repeats Ottawa’s depiction of the “Lima Group”, which Prime Minister Justin Trudeau described as an organization established to “bring peace, democracy and stability in Venezuela.” One report called it “a regional block of countries committed to finding a peaceful solution” to the crisis while another said its members “want to see Venezuela return to democracy.” This portrayal of the coalition stands its objective on its head. The “Lima Group” is designed to ratchet up international pressure on Maduro in hopes of eliciting regime change, which may spark a civil war. That is its reason for existence.

As part of nationwide protests against the “Lima Group” meeting taking place in Ottawa on Monday, activists in Montréal will rally in front of Radio Canada/CBC’s offices. They will be decrying not only Canada’s interference in Venezuela but the dominant media’s effort to “manufacture consent” for Canadian imperialism.

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Venezuela will not allow foreign soldiers to invade, President Nicolas Maduro said calling for dialogue with opposition forces during a televised speech Monday.

“Che, Fidel, Chavez, they are our heritage, they give us strength,” the Bolivarian head of state said, reminding the crowd of supporters of the country’s past struggle for independence dating back to the colonial era to present day.

Since the attempted coup on Jan. 23 led by opposition lawmaker Juan Guaido, the United States has aligned its forces with the self-proclaimed “interim president,” declaring his unconstitutional claim legitimate, triggering similar calls from its allies around the world and in South America.

Maduro said,

“When our Comandante Chavez passed away, I became president, but my first act was to hold elections. I wasn’t going to govern without elections…why has Sanchez Castejon governed for so long in Spain without convening elections?

Threats of militarized intervention have resurfaced as well as new rounds of suffocating sanctions against Venezuela, targeting the country’s oil companies in the United States. Although both the Lima Group and the European Union have rejected militarized force, they have recognized the Guaido’s claim and are calling for Maduro to abdicate in favor of a new election.

“The attacks against us from the so-called ‘Lima Group’ are also an attack on the whole left, on all progressives who they persecute in their countries,” President Maduro said, describing the organization’s behavior as “disgusting and laughable.”

Regarding the repeated requests for intervention made by the Venezuelan opposition, the president said it was foolish for his homeland to encourage war.

“Those who march with the US flag asking for military intervention in their own country have no idea what they’re asking for, they have no idea of the damage they will bring,” said Maduro.

“In Venezuela, a battle is being played out for the right of all countries to pursue their own paths… I want to ask the world for the highest level of solidarity to create a powerful movement against the threats of war from the US,” the Bolivarian president said.

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Those of you who have been involved in the past in the battle to protect our children from poorly made vaccines or toxic chemicals in our food or in our water know the power of these industries and how they’ve undermined every institution in our democracy that is supposed to protect little children from powerful, greedy corporations. Even the pharmaceutical companies have been able to purchase congress. They’re the largest lobbying entity in Washington D.C.. They have more lobbyists in Washington D.C. than there are congressman and senators combined. They give twice to congress what the next largest lobbying entity is, which is oil and gas… Imagine the power they exercise over both republicans and democrats. They’ve captured them (our regulatory agencies) and turned them into sock puppets. They’ve compromised the press… and they destroy the publications that publish real science. (Robert F. Kennedy Jr, from the video below)

Robert F. Kennedy Jr, Chairman of the Board of Directors for Children’s Health Defence (a worthy cause if you’re looking for one to donate to) has been fighting against big corporations that have taken over and undermined American government health regulatory agencies for a number of years. One of the most recent examples is when Robert F. Kennedy Jr represented Dewayne Johnson, a school groundskeeper who successfully brought forward a lawsuit alleging glyphosate caused his cancer. That’s right, he won!

There are currently thousands of cases pending against Monsanto, which is only one of multiple powerful companies influencing agencies like the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). And to think, these are the agencies providing us with ‘science’ in order to get the food, medications, and other products produced by these big corporations to be deemed safe. Not only that, but these agencies are providing educational resources to medical schools, which Big Pharma has completely taken over as well.

It’s truly unbelievable that, in this day and age, education has turned into brainwashing. Science is corrupted, altered, changed, ignored, and swept under the rug just because it threatens the interests of a few powerful people and the corporations they hide behind.

It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine.”   Dr. Marcia Angell, a physician and longtime Editor-in-Chief of the New England Medical Journal (NEMJ) (source)

Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto’s pesticide Round Up,  is a perfect example, as science has been showing for decades how incredibly harmful it is for human health and the environment, yet it’s approved as ‘safe’ for use in the western world. It’s no mystery why glyphosate is illegal in the majority of countries around the world. The same goes for genetically modified foods, which is what Round Up was designed to be used on. Years ago, a lawsuit forced the FDA to divulge its files on genetically engineered foods.

“As part of the process, they portrayed the various concerns as merely the ignorant opinions of misinformed individuals – and derided them as not only unscientific, but anti-science. They then set to work to convince the public and government officials, through the dissemination of false information, that there was an overwhelming expert consensus, based on solid evidence, that GMOs were safe.” – Jane Goodall

You can read more about that here.  You can also read more about the connection between GMOs and cancer as well as hundreds of scientists supporting the link here. Just like glyphosate, dozens of countries have cited health and environmental hazards for keeping GMOs out of their country.

In addition, Monsanto colluded with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to stifle cancer research and any connections to their products. The European Union actually just approved the use of glyphosate, and their approval was found to be based on plagiarized science from Monsanto.

The corruption is never-ending when it comes to the link between corporations and government agencies. In fact, only a few years ago, more than a dozen scientists from within the CDC put out an anonymous public statement detailing the influence corporations have on government policies. They were referred to as the Spider Papers.

Dr. William Thompson is a longtime CDC scientist who has published some of the most commonly cited pro-vaccine studies, some of which claim that there is absolutely no link between the MMR vaccine and autism.  He pointed to a specific study that he co-authored in 2004 for the CDC, which claimed that “the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine does not cause autism or any particular subtypes of autism spectrum disorder.” This study is often cited when trying to justify the use of this vaccine, despite the fact that he later stated they deleted important findings from that study. He said that “it’s the lowest point in my career that I went along with that paper and uh, I went along with this, we didn’t report significant findings…  I’m completely ashamed of what I did, I have great shame now that I was complicit and went along with this. I have been a part of the problem.” (source)

Anxious to get this information out, Thompson sent various documents to Congressman Bill Posey, who addressed the congress, reading a statement that he had received from Dr. Thompson:

Sometime soon after the meeting, we decided to exclude reporting any race effects, the [CDC] co-authors scheduled a meeting to destroy documents related to the [MMR vaccine] study. The remaining four co-authors all met and brought a big garbage can into the meeting room and reviewed and went through all the hard copy documents that we had thought we should discard and put them in a huge garbage can. (source)

As you can see, there are no shortage of examples that highlight the collusion between corporations and government regulatory agencies.

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These are the ten biggest news stories going on right now that you need to know that will, in some way, affect Britain. When Brexit arrives and the consequences start to unravel, whatever they may be, the world continues to move – one threat being that Britain becomes so self-involved it gets left behind. So keep up with these brief updates as TruePublica will now start to publish more of them from now on.

Cold war 2.0

Russia pulls out of Nuclear treaty in ‘Symmetrical’ response to U.S. move. President Putin of Russia, in a decision that was widely expected, suspended his country’s observance of a key nuclear arms control pact on Saturday in response to a similar move by the United States a day before.

Mr Putin also said that Russia would build weapons previously banned under the treaty and would no longer initiate talks with the United States on any matters related to nuclear arms control. Cold war 2.0 has clearly kicked-off. The last one was not just quite frightening, it threatened the existence of humanity.

Trade wars fall guy

While global markets would hail a U.S.-China trade deal, fears are growing that the European Union could be the fall guy in any breakthrough, which would allow Donald Trump to turn his attention to German cars or French luxury wines.

Alicia García-Herrero, Chief Economist at Natixis for Asia Pacific, and a researcher at the Bruegel think-tank, is among those who have warned that a deal “could cost Europe dearly” if China substitutes a large part of its European imports for U.S. goods in a bid to appease the Trump administration.

Brexit – Britain revives cold war emergency plans

British lawmakers instructed Prime Minister Theresa May to reopen a Brexit treaty with the European Union to replace a controversial Irish border arrangement – and promptly received a flat rejection from Brussels.

With two months left until Britain is due by law to leave the EU, investors and allies have urged the government to clinch a deal to allow an orderly exit from the club it joined in 1973. So far, it has failed.

The authorities have now revived Cold War emergency plans to relocate the royal family should there be riots in London if Britain. Thousands of MI5 are now located in Northern Ireland, the Army and army reservists are on standby and police forces all over the country have cancelled all leave from April.

EU subversion of democracy in Italy

Did the subversion of Italian democracy by the European Union play a role in Italy’s fall into recession? Italy’s pre-existing debts were already so large that the EU got an agreement from the previous Italian government that deficit spending would be restricted to 0.8% of GDP.

The new government prepared to implement the policies it had promised in its election campaign: a reduction in taxes and an increase in certain types of welfare spending, including a basic income experiment. They proposed a fiscal plan that would increase the spending deficit to 2.4% of GDP.

The EU said no. Crash.

EU-Japan trade agreement enters into force

The Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between the EU and Japan entered into force on 1 February 2019. Businesses and consumers across Europe and in Japan can now take advantage of the largest open trade zone in the world.

EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström said:

“This agreement has it all: it scraps tariffs and contributes to the global rulebook, whilst at the same time demonstrating to the world that we both remain convinced by the benefits of open trade.

Except, of course, Britain. It opted out of the EU and so the trade deal excluded it from day one.

‘Divide and conquer’: China puts the pressure on US allies

As tensions between China and the US mount over trade and the extradition of a senior Huawei executive, Beijing has reserved its most colourful language for America’s allies.

Analysts say China is trying to isolate the US by going after its allies. Two Canadians remain in detention in China over unspecified allegations of endangering national security and a third was sentenced to death for drug smuggling after a sudden retrial — cases widely believed to be retaliation for Ottawa’s arrest of Meng at the request of the US.

French ‘yellow vests’ in Paris face Police with banned ‘flashball’ guns

Several thousand “gilets jaunes” protesters have marched through Paris and other French cities on Saturday on the 12th weekend of action against the government.

Protesters carried French flags and held signs attacking the French president as being out of touch or calling for referendums tabled by citizens.

Protesters injured in previous weeks of violence were put at the front of the protests, some of whom wore eyepatches with a target sign on them. The government warned that police would not hesitate to use ‘flashballs’ in the event of violence by demonstrators after it was authorised by France’s highest administrative court. Flashball riot control guns are banned in much of Europe.

UK’s Info commissioner launches data protection audit after democracy bought off

The information commissioner has launched an audit into Leave.EU and the insurance company owned by the campaign’s key financial backer, Arron Banks, after fining the organisations a total of £120,000 for data protection violations during the EU referendum campaign.

Leave.EU was fined £15,000 for using Eldon Insurance customers’ details unlawfully to send almost 300,000 political marketing messages, and a further £45,000 for its part in sending an Eldon marketing campaign to political subscribers. Eldon was fined £60,000 for the latter violation.

The Geo-political struggle for Venezuela

The usual mainstream media suspects have their printing presses and news presenters set to max propaganda mode over Venezuela.

The CIA is working hard to stoke violence, and the genuine poor will soon start to die, both in those egged on to riot and in the security services. But do not get taken in by the complete nonsense that this is a popular, democratic revolution. It is not. It is yet another barefaced CIA regime change coup.

Big Banks in big trouble (again)

Eight banks are being targeted in a European Union probe that alleges traders colluded to acquire and trade euro government bonds, a month after the EU regulators implicated lenders in a separate bond-trading case.

The EU’s antitrust chief, Margrethe Vestager, is moving her attention to possible collusion between banks in the estimated $9.4-trillion market for European government debt. She’s already extracted huge fines from Google and a massive back-tax bill from Apple Inc. before she ends her five-year term later this year. While the EU’s powerful antitrust arm often lags far behind financial authorities in the U.S. and the U.K. in punishing collusion between traders, its fines can be hefty.

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Israel began the construction of the over-ground portion of the Gaza border barrier that will connect to the under-construction sea barrier aimed at preventing the movement of the Hamas military wing out of the coastal enclave and into Israel.

The Israeli Defense Ministry confirmed, on Sunday, that the over-ground section of the barrier will be 65 kilometers (40 miles) long and will be six meters (20 feet) high.

The Israeli Defense Ministry’s border administration said,

“The border is uniquely suited to the threats from the Gaza Strip and will give a comprehensive solution to preventing entry into Israel.”

The barrier is meant to prevent underground tunnels from Gaza.

The barrier, estimated to cost 3 billion shekels ($833 million), will include a concrete wall fitted with sensors and reaching dozens of meters deep into the ground and standing six meters high from ground level.

The barrier’s construction comes after ten months of mass protests, also known as “The Great March of Return,” launched by thousands of Palestinians civilians in protest of Israel’s blockade of Gaza.

According to the Palestinian Health Ministry’s latest statistics, 263 Palestinians, including more than 45 children, were killed by Israeli forces during the protests along the Gaza border.

The more than 2 million Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip have suffered from a nearly 12-year Israeli-imposed land, air, and sea blockade, which has plunged the small territory into poverty and some of the highest unemployment rates in the world.

The UN has reported that Gaza could be “uninhabitable” by 2020.

The video below shows the start of the barrier’s construction:

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“The Americans need us only for the purpose of manipulation”

The former commander of the Polish Land Forces General Skrzypczak doubted the expediency of creating the American military base Fort Trump in Poland.

The Americans have their own interests – hoping to deter Russia by using Americans – that do not coincide with the expectations of Poland, explained the General.

“If the price [the appearance of a Fort Trump] is the fact that we will become quasi-allies of the Americans and suppliers of financial resources for their businesses, then a Fort Trump should not appear at all”

said the Polish General

The former commander also doubted the ability of Washington to come out as the winner in the conflicts that it provokes:

“Americans understand that beyond Iran there is China, and behind China there is Russia … Here everything is connected … America cannot win such a war”.

The US is trying to not allow the economic strengthening of Beijing in Europe and to disrupt the implementation of the Chinese infrastructure project “One Belt, One Road”. When fulfilling these tasks Washington tries to involve as many allies as possible. For example, suggesting to Poland to hold an anti-Iranian conference, without having invited representatives of Tehran.

“Why do we allow ourselves to be drawn into an anti-Iranian adventure, which is absolutely alien to us? Poland has no place in this. We are needed by the Americans today, but only for the purpose of manipulating us. Our diplomacy is so weak that it does not give an account of what levers the Americans use for the sake of achieving their goals”

noted the General

The “Nasdaq” website previously pointed out the interest of American weapons companies in the appearance of a Fort Trump in Poland. Against the background of negotiations on this topic between Washington and Warsaw, the stocks of weapons giants cooperating with the US State Department sharply increase. The stocks of the “Aero Vironment” company, which manufactures drones, rose in 2018 by 103%, “Engility Holdings” – by 21%, and “Aerojet Roketdyne Holdings” – by 8%. The Polish media says that a Fort Trump would be a pot of gold for the American military-industrial complex.

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This article was originally published in Russian on fondsk.ru, translated by Ollie Richardson & Angelina Siard

What happens in Venezuela going forward will have major consequences for the entire region and the world; and, with the U.S. already pushing countries to pick sides, the world may soon become as divided as it was immediately preceding WW II.

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Since the decision of the Trump administration on Wednesday to recognize a member of the Venezuelan opposition, Juan Guaidó, as an unelected “interim president,” the situation in the South American country has become increasingly tense, with efforts to force the current government of Venezuela — led by Nicolás Maduro — out of power having grown in intensity over the past few days.

Despite the enormous pressure his government faces from both local and international sources, Maduro has managed to maintain his position thanks to a combination of factors. These include the loyalty of the country’s well-armed military, in addition to popular support from Venezuelans who recently voted for Maduro, as well as Venezuelans who may not like Maduro but prefer him to a politician hand-picked and foisted upon them by the United States.

Yet, the long-standing campaign of the United States to effect regime change in Venezuela — a campaign that has been ongoing ever since Hugo Chávez, Maduro’s predecessor and mentor, was elected in 1998 — has shown time and again that the U.S. is unwilling to let go of its dream of installing a “friendly” government in the world’s most oil-rich country.

For that reason, if the Trump administration’s attempt to simply install a Venezuelan president fails to produce the intended result (regime change), there is substantial concern that the U.S. will turn to other means to bring about a change in government, including the instigation of a new proxy war.

While direct military intervention by the U.S. has not been ruled out, it has long been seen as more probable — based on the U.S.’ troubling history of ousting leftist Latin American governments through right-wing coups — that the U.S. would follow the roadmaps it used to push for regime change in both Syria and Ukraine. In other words, the danger of another major proxy war — this time in Latin America — looms large and, much like what has transpired in Syria and Ukraine, the manufacture of such a conflict would again pit the U.S. against both Russia and China, both of which have invested heavily in Venezuela, and by extension in the current government, for nearly two decades.

Also troubling is the fact that the U.S. has already laid much of the groundwork for such a proxy war and the chaotic situation on the Venezuelan-Colombian border offers U.S. intelligence enough cover to funnel arms, money and personnel into Venezuela to further destabilize the country. If Maduro is to be believed, the U.S. has already been doing this for much of the past year.

Raising the temperature and the stakes

Juan Guaidó, a relative newcomer to Venezuelan politics and a founding member of the Popular Will political party, declared himself to be the new president of Venezuela on Wednesday, a move that was quickly backed by the U.S. with the support of all countries closely allied with the U.S. throughout the Americas, North and South.

The U.S. decision to back Guaidó, as has been pointed out by many analysts in recent days, was significant as it shows a clear effort by the U.S. to push the already tenuous situation in the country to its boiling point. Indeed, by effectively creating two governments within Venezuela, the clearest consequence is to deepen the rift in Venezuelan society by forcing the country’s citizens to choose sides.

Though Guaidó’s relatively short time in Venezuelan national politics gives him the benefit of having relatively little political baggage, his association with the Popular Will Party, known as Voluntad Popular in Spanish, makes it clear why he so quickly won the U.S.’ support.

Popular Will was founded by Venezuelan opposition firebrand Leopoldo López. Lopez is a member of the upper echelons of Venezuela’s political aristocracy, educated in elite institutions like the Hun School of Princeton, a private boarding school whose alumni include Saudi princes as well as the children of U.S. presidents and Fortune 500 CEOs. He attended Kenyon College in Ohio and then Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. Some journalists have asserted that López began a relationship with the CIA while at Kenyon.

A few years after beginning his political career, López — immediately prior to the U.S.-backed failed coup of 2002, in which he enthusiastically participated — began heading to Washington rather frequently “to visit the IRI (International Republican Institute) headquarters and meet with officials from the George W. Bush administration,” according to journalist Eva Golinger. The IRI is one of three foundations that comprise the National Endowment for Democracy, a U.S. government-funded NGO linked to numerous regime-change efforts abroad, including Egypt (2013) and Ukraine (2014). Notably, the IRI, along with the National Democratic Institute (NDI), both have funded Popular Will since its founding in 2010. López is currently the party’s national coordinator.

While the U.S.’ decision to back Guaidó was undeniably an effort to escalate the situation in Venezuela, the U.S. has also made it clear that it plans to continue pushing for escalation. Indeed, the U.S. has officially requested a UN Security Council meeting on Saturday “to discuss the ongoing crisis in Venezuela.” South Africa’s U.N. Ambassador Jerry Matjila stated that the “consultations” between the Security Council and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo would be closed, though subsequent reports have claimed that the meeting would be open. The meeting, if it is approved by 9 out of 15 member states, will likely push for countries to choose between Guaidó and Maduro.

Given that the U.K., Spain and Germany have already backed Guaidó at the U.S.’ behest, more European nations are likely to follow, meaning that the international pressure facing the Maduro-led government will continue to grow following Saturday’s events. Thus, in addition to forcing the Venezuelan people to choose sides, the U.S. will likely be — over the weekend — forcing the international community to choose sides as well.

Notably, key countries — including Turkey, Russia, China as well as Maduro’s regional allies such as Mexico, Nicaragua, Bolivia and Cuba — have backed Maduro. Given the presence of both Russia and China, who hold veto power on the UN Security Council, any resolution by that body that would support Guaidó will be dead on arrival. Yet, if the U.S. is able to win the support of a significant number of countries in its bid to withdraw Maduro’s “legitimacy” — whether by diplomatic or more forceful means — the Trump administration may feel confident enough to take matters into its own hands. This makes the recent comments of a top Trump official stating that “all options are on the table” in regards to Venezuela equal parts significant and chilling.

Groundwork for Syria/Ukraine-style regime-change op already laid in Venezuela

In pursuit of regime-change agendas abroad and as part of a larger strategy of containment aimed at Russia and China, the U.S. has followed a roadmap in recent cases that includes some or all of the following elements: the manufacture of a “humanitarian” justification for regime change; funneling of arms and weapons into the country via its foreign borders; mass funding of the political opposition; and covert involvement of U.S. government agencies, particularly the CIA.

In the case of Syria, a CIA-backed revolt, along with a compliant international media and complex network of pro-regime-change “humanitarian” organizations, were critical in creating the current situation, which was further exacerbated by the influx of weapons and funds to “moderate rebels” via the CIA and later U.S. allies. A few years later, Ukraine followed a distinct but similar roadmap. As was noted last year by South Front, the U.S.-backed regime-change operation in Ukraine in 2014 involved an outsized role from the U.S. State Department, billions of dollars in U.S. funding of the political opposition, and the early involvement of the CIA.

Unsurprisingly, many of these elements are currently at play in Venezuela. Since the late Hugo Chávez came to power in the 1998 election, the U.S. has funded the Venezuelan opposition to the tune of over $100 million. The humanitarian justification has long been played up by the international media, which has placed sole responsibility for Venezuela’s economic and political crisis on the Maduro-led government, despite the role of U.S. sanctions and economic warfare, as well as the U.S. government and the Venezuelan opposition groups it funds colluding to create the conditions for the current political crisis in order to facilitate their regime-change plan.

Though this last point is less known, it was confirmed following a leaked 2013 phone conversation of  Maria Corina Machado, another key figure in the U.S.-funded Venezuelan opposition and another top political ally of Guaidó and his associate Leopoldo López. In the leaked conversation, Corina Machado describes what Ramon Guillermo Aveledo, the chairman of the opposition umbrella group Mesa de la Unidad Democrática, told Undersecretary for Latin American Affairs Roberta Jacobsen, whom he had recently met in Washington. During the call, Corina Machado stated:

I found out that Ramon Guillermo Aveledo told the State Department that the only way to resolve this is by provoking and accentuating a crisis, a coup or a self-coup. Or a process of tightening the screws and domesticating to generate a system of total social control.”

In addition, there is substantial evidence that the still chaotic situation on the Venezuelan-Colombian border offers plenty of opportunity for U.S. intelligence agencies to funnel arms, insurgents and other agents of destabilization into Venezuela. Furthermore, the conflict there could potentially be used as the pretext for a direct role for the U.S. military in escalating the situation in Venezuela.

For decades, the Venezuelan-Colombian border has been the sight of considerable violence, much of it the result of in-fighting among leftist and right-wing paramilitary groups vying for control of the regional drug trade. It is increasingly porous, allowing the flow of paramilitary fighters, migrants, smugglers and others between the two nations, resulting in various controversies that have seen Maduro close the border from August 2015 to July 2016 following an attack by a Colombian group on the Venezuelan military.

Since then, drug-fueled violence and Colombian concerns over the exodus of Venezuelan migrants have led Colombia to increasingly militarize its side of the border, though some analysts have claimed recent violence from the National Liberation Army (ELN) leftist paramilitary group has led the Colombian and Venezuelan authorities to leave major expanses of the border “to its fate.”

Given the precarious situation on the Venezuela-Colombia border, it is a weak point through which state actors wishing to destabilize Venezuela could easily act. Some evidence, including the aforementioned incident in August 2015, suggests that such action has already taken place. For instance, in March 2017, the Venezuelan military dismantled a right-wing paramilitary camp near the Colombian border, which was stocked with numerous supplies including stolen Venezuelan military uniforms, Colombian military uniforms and — most notable of all — U.S. army uniforms. At the time, teleSUR asserted that the discovery “substantiates claims that the U.S. Army is training right-wing paramilitaries to spread terror in the region.”

More recently, last year, Maduro asserted that Colombian paramilitary groups were “seeping through” the Venezuelan-Colombian border and had been planning to “carry out a series of provocations” before being intercepted by Venezuelan authorities. At the time, he had blamed Colombian oligarchs and the U.S. government for orchestrating the “infiltration.”

Though some may choose to discount Maduro’s claims, the CIA essentially admitted in 2017 that it was actively attempting to foment regime change in Venezuela. In July of that year, Mike Pompeo — then CIA director — stated:

We are very hopeful that there can be a transition in Venezuela and we the CIA is doing its best to understand the dynamic there, so that we can communicate to our State Department and to others.”

He then added:

I was just down in Mexico City and in Bogota a week before last talking about this very issue, trying to help them understand the things they might do so that they can get a better outcome for their part of the world and our part of the world.”

In addition, while the Venezuelan-Colombian border may be used to destabilize the situation by more covert means, the current situation along the border may also provide the U.S. a justification to intervene militarily. Indeed, the presence of the ELN group in both Venezuela and Colombia has led notable U.S. figures — such as the architect of the current coup, Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) — to offer them up as reasons to list Venezuela as a “state sponsor” of terror.

Rubio has been pushing for Venezuela to be added the U.S.’ State Sponsors of Terrorism list for months. Last Saturday, however, Rubio claimed in a tweet that ELN “operates from Venezuela where Maduro has given them safe harbor,” though the group is equally active in both Colombia and Venezuela, Venezuelan soldiers are frequent targets of ELN attacks, and pro-Maduro Venezuela outlets often characterize ELN as an “illegal group”.

Donald Trump, Mike Pence and Sen. Marco Rubio meet with the wife of US-backed Venezuelan opposition leader, Leopoldo Lopez. White House Photo

Though Rubio provided no evidence to support the claim that Maduro has given ELN members “safe harbor,” the growing strength of the group and its violent tactics could be just the pretext the U.S. or its regional allies would need to intervene more directly in Venezuela, especially considering that U.S.-linked think tanks have claimed that the ELN is now present in half of Venezuela. Indeed, making Venezuela an official “state sponsor of terrorism” would allow the U.S. to greatly increase its pressure on the country, both economically and diplomatically.

Left-wing terror group carried out the bombing that killed 21 people in #Colombia.

The groups leaders live in #Cuba under the protection of regime.

And the group operates from #Venezuela where Maduro has given them safe harbor. #StateSponsorsOfTerror https://t.co/5Yaz4A3GVV

— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) January 19, 2019

Other events that have occurred in the past few years have suggested that a role for the U.S. military is in the cards as well — a possibility only strengthened by the emerging “state sponsor” narrative already being fielded by Sen. Rubio. For instance, in 2017, the U.S. military held a major military drill and established a “temporary” military base in close proximity to Venezuela with the governments of Colombia, Peru and Brazil. Since then, following the recent election of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, a Colombian official stated, “If Bolsonaro helps topple Maduro with military intervention, he will have Colombia’s support.” Though Bolsonaro later claimed that he has “no interest” in a military intervention in Venezuela, several of the top officials in his government — including his Vice President, Hamilton Mourao — have repeatedly called for a “humanitarian intervention” in Venezuela. The size and scope of such an intervention, however, has yet to be determined.

These complex situations along its border, the confirmed role of the U.S. in bringing about the country’s political crisis, and the looming possibility of military intervention — by either the U.S. or its regional allies — show that Venezuela currently has many of the same elements that were present in Ukraine in 2014 and Syria in 2011. The U.S. seems intent on bringing about regime change in Caracas by any means necessary, but Washington’s success will largely depend on the actions of Venezuela’s most powerful foreign allies, who incidentally are both Washington’s chief rivals — Russia and China.

Russia and China’s skin in the game

In the event that the internal situation in Venezuela — thanks largely to external pressure — devolves into a major conflict between Guaidó-supporting and Maduro-supporting sides, it will only be a matter of time before both Russia and China join the fray — either directly or indirectly — to prevent a U.S.-backed regime-change effort from succeeding.

A major reason the involvement of Russia and China is a given is that both have invested a tremendous amount of money in the country, particularly after Venezuela’s relationship with the U.S. greatly decayed during the early years of Chavista rule.

By a large margin, the largest foreign sponsors of Venezuela following the rise of the Chavista movement have been Russia and China. Though no exact measures of their investments in the South American nation are available, China is believed to have invested around $70 billion, in the form of loans as well as social projects and maintenance of the country’s oil production infrastructure. Most of those loans are set to be paid back to China in the form of Venezuelan crude. In addition, China and Venezuela have formed several joint ventures involving the production of automobiles, mobile phones and computers, among other goods. These investments and connections make China by far Maduro’s largest and most influential foreign sponsor and creditor.

However, as Foreign Policy wrote in 2017:

If Venezuela collapses …, China faces a large risk of diplomatic and financial blowback. Opposition politicians are well aware that China propped up … Maduro rule. A new Venezuelan government could well refuse to honor the Maduro-era obligations entirely and look to Washington for support instead.”

Russia is believed to have lent and invested around $17 billion in Venezuela over the past 20 years, significantly less than China. However, Russia — through state-run companies such as Rosneft — has gained significant ownership stakes in at least five major Venezuelan oil fields along with several decades worth of the future outputs of Venezuelan-held natural gas fields in the Caribbean. In addition, and most significantly from the U.S. perspective, in 2017 Venezuela offered 49.9 percent of Citgo — its wholly owned U.S. subsidiary — along with three Gulf Coast refineries and its pipeline network as collateral to Rosneft for $1.5 billion.

Rosneft’s interests in Venezuela are so great that its executive chairman, Igor Sechin, stated in 2017 that “we will never leave and no one will be able to kick us out of there.” Yet, as Leonid Bershidsky recently wrote in Bloomberg, “If Maduro falls and a U.S.-backed government takes his place, it’s highly likely that the Russian projects will be suspended and Venezuela’s debts won’t be repaid.”

In addition to the tremendous amount of money on the line for both nations, neither Russia nor China is willing to let the world’s most oil-rich country — with more proven crude oil reserves than Saudi Arabia — see its current government, which is friendly to their interests but hostile to those of the U.S., be toppled and replaced with its polar opposite. Not only would a new U.S.-backed government in Venezuela endanger the billions of dollars in loans that Maduro’s government owes to both countries, it would also endanger the independence of all of Latin America.

Indeed, many Latin American governments in recent years have been targeted by the U.S. for regime change, and most of these attempts were successful, including those in Honduras (2009), Brazil (2016) and Paraguay (2012). Venezuela, with its significant oil and gold reserves, is the obvious prize in the region but also arguably the strongest country opposed to U.S. dominance of the region. Were Venezuela to fall, it would greatly weaken the governments of Maduro’s regional allies, particularly Nicaragua and Cuba.

This is underlined by National Security Adviser John Bolton’s recent creation of a new Latin American “Axis of Evil” that he terms the “Troika of Tyranny,” encompassing Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua. If Venezuela’s government is toppled, Bolton has already given the signal as to which nations will be the subsequent targets of regime-change efforts elsewhere in Latin America. Thus, Russia and China — lest they wish to see a domino effect of the toppling of most of the remaining Latin American countries not dominated by the U.S. — are more likely than not to do everything in their power to prevent the collapse of Maduro’s government.

It is also important to point out that, for its part, the United States can’t really back away either. While the U.S. strategy of “containing” Russia and China has been largely focused on starting and fomenting proxy wars in both geopolitically strategic areas and on their doorsteps, Russia and China’s strategy has been more covert and aimed at reducing their dependence on the U.S.-backed financial system, particularly the U.S. dollar.

This effort to undermine the U.S. dollar has frequently targeted the petrodollar, which has been a major factor in past U.S. military interventions, such as the toppling of Saddam Hussein in Iraq and later Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. In 2017 Maduro, like Hussein and Gaddafi before him, stopped selling Venezuelan oil in dollars. In order to shore up the petrodollar system amid its own looming economic recession, the United States needs a government in Venezuela that will denominate the sale of its oil in dollars to keep the cornerstone of its global hegemony, the U.S. dollar, in demand despite unprecedented threats to its value.

Thus, with neither the U.S. nor its rivals able to back down without ceding a major geopolitical and strategic advantage to the other, it is almost assured that, as the situation in Venezuela escalates,  the involvement of all three will soon make Venezuela the most watched country — and the most dangerous — in the world.

“Another bloody battlefield of the color revolution”?

Given the enormity of their investments in Venezuela and their eagerness to keep the world’s largest oil reserves controlled by a government friendly to them but hostile to their greatest rival, Russia and China have unsurprisingly condemned in no uncertain terms the U.S.’ recent decision to recognize Guaidó as Venezuela’s “legitimate” president.

Russia’s response not only warned the U.S. against the “catastrophic consequences” of its effort to escalate the fragile situation in Venezuela but also hinted that the U.S. decision would lay the groundwork for a civil war. On Thursday, Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, told International Affairs, “We warn against this … We believe that this would be a catastrophic scenario that would shake the foundations of the development model we see in the Latin American region.” In a phone call to Maduro, Russian leader Vladimir Putin described the U.S. move as “destructive interference.”

Then the Russian Foreign Ministry issued a separate statement that described the U.S. move to recognize Guaidó as president as being ”aimed at deepening the split in Venezuelan society, increasing the conflict on the streets, sharply destabilizing the internal political system and further escalation of the conflict,” with such escalation being “fraught with catastrophic consequences.” Some media outlets compared this statement to those made by Russia during past international exchanges with the West prior to intervention in Libya and Syria.

Since then, Russian military contractors have been deployed to Venezuela, which prompted Maduro to promise that Venezuela will not become another “Syria or Libya.” Some reports have claimed that the Russian military contractors have “been charged with stopping opposition sympathizers or members of Maduro’s own forces from detaining him.”

China’s response also hinted that the U.S. decision was aimed at stoking an internal war in the country. In an article published by the Chinese government-aligned Global Times, Beijing stated:

In recent years, Washington has enhanced its interference in affairs of Venezuela and Cuba and attempted to regain influence in Latin America. The fast recognition of Guaidó signaled the strong U.S. desire to intervene in Venezuela’s internal affairs.”

The article went on to note:

All sides must keep calm and be alert about possible provocation to militarily intervene in Venezuela … The international community should encourage forces of Venezuela to peacefully solve the issue within the framework of dialogue. Picking sides will not be conducive to the solution, but intensify the rivalry, worsen the situation and possibly push the nation into long-term turmoil.”

It ultimately added, “Venezuela should not be another bloody battlefield of the color revolution.”

The fact that the responses of both the Russian and Chinese governments to the U.S. decision to back Guaidó directly stated that the U.S. move is set to create another U.S.-backed proxy war masquerading as a “color revolution” is highly significant. Indeed, such clear assertions of this reality not only show how clearly the U.S. is pushing for a major escalation in Venezuela but also show that both Russia and China are aware that their interests in the country are under threat as a direct result of this U.S. push. This greatly increases the likelihood that any continued push for escalation from Washington will trigger strong responses from both countries and could quickly devolve into a tit-for-tat that could eventually develop into a major military conflict.

Is this how WW III gets going?

The current situation in Venezuela — if the U.S. continues to push for fresh escalations — has the potential to morph into one of the world’s most dangerous proxy wars, owing to the size of the prize (world’s largest oil reserves included) and the fact none of the major parties involved can back away without making major concessions to their chief geopolitical rivals. Russia and China, as previously stated, are unlikely to stand idly by as the U.S. installs a government that would undo their years of investment in the country and refuse to pay back billions in loans. Indeed, Russia has already sent military contractors into Venezuela, setting a precedent that could see more significant Russian support for Venezuela in the coming months.

Beyond that is the fact that the U.S. has made it clear that Venezuela if it succumbs to regime change, is merely the first on the new “Troika of Tyranny” list of leftist Latin American governments that the Trump administration seeks to topple. The goal is to make a Latin America that is obedient to the U.S., a crucial part of the ultimate U.S. goal of maintaining the existing unipolar world order. However, both Russia and China know that this goal is a microcosm of Washington’s end game and that they are both the ultimate targets. Such an agenda is hardly a secret given that it is directly stated in the Pentagon’s National Defense Strategy.

However, it would be naive to assume that the U.S. will be planning to escalate only in Venezuela and not in other U.S. proxy conflicts such as Ukraine and Syria. Indeed, just two months ago, there was a flare-up in Ukraine in what is now known as the “Kerch Strait Incident” and provocations in Syria have commonly occurred throughout the conflict, particularly during moments when it seemed things were finally dying down. These flashpoints and more — such as the South China Sea, among others — can all be pressed on rotation by the U.S. in an effort to disorient its Russian and Chinese rivals.

Thus, Venezuela may become host to the latest in what is now a series of proxy wars and flashpoints across the world that Washington has erected as part of its long-term goal of preventing the formation a multipolar world order. And it may quickly become the most dangerous in terms of drawing larger world powers into the conflict, making the risk of a wider world war a striking possibility that cannot be ignored. What happens in Venezuela going forward will have major consequences for the entire region and the world; and, with the U.S. already pushing countries to pick sides, the world may soon become as divided as ever, with the risk of another “great war” looming large.

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Whitney Webb is a staff writer for MintPress News and a contributor to Ben Swann’s Truth in Media. Her work has appeared on Global Research, the Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire, among others. She has also made radio and TV appearances on RT and Sputnik. She currently lives with her family in southern Chile.

Featured image is from tux0racer | CC BY 2.0

The Israeli narrative of a nation/state returning to its homeland after a fifteen hundred year exile requires ongoing deft work by the David Ben-Gurion initiated Governmental Names Committee (Va’adat Hashemot Hamimshaltit, 1949). The Hebraization of Palestine is described in Nur Masalha’s “Palestine – A Four Thousand Year History” a strong scholarly academic addition to the subject of delegitimization of an indigenous people.

The first part of the book covers the era from the Bronze Age – roughly 25 hundred years ago – to the mid Ottoman era and the autonomous governance of al-’Umar and Ahmad Pasha al-Jazzar.  It concentrates its analysis mostly on the name Palestine and its historical precedents in other languages from ancient maps and historical writings.

It does provide a few glimpses into the kind of society represented by the name, but is mostly concerned with the philology of the name itself.

As the work reaches the Ottoman empire, many more sources are used for reference and provide a much stronger perspective on the lifestyles of the indigenous Palestinian people and a split between the urban elites and the majority living in smaller villages and working the land.  In the late Ottoman empire, the early years of Christian Zionism/Orientalism/Biblicism, and in the early years of European based secular nationalist Zionism, more diverse sources are used to emphasize the denial of the indigenous Palestinians through language usage.

Masalha’s theme is simple:  to demonstrate the existence of Palestine through the centuries by studying the language used, its reference in historical works, and how the modern Hebraization brought on by the western Christian Biblical traditions combined with the Zionist enterprise attempts to deny the existence of Palestine and its people.

From that thesis he succeeds remarkably well, providing strong references of the use of the word Palestine up to and including Israeli usage after the 1948 nakba.   But well before that, the Orientalist Christian perspective had already begun the assault on Arabic/Palestinian historical geographic names previously supported by earlier works.

As the study continues into the modern era, many devices are used to erase and cover over any sign of Palestinian geographic inheritance.  Much of the initial changes in western knowledge were brought about by various biblical study groups searching for archeological evidence for their story.  When not finding much of that evidence, biblical names were simply appropriated and used for different regions, down to specific geographic features.  This latter methodology was continued by the early Jewish settlers and strongly reinforced after the creation of Israel.

Appropriation of Arabic names occurred through the process of alliteration, finding – or even inventing – a Hebraic word resembling the Arabic word.  A similar process was used for personal names of the Jewish European settlers by choosing a Hebrew word or as frequently an appropriated Arabic word to create a new patronymic.

One of the strongest methods is simply erasure.  This occurred before, during and after the nakba as many villages were physically destroyed, many others expropriated, and most being renamed using some form of Biblical/Hebraic names.  Erasure continues both geographically and culturally ranging from street signs to educational texts and instructions.

From the general trend of Musalha’s presentation, modern Hebrew is a contrived language, based on a confined liturgical element incorporating by necessity many modern terms, many Arabic/Palestinian terms, and many biblical terms rendered into a semblance of an ancient Hebraic language.  It also clearly demonstrates a history of a region called Palestine at the geographical crossroads of ancient and modern history, surviving under various rulers, some with more autonomy than others, but distinctly Palestinian.

Further, while not denying the existence of an Israeli entity, it is seen as an ongoing part of many different peoples and cultures that inhabited the area at one time or another.   The Israeli myth of a sudden influx of Arabs during the Muslim conquests is compared to the historical record of a gradual introduction of Arabic ideas and peoples into the region before the conquest.  Of note as well are the frequent references to the peaceful mixing and coexistence of the three major religions in the more modern landscape before the advent of the Orientalist Christian Zionism began to usurp the region.

Unfortunately for all that, Palestine – A Four Thousand Year History, has a problem that does not deny its academic argument.  The work for the purpose of spreading this information to the general public is far too scholarly and academic, something I can work through because of my background reading and my intentions as a reviewer, but would prove very difficult to attract attention to a general reader. The first section in particular, while referencing many maps using the word Palestine or its linguistic equivalents, does not provide any visuals – no maps.  A reference section with some plates showing the range of maps from ancient histories through to the British maps of Mandatory Palestine would be a valuable addition to the work.

Having said that, I must reiterate that his arguments support the main thesis very well. The latter half of the book both instructs this thesis and at the same time provides a more reader friendly discussion of not only the geography, but the essence of the people of Palestine.

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Jim Miles is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

TRNN Correspondent Dimitri Lascaris reports from the ground in Caracas about Saturday’s pro- and anti-government marches, highlighting their peacefulness and equal size

Full transcript below.

 

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DIMITRI LASCARIS: This is Dimitri Lascaris, reporting for The Real News from Caracas, Venezuela, on Saturday, February 2. I am standing at the main intersection in the quarter of Mercedes in Caracas. This is an affluent, if not the most affluent, part of the city. And today the opposition led by Guaido has called a massive protest to continue to exert pressure upon the government of Nicolas Maduro to resign.

I would estimate I’ve walked for about six or seven kilometers with protesters who are converging on this point of the city. I’ve been with them now for about an hour, and certainly I would say the crowd is–consists of at least tens of thousands of people. You only see a small part of it here. And by any rational measure it is a very large protest.

And it certainly does indicate, at least for the capital, Caracas, that there is a very significant degree of opposition to the government of Nicolas Maduro. What is also interesting is that the protesters have been quite peaceful. And law enforcement authorities, on their side, have been virtually invisible. I think I’ve seen no more than 25 police officers during the entire six, seven kilometre route that I walked. I’ve seen no military personnel. I haven’t seen any police officers dressed in riot gear. The ones that I did see, the few that I did see, seemed to be there for no other purpose than directing traffic.

What is notable about this, of course, is that Western leaders have characterized Nicolas Maduro as a brutal dictator, and have accused the security forces under his command of having committed numerous atrocities against Venezuelan protesters and those who support the opposition. I’ve seen absolutely no evidence of that here. The one small sign I saw of military presence was that at one point what appeared to be a military helicopter flew overhead as we were walking towards this point. And the crowd waved at the helicopter, and smiled, and started clapping, as if to to send a message of welcome to whoever was piloting the helicopter.

But in any case, one has to contrast these claims that Nicolas Maduro is a brutal dictator to what I’ve seen here today, and to what we see oftentimes in the West. I’ve attended numerous protests in Canada and the United States which were far smaller than this, and sometimes–almost routinely–you’ll see police officers, dozens of them, at sizable protests, dressed in riot gear. And sometimes the police dressed in riot gear, in protests I’ve seen in the United States even outnumbered the protesters.

And let us recall that the figurehead of this opposition, the self-proclaimed president, is openly asking the military to rebel against the elected President Nicolas Maduro, and is effectively fomenting a military coup. Despite that fact, and despite the fact that these protesters are here to show their support for that politician, who has never been elected as president of Venezuela, there’s absolutely no indication, at least at this protest, that the government seeks to suppress the right of those who are opposed to the Maduro regime to express their dissent, and even to call for the removal of the president.

Here I’m in the western part of the city, standing on Avenida Bolivar. And it’s a little bit difficult to tell, I think, from this angle, but this crowd of pro-Maduro Chavista supporters extends all the way down to the end of the Avenue, where that tall building is situated. There are, I would say with confidence, tens of thousands of people out here today just as I saw probably tens of thousands of people at the pro-opposition rally. The people here are very peaceful. The atmosphere is rather festive. Just as I noticed at the opposition rally, there is absolutely no detectable presence of riot police, and no military presence at all. And to the extent there are any police officers at all–and I’ve only seen a smattering of them–they seem to be there to do nothing more than ensure an orderly flow of the protesters and the traffic. Which is quite a contrast to what you see at protests, whether they’re–especially when they’re against the regime, the governing regime, in the West, and Europe, and Canada, and the United States. Nowadays there’s routinely some contingent of riot police present, and sometimes a rather large contingent of riot police.

But here that’s just not the case, and it’s difficult to square the claims that Maduro is a brutal dictator with what one sees on the streets here in Caracas today.

This is Dimitri Lascaris, reporting for The Real News from Caracas, Venezuela.

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Cold War 2.0 has hit South America with a bang – pitting the US and expected minions against the four key pillars of in-progress Eurasia integration: Russia, China, Iran and Turkey.

It’s the oil, stupid. But there’s way more than meets the (oily) eye.

Caracas has committed the ultimate cardinal sin in the eyes of Exceptionalistan; oil trading bypassing the US dollar or US-controlled exchanges.

Remember Iraq. Remember Libya. Yet Iran is also doing it. Turkey is doing it. Russia is – partially – on the way. And China will eventually trade all its energy in petroyuan.

With Venezuela adopting the petro crypto-currency and the sovereign bolivar, already last year the Trump administration had sanctioned Caracas off the international financial system.

No wonder Caracas is supported by China, Russia and Iran. They are the real hardcore troika – not psycho-killer John Bolton’s cartoonish “troika of tyranny” – fighting against the Trump administration’s energy dominance strategy, which consists essentially in aiming at the total lock down of oil trading in petrodollars, forever.

Venezuela is a key cog in the machine. Psycho killer Bolton admitted it on the record;

“It will make a big difference to the United States economically if we could have American oil companies invest in and produce the oil capabilities in Venezuela.”

It’s not a matter of just letting ExxonMobil take over Venezuela’s massive oil reserves – the largest on the planet. The key is to monopolize their exploitation in US dollars, benefitting a few Big Oil billionaires.

Once again, the curse of natural resources is in play. Venezuela must not be allowed to profit from its wealth on its own terms; thus, Exceptionalistan has ruled that the Venezuelan state must be shattered.

In the end, this is all about economic war. Cue to the US Treasury Department imposing new sanctions on PDVSA that amount to a de facto oil embargo against Venezuela.

Economic war redux

By now it’s firmly established what happened in Caracas was not a color revolution but an old-school US-promoted regime change coup using local comprador elites, installing as “interim president” an unknown quantity, Juan Guaido, with his Obama choirboy looks masking extreme right-wing credentials.

Everyone remembers “Assad must go”. The first stage in the Syrian color revolution was the instigation of civil war, followed by a war by proxy via multinational jihadi mercenaries. As Thierry Meyssan has noted, the role of the Arab League then is performed by the OAS now. And the role of Friends of Syria – now lying in the dustbin of history – is now performed by the Lima group, the club of Washington’s vassals. Instead of al-Nusra “moderate rebels”, we may have Colombian – or assorted Emirati-trained – “moderate rebel” mercenaries.

Contrary to Western corporate media fake news, the latest elections in Venezuela were absolutely legitimate. There was no way to tamper with the made in Taiwan electronic voting machines. The ruling Socialist Party got 70 percent of the votes; the opposition, with many parties boycotting it, got 30 percent. A serious delegation of the Latin American Council of Electoral Experts (CEELA) was adamant; the election reflected “peacefully and without problems, the will of Venezuelan citizens”.

The American embargo may be vicious. In parallel, Maduro’s government may have been supremely incompetent in not diversifying the economy and investing in food self-sufficiency. Major food importers, speculating like there’s no tomorrow, are making a killing. Still, reliable sources in Caracas tell that the barrios – the popular neighborhoods – remain largely peaceful.

In a country where a full tank of gas still costs less than a can of Coke, there’s no question the chronic shortages of food and medicines in local clinics have forced at least two million people to leave Venezuela. But the key enforcing factor is the US embargo.

The UN rapporteur to Venezuela, expert on international law, and former secretary of the UN Human Rights Council, Alfred de Zayas, goes straight to the point; much more than engaging in the proverbial demonization of Maduro, Washington is waging “economic war” against a whole nation.

It’s enlightening to see how the “Venezuelan people” see the charade. In a poll conducted by Hinterlaces even before the Trump administration coup/regime change wet dream, 86% of Venezuelans said they were against any sort of US intervention, military or not,

And 81% of Venezuelans said they were against US sanctions. So much for “benign” foreign interference on behalf of “democracy” and “human rights”.

The Russia-China factor

Analyses by informed observers such as Eva Golinger and most of all, the Mision Verdad collective are extremely helpful. What’s certain, in true Empire of Chaos mode, is that the American playbook, beyond the embargo and sabotage, is to foment civil war.

Dodgy “armed groups” have been active in the Caracas barrios, acting in the dead of night and amplifying “social unrest” on social media. Still, Guaido holds absolutely no power inside the country. His only chance of success is if he manages to install a parallel government – cashing in on the oil revenue and having Washington arrest government members on trumped-up charges.

Irrespective of neocon wet dreams, adults at the Pentagon should know that an invasion of Venezuela may indeed metastasize into a tropical Vietnam quagmire. The Brazilian strongman in waiting, vice-president and retired general Hamilton Mourao, already said there will be no military intervention.

Psycho killer Bolton’s by now infamous notepad stunt about “5,000 troops to Colombia”, is a joke; these would have no chance against the 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.

It all comes back to what China and Russia may do. China is Venezuela’s largest creditor. Maduro was received by Xi Jinping last year in Beijing, getting an extra $5 billion in loans and signing at least 20 bilateral agreements.

President Putin offered his full support to Maduro over the phone, diplomatically stressing that “destructive interference from abroad blatantly violates basic norms of international law.”

By January 2016, oil was as low as $35 a barrel; a disaster to Venezuela’s coffers. Maduro then decided to transfer 49.9% of the state ownership in PDVSA’s US subsidiary, Citgo, to Russian Rosneft for a mere $1.5 billion loan. This had to send a wave of red lights across the Beltway; those “evil” Russians were now part owners of Venezuela’s prime asset.

Late last year, still in need of more funds, Maduro opened gold mining in Venezuela to Russian mining companies. And there’s more; nickel, diamonds, iron ore, aluminum, bauxite, all coveted by Russia, China – and the US. As for $1.3 billion of Venezuela’s own gold, forget about repatriating it from the Bank of England.

And then, last December, came the straw that broke the Deep State’s back; the friendship flight of two Russian nuclear-capable Tu-160 bombers. How dare they? In our own backyard?

The Trump administration’s energy masterplan may be indeed to annex Venezuela to a parallel “North American-South American Petroleum Exporting Countries” (NASAPEC) cartel, capable of rivaling the OPEC+ love story between Russia and the House of Saud.

But even if that came to fruition, and adding a possible, joint US-Qatar LNG alliance, there’s no guarantee that would be enough to assure petrodollar – and petrogas – preeminence in the long run.

Eurasia energy integration will mostly bypass the petrodollar; this is at the very heart of both the BRICS and SCO strategy. From Nord Stream 2 to Turk Stream, Russia is locking down a long-term energy partnership with Europe. And petroyuan dominance is just a matter of time. Moscow knows it. Tehran knows it. Ankara knows it. Riyadh knows it.

So what about plan B, neocons? Ready for your tropical Vietnam?

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Pepe Escobar is an independent geopolitical analyst, writer and journalist.

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President Trump, Vice President Pence and National Security Advisor John Bolton escalated threats to launch a war against Venezuela, as large pro- and anti-government demonstrations filled Venezuela’s streets on Saturday.

In an interview with CBS’s “Face the Nation” program that aired before the Super Bowl yesterday, Trump reiterated that military intervention “is an option.” Pence assured a crowd of far-right Venezuelan exiles in Miami on Friday that

“this is no time for dialogue, it is the moment for action, and the time has come to end the Maduro dictatorship once and for all… Those looking on should know this: all options are on the table.”

Bolton, who helped author the playbook that was used to launch the 2003 invasion of Iraq, issued a blunt threat Friday that the US would kill or jail and torture Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro if he did not resign. Comparing Maduro to Nicolae Ceaușescu and Benito Mussolini—both of whom were killed—Bolton told right-wing radio host Hugh Hewitt:

“The sooner he takes advantage of that [i.e., resignation], the sooner he’s likely to have a nice quiet retirement on a pretty beach rather than being in some other beach area like Guantanamo.”

Self-proclaimed “interim president” Juan Guaidó, the US and their allies in South America and Europe are preparing a new provocation aimed at forcing the Venezuelan military to abandon Maduro, with Guaidó announcing that the US will deliver aid at three locations along the Venezuelan border in the coming days.

While Maduro and the Venezuelan military leadership have said they will refuse the aid, the US hopes that images of crowds gathering to receive food and medication will either provoke the military to defect to the opposition and help distribute the aid or provide valuable propaganda footage justifying the need for a “humanitarian” intervention.

Over the weekend, hundreds of armed Colombian soldiers dressed in battle fatigues deployed to one of the three “aid distribution” centers, Cúcuta, on the Venezuela-Colombia border. Colombia’s far-right President Iván Duque issued a statement proclaiming, “Few hours remain to the Venezuelan dictatorship.” At a press conference last week announcing Washington’s moves to topple Maduro, Bolton held under his arm a note pad with the words written in plain view: “5,000 troops to Colombia.”

Guaidó also announced that one of the “aid” locations would be on the border with Brazil, which deployed troops to the border last year, while the third would be on an island in the Caribbean.

The stepped-up pressure produced an initial crack in the Venezuelan military, which remains the backbone of the Maduro government. Over the weekend, one Air Force general and a small group of mid-level Air Force officials defected and issued public statements calling on their colleagues to join them.

Germán Ferrer, a sitting Venezuelan legislator and United Socialist Party member who opposes Maduro, told the CBC that Maduro has disabled combat aircraft for fear the Air Force will turn on the government.

The US is imposing blanket sanctions on Venezuelan oil that amount to a blockade on oil exports. This act of economic war is intended to increase social misery.

Shannon O’Neil of the Council on Foreign Relations told a conference call of bankers, government officials and oil executives last week that the sanctions will lead to “more deprivation, even given the low base we’re at, more among the population.” The sanctions will force thousands to flee the country, she added:

“You’re going to see more refugees pouring into countries throughout the hemisphere and elsewhere around the world.”

The Brookings Institution explained that the present stage of the coup operation is aimed at “building an off-ramp for the Maduro regime.” In the parlance of US imperialism, countries whose leaders do not take the “off-ramp” are, like Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Gaddafi in Libya and Assad in Syria, subject to a hailstorm of bombs and missiles from the air and US troops or proxy armies on the ground.

As the Council on Foreign Relations’ O’Neil told the corporate conference call,

“If it [sanctions] doesn’t work in dislodging this regime, then there’s not a lot left in the toolkit besides things like military intervention.”

A military intervention in Venezuela—population 30 million—could kill hundreds of thousands or millions of people and transform Latin America into an imperialist slaughterhouse.

The geopolitical intelligence think tank Stratfor recently noted,

“A military intervention could quickly snowball into one of the largest worldwide military operations since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.”

Francisco Toro, a Washington Post columnist and anti-Maduro think tank analyst, told the Council on Foreign Relations gathering that a military intervention would lead to “a kind of Syrian civil war” and confrontation between nuclear-armed powers.

He said:

“There is this definite threat that if a military operation takes any amount of time in Venezuela, that other countries then start to move in too. And you can imagine, easily, Brazil moving into the southeast, Colombia into the southwest. You can imagine Russia trying to defend its oil interests, because Russia has big oil investments in Venezuela. You can imagine China doing I don’t know what. And Cuba has already intelligence penetration into the Venezuelan armed forces.”

Maduro’s strategy is three-fold. First, he is seeking to present himself as palatable to US imperialism and open to negotiation with the far-right opposition. Second, he is using the threat of “another Vietnam” as bargaining leverage against a US military intervention. Third, he is violently crushing working class opposition over inflation, poverty and record levels of social inequality.

Maduro rejected the demand of several European imperialist powers that he announce by February 2 the holding of new presidential elections. As the deadline passed, European governments—including the UK, France, Spain, Austria, Portugal, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany—officially joined the US in recognizing Guaidó as president.

Maduro will now participate in large military exercises scheduled to last from February 5 to February 10. His government has also reportedly armed tens of thousands of members of a civilian reserve force with World War Two-era bolt-action rifles in anticipation of a possible invasion.

Key to the government’s strategy is a ferocious military crackdown on working class demonstrations and food riots. While the military and police have maintained a more passive presence at “official” demonstrations held by the right-wing opposition, government forces have murdered dozens of workers and youth participating in demonstrations over lack of access to food, water and other basic necessities.

The Maduro regime has responded to these demonstrations, which largely take place at night in the slum areas, with midnight raids by death squads, “disappearing” working class opponents in an effort to terrorize the areas that once were bastions of support for Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chávez Frias. The corporate media does not report these crackdowns.

In this way, Maduro is attempting to prove to his opponents in the US and Europe—as well as his backers in Russia and China—that he remains the best option for ending instability and keeping the oil flowing.

At its roots, Washington’s intensifying efforts at regime-change in Venezuela are part of a “pivot to Latin America” aimed at eradicating Chinese and Russian influence and transforming the whole Western Hemisphere into the exclusive cheap-labor and primary resource platform for US imperialism.

In November 2018, when Bolton announced the “Troika of Tyranny”—Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua—he was elaborating the strategic view that the US cannot successfully conduct operations against Russia in Eastern Europe, against China in South Asia, or against both Russia and China in Central Asia, without eliminating their presence in “America’s backyard” and freeing up the region’s resources for the US war machine. The establishment of a US-ruled “Fortress Americas” was a central foreign policy component of the “America First” movement in the early 1940s.

In a March 2018 document published by the US Army War College titled “The Strategic Relevance of Latin America in the US National Security Strategy,” the Army notes that in the aftermath of the fall of the dictatorships of the 1970s and 1980s, “most democratic societies in the Western Hemisphere” are “feckless and unconsolidated, thereby representing a threat to the national security of the United States by external actors (such as China and Russia) opposing US interests in the region.”

The strategy document indicated another reason for possible military operations in Venezuela: the need for the US military to test its operating capacities in heavily populated urban areas.

“Latin American megacities are also a laboratory for the US Army in cooperation with its strategic partners in addressing another important issue, or, perhaps, an old issue in the post-Cold War international system: how to fight a conventional war in an unconventional environment,” the document states. “Megacities are the new arena for conflicts in the 21st century. Therefore, the US Government and Army cannot afford to be caught off guard when called upon to exercise and accomplish its mission.”

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The White House decision to withdraw American troops from Syria as soon as possible may or may not be on track depending on whom one believes. But one thing that is for sure is that the recent suicide bomber attack in Manbij, Syria, which killed four Americans and has been attributed to ISIS, has inspired the opponents of the drawdown to renew their claim that the terrorist group is still an active threat to the United States. President Donald Trump is now being subjected to heavy bipartisan and media pressure to reverse his decision.

It is perhaps a coincidence that the attack should take place not long after the White House announcement of the withdrawal, thereby giving ammunition to those who wish to stay in Syria, admittedly illegally, for the foreseeable future. Or is it perhaps something else? Why, one must ask, did ISIS do something against its own interests by attacking Americans and thereby increasing the odds that U.S. armed forces would remain in Syria? Wouldn’t it have been preferable to just let the American military leave, thereby eliminating one enemy from the playing field?

Former arms inspector Scott Ritter, in a detailed analysis of what is going on in Syria, has asked those questions and comes up with an explanation. Far from being an enemy of ISIS, the U.S. has actually served to protect the group. American presence in northeast Syria, where the ISIS remnants are still holding on, has actually prevented the final destruction of the terrorist group. Without the U.S. serving as an impediment, the armed forces of Syria aided by Russia and Iran would have already crushed ISIS in its remaining enclaves.

Thus it is, against all conventional wisdom, the United States that is serving as ISIS’s protector, and the group staged the bombing deliberately with that in mind because it is better from their viewpoint to have American forces remain. They also clearly understood enough about American politics and its media to realize that they would be giving fuel to those in Congress and among the mainstream punditry to put more pressure on Trump to have the troops remain in place.

That is how you start a war, or at least keep one going. It is called deception, or, when carried out by a state actor, a false flag in that the event is capable of being misinterpreted or mis-attributed to produce a desired result. There have been numerous deception operations throughout history used to start wars. The battleship Maine was not blown up by the Spaniards in Havana Harbor in 1898, but it served as a useful pretext to start a war that stripped Spain of its colonies. The Zimmerman telegram in World War I was a phony, but it helped bring the U.S. into the war against Germany. More recently there were the two Gulf of Tonkin incidents, both lies, which dramatically increased American involvement in Vietnam. And one should not forget the largely fabricated humanitarian and national security arguments made to attack Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya.

If one goes by the message coming out of the White House and State Department, it would appear that the next country being targeted by the U.S. for regime change is Iran. And the best way to start the war would be to have the Iranians, or someone pretending to be the Iranians, attack a U.S. naval vessel in the Persian Gulf. If it were carried out by, let us suggest, the Israelis or Saudis, both of whom have motive to do so, it would be a false-flag operation leading to war. It would also be a false flag if the U.S. itself were to carry out the attack pretending to be Iranians. One recalls from the movie “Patton” the general’s hatred of the Russians and his rant at the end of the film, “In 10 days I’ll have us at war with those sons of b****** and I’ll make it look like their fault.” There are, unfortunately, many in D.C. who would support such an approach, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton.

Some observers are concerned that the current lineup of administration hotheads is so devoid of scruples that it might well be planning to either provoke or false-flag the United States into the longed-for war against Iran.

Unfortunately, to a certain extent, Iran is playing into the scheming by America’s hawks. Early in December, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani threatened to stop all shipping passing through the Strait of Hormuz if Washington moves to block Iranian oil exports when sanctions kick in early in May. He said,

“If someday, the United States decides to block Iran’s oil, no oil will be exported from the Persian Gulf.”

Washington for its part is also upping the ante, having sent an aircraft carrier, the USS John C. Stennis, to the Persian Gulf recently as part of a “show of force.” Iran has also beefed up its forces by deploying a considerable naval force to the Indian Ocean near the Persian Gulf, ready to move into the strait and close it if ordered to do so. Iran claims that it “completely controls the strait.”

As nearly 30% of all seaborne oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz with the Stennis and Iranian forces on standby in the same area, the possibility of a fight starting either deliberately or by accident is growing. In early December, State Department Special Representative on Iran Brian Hook declared during a press conference that Washington would “not hesitate to use military force when our interests are threatened . . . the military option on the table.”

One does not have to suggest that either the United States or one of its alleged allies in the Middle East will inevitably take the low road and stage an incident, but the possibility remains it will occur to someone that this would be the easiest path to war. Others, who want war but are more cautious in terms of how they will initiate it, are probably waiting for the May 5 deadline when the U.S. embargo on Iranian oil sales kicks in. Iran will be forced to react, and the U.S. is no doubt preparing to strike back. We will thereby have a new war that serves no one’s interest apart from Israel and the Saudis and which will potentially devastate the region.

The American people will have to do the actual fighting and dying while also paying the bills afterwards and will emerge as the biggest losers.

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This article was originally published on American Free Press.

Philip Giraldi is a former CIA counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer and a columnist and television commentator. He is also the executive director of the Council for the National Interest. Other articles by Giraldi can be found on the website of the Unz Review.

Featured image is from American Free Press

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by Michel Chossudovsky

ISBN Number: 9780973714715

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In this new and expanded edition of Michel Chossudovsky’s 2002 best seller, the author blows away the smokescreen put up by the mainstream media, that 9/11 was an attack on America by “Islamic terrorists”.  Through meticulous research, the author uncovers a military-intelligence ploy behind the September 11 attacks, and the cover-up and complicity of key members of the Bush Administration.

The expanded edition, which includes twelve new chapters focuses on the use of 9/11 as a pretext for the invasion and illegal occupation of Iraq, the militarisation of justice and law enforcement and the repeal of democracy.

According to Chossudovsky, the  “war on terrorism” is a complete fabrication based on the illusion that one man, Osama bin Laden, outwitted the $40 billion-a-year American intelligence apparatus. The “war on terrorism” is a war of conquest. Globalisation is the final march to the “New World Order”, dominated by Wall Street and the U.S. military-industrial complex.

September 11, 2001 provides a justification for waging a war without borders. Washington’s agenda consists in extending the frontiers of the American Empire to facilitate complete U.S. corporate control, while installing within America the institutions of the Homeland Security State.

American Herald Tribune: Why did the US suspend the INF treaty with Russia? Is it a matter of Trump breaking treaties or is it the will of the establishment?

Paul Craig Roberts: Washington withdrew from the INF treaty as part of the attempt, ongoing since the Clinton regime, to achieve military hegemony over Russia. Clinton broke Washington’s word and moved NATO to Russia’s borders. George W. Bush withdrew from the anti-ballistic missile treaty in order to create a shield that would give Washington a first-strike advantage over Russia. Russia responded with hypersonic missiles that cannot be intercepted. Trump withdrew from the INF treaty in order to place missiles on Russia’s borders that permit Russia no reaction time.

A second reason for Washington’s withdrawal is that Washington wants to deploy intermediate-range nuclear missiles against China.

A third reason is that the additional $1 trillion budgeted by the Obama regime for more nuclear weapons needs an excuse, and restarting an arms race by withdrawing from the INF treaty creates an excuse for Washington to hand over $1 trillion more of taxpayers’ money to the military/security complex.

American Herald Tribune: How do you think the government of Nicolas Maduro can survive the US coup? What measures should be employed to secure their economy against US sanctions?

Paul Craig Roberts: Maduro would have to arrest Juan Guaido who without any doubt is guilty of sedition. Maduro would have to arrest the Venezuelan elites who are cooperating with the CIA against the duly elected government of Venezuela, and he would have to nationalize the media to take it out of the hands of coup plotters.  He would also have to ensure that the country’s oil revenues make it into the government’s budget instead of into the hands of thieves and use the resulting financial stability to stop the high inflation.  He should also arrange for Russian troops to protect their airbase and for Chinese troops to protect their oil investment.  The presence of these troops would likely prevent a US invasion from Columbia.

American Herald Tribune: Does Europe have the will to set up its own monetary system independent of the US?

Paul Craig Roberts: Europe has its own central bank and its own currency.  One problem with European financial independence is that large European banks have the same problem as the large New York banks and the European Central Bank cooperates with the Federal Reserve in managing the problem.  The necessity of keeping crisis at bay prevents European independence.  If Europe were to create a payment and clearing system independent of Washington, the likely response would be US sanctions against European firms and banks doing business in the US.  If European firms are unwilling to give up their US business, there is not much Europe can do.

American Herald Tribune: Some say the ‘special purpose vehicle’ SPV, called INSTEX, is an important milestone in the European effort to counterbalance U.S. economic power. What’s your take on that?

Paul Craig Roberts: The same consideration makes it difficult for the Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) and INSTEX, a bartering mechanism that bypasses dollar transactions to continue Europe’s trade with Iran.  Washington has told Europe that if your enterprises want their access to US markets to continue, do as we say with regard to Iran and Russia.  With this being Washington’s attitude, Europe would have to break with the US and redirect its business to other parts of the world.  This would require nationalist leaders such as France’s Marine Le Pen.

American Herald Tribune: Sec. Pompeo tweeted in Farsi against Iran’s government and called Iran’s revolution “40 years of failure”. What is the reason for his disgust of Iran’s Islamic Revolution?

Paul Craig Roberts: Washington’s campaign against Iran reflects Israel’s hold over US foreign policy.  Israel wants to expand in the Middle East, which requires removing the obstacles to that expansion.  On Israel’s agenda is the water resource in southern Lebanon.  Twice Israel has sent its army to occupy the territory and twice was driven out by the Hezbollah militia.  Hezbollah is supplied with funds and arms by Syria and Iran.  Thus, the Israeli-directed US attack on Syria and Iran. If these two countries can be destabilized like Iraq and Syria, Hezbollah will be left without support and unable to oppose Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon.

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This article was originally published on American Herald Tribune.

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