Advertise on more than 70 progressive blogs! |
Peace Patriot's Journal
I totally agree. He should be restored--and the elections postponed--for the length of time that the people of Honduras were denied his leadership. Negotiators should never have permitted the golpistas to shrink Zelaya's term like this. That is extremely unfair and unjust. They've been playing this for time. That is very clear. And if they had a beef against Zelaya, they had plenty of institutions in their control to bring charges and try him while he remained in the office he was elected to, in fair circumstances in which he could defend himself. Instead, they forced him out of the country at gunpoint, and invented these trumped up charges in absentia, even forging his signature on a letter of resignation. They had no case. They just wanted him gone. That, truly, is tyranny.
One of the charges against him was that he wanted the people to vote on lifting his term limit. A strange provision of the Honduran Constitution (which was written by Reagan's henchmen in the 1980s) is that no one can even talk about lifting the term limit on the president--a provision that should long ago have been declared unconstitutional, since it directly contradicts guarantees of free speech. The likely reason that the Reaganites gave the president only ONE four year term, and forbade talk of more, was to have a president who could not accumulate the political power within government to challenge the rule of the "ten families" and US corporate domination, as well as the US military presence in Honduras.
Well, even the worst of Constitutions (and Oscar Arias has called Honduras' Constitution "the worst in the world") cannot outlaw someone merely WANTING something. Zelaya may have wanted his term limit lifted, but he never said any such thing--nor did any of the union leaders, community organizers, religious advocates of the poor and numerous people and groups across Honduras on whose behalf Zelaya proposed an advisory vote yes or no, do you want to convene a Constituent Assembly to discuss and rewrite the Honduran Constitution? This was a call for fundamental reform of Honduras' rancid political system and very bad Constitution, which would have involved all segments of Honduran society, and would have been a good thing. It was no rushed vote on term limits or anything else. It involved all issues, and it was to be an advisory vote--just to get a discussion of change and reform started.
It's important for Zelaya supporters to know this. Zelaya did not break ANY law--not even the strange law against discussing term limits. He did not call for lifting his term limit. The vote he called for could not have done so. He knew that his term would be up in six months. He proposed this vote of the people to begin a general reform discussion in Honduras because he agreed with grass roots groups that one was badly needed.
Zelaya is a reformist--a progressive and an advocate of the poor. He raised the minimum wage in one of the poorest countries in Latin America against the wishes of US corps operating in Honduras, and instituted other such reforms to help the poor majority. And he ran up against the Honduran oligarchy (of which he was a born member until they violently threw him out of the country) and against the rancid rightwing Bushwhacks in this country, with the Obama administration evidently of a mind to toady to the far rightwing on Latin American issues.
Obama at first said the right thing--that Zelaya is "the only president of Honduras" and must be restored to office immediately--but then his envoys caved to the rightwing junta, after making the 'mistake' (if it was a mistake and not deliberate) of permitting this illegal junta to set the conditions for Zelaya's return. It looks very like the Obama administration stabbed Zelaya in the back--but whether that is the case or not, that is how it is being perceived throughout Latin America, and that is a victory for the foaming-at-the-mouth Bushwhacks like Jim DeMint (Puke-SC). Obama's stated policy of peace, respect and cooperation has been successfully sabotaged by the Bushwhacks (whether willingly or not, by Obama, I can't say).
Another factor in this situation--and probably the most important of all--is that Zelaya proposed converting the US military base in Honduras to a commercial airport. The US military is hated throughout Latin America. Its presence is generally considered an assault on the country's sovereignty. And Honduras is in need of a bigger international airport. To most of Latin America, this was a reasonable proposal--but not to the Pentagon which is still working on a Rumsfeld war plan for stealing Latin American oil (in Venezuela and probably Ecuador). Honduras is a strategic war asset in that plan, with a US military base and port facilities on the Caribbean, and a long bloody history of being used as a "stepping stool" for US war in the region. The Pentagon (through the Bush-appointed ambassador to Colombia--a really bad guy) just negotiated basically a South Vietnam-like invasion of Colombia--seven new US military bases there, with 600 US soldiers and 600 US 'contractors' (to start with) all immunized against Colombian laws. Colombia--a country with one of the worst human rights records on earth--is already the recipient of $6 BILLION in US taxpayer-funded military booty.
The seven bases agreement has to come to Congress now, for approval--and this is likely THE most important element in everything that has occurred in the political scene here with regard to Honduras----including the Bushwhacks' blockade of Obama's Latin American appointments. It's all about the war plan and war profiteering.
Honduras is just a "pawn" on the Pentagon's big war game table. The Honduran people want something more--a real country, a real democracy. Zelaya tried to help them with that, with no immediate gain possible for himself, and, as it turned out, at great risk and danger.
One more thought, on the imminent so-called 'elections.' The Junta now has total control of the voting system, and has purged any and all "rule of law" types from government service. They have been brutally suppressing the Honduran people with martial law, suspension of all civil rights, shutdown of opposition media, arbitrary arrests and home invasions, military road blockades, beatings, rapes, torture and murders. At least 26 people have died for Honduran democracy. One political candidate for president had his arm broken by the Honduran police. The two main candidates, from the Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum parties (just like here), both support the junta, and they have gotten all the TV/radio air time, and are also likely among the recipients of John McCain's US taxpayer funded largesse (through the "International Republican Institute"/USAID--$43 million to rightwing gorups in Honduras).
These are the reasons why the Resistance in Honduras, Zelaya himself and his government-in-exile, and all of Latin America (and also the EU) consider these elections to be a farce. The nomination process needs to be re-done, to give the left (which represents the majority--Zelaya has a 67% approval rating in Honduras!) a chance to recover from the brutal repression, and to unify the opposition to the Junta behind one candidate. The Honduran people would mostly likely prefer to have a better choice than T-dee and T-dum, but they have not been given a chance to vet the existing alternative candidates, nor has the left had a chance to address the election in view of the Junta. There might well be another unifying figure besides Mel Zelaya. Mrs. Zelaya comes to mind--a great and brave woman who has marched at the head of protests after her husband was violently torn from her side--but there are many other potential candidates for president among the Resistance leaders--the union leaders and others who have shown such fantastic organizing skills in the midst of martial law. Also, I believe other offices are up for election as well--seats in the national assembly, etc. The left needs a chance to nominate candidates and to campaign for all offices.
So this would be a program for fair elections:
1. Postpone the elections for six months, and restart the nomination process.
2. Zelaya is restored to his rightful office, with full presidential powers, during that period.
3. The election is conducted entirely by the OAS, with no participation by the Honduran military.
4. And, of course, all civil rights fully restored, starting now.
There should also be a vote on the Constituent Assembly. The people of Honduras overwhelmingly favor this fundamental reform process. Oscar Arias (who acted as a US agent in this affair) said that if Honduras cannot hold a fair election, the "only solution" is a Constituent Assembly. But if Honduras can hold a fair election--as per the above--the Constituent Assembly issue may arise naturally as part of the campaign, if campaign conditions are fair. The issue of reform SHOULD arise naturally out of a campaign process, in a country that is so badly in need of reform.
What are the chances of these things happening? Pretty much nil, since Obama abandoned Zelaya. The Junta has found that the Bushwhacks here are the real powers on US Latin American policy. They thus will never permit fair elections in Honduras. The real powers in the US--US-based global corporate predators and war profiteers, and their Bushwhack political lackeys--do not want fair elections in Honduras, so they will not happen--not in the immediate future anyway. I think they will happen eventually, if Latin America maintains solidarity on this matter (which they seem to be doing), but probably not without considerable cost to the Honduran people, in continued resistance and continued and worsening poverty.
Latin Americans have been moved by a passion for real democracy, and woe betide anyone who attempts to blockade people with that particular passion in their souls. It is an unstoppable historic movement, much like our own initial revolution.
I am quoting the entire linked article, because it is so complex--reflective of the Byzantine nature of our anti-democratic, corpo-fascist run government. I'm also boldfacing the "players" listed, because we need to identify and dig deeper into the actions of these foreground "players" if we are ever to understand this situation and effectively strategize to support real democracy in Honduras (and throughout Latin America). ---- U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT SELLS OUT HONDURAN DEMOCRACY FOR SENATE CONFIRMATIONS
Written by Laura Carlsen
Thursday, 12 November 2009
Source: Americas Mexico Blog
• Policy change to recognize elections without reinstatement of Zelaya torpedoes peace agreement, mollifies Republicans and alienates Latin America
• President Zelaya pronounces Tegucigalpa-San Jose Accord a “dead letter”
• Anti-coup organizations call for elections boycott on Nov. 29
In one of the lowest points in U.S. diplomatic history, the State Department announced a turnabout in its Honduran policy and stated it will recognize the results of Nov. 29 elections even if held under the military coup.
The new strategy to promote elections without first assuring a return to constitutional order torpedoes the accord that the State Department itself brokered and was signed by President Manuel Zelaya and coup leader Roberto Micheletti on Oct. 29.
On Nov. 4, just days after Secretary of State Clinton anounced a major breakthrough in resolving the Honduran political crisis, Asst. Secretary of State Thomas Shannon stated in an interview with CNN that “the formation of the National Unity Government is apart from the reinstatement of President Zelaya” and that the Honduran Congress will decide when and if Zelaya is reinstated. His surprise declaration scuttled the point of reinstatement in the agreement, leaving the matter up in the air while confirming that the U.S. government will recognize elections anyway.
U.S. Ambassador to the Organization of American States, Lewis Anselem and Ambassador to Honduras Hugo Llorens confirmed this new position. At the OAS meeting, Anselem, whose disparaging remarks toward Latin American countries have alienated many southern diplomats, criticized the other nations’ refusal to recognize elections staged by a coup regime, “I’ve heard many in this room say that they will not recognize the elections in Honduras… I’m not trying to be a wiseguy, but what does that mean? What does that mean in the real world, not in the world of magical realism?”
Llorens also portrayed the new policy as pragmatism, stating on Nov. 8, “The elections will be part of the reality and will return Honduras to the path of democracy.”
The repeated use of "reality" as the justification for the policy change shows an attempt on the part of the State Department to unilaterally impose a definition of Honduran reality—contrary to its own previous definition and that of the international community. This unilateral diplomacy harks back to Bush foreign policies that many Americans and Latin Americans believed had been thrown out with the incoming Obama administration
The Diplomacy of Deceit
As analysts piece together the events of the past few days that took us from breakthrough to breakdown in international efforts to restore rule of law in Honduras, the real story emerges.
As former ambassador Robert White writes today, Tom Shannon met with Republican Senator Jim DeMint on Oct. 20 and DeMint urged him to recognize the Honduran elections without the reinstatement of Zelaya. DeMint offered to release his holds on Shannon's nomination to the ambassadorship of Brazil and the nomination of Arturo Valenzuela to fill Shannon's shoes as Asst. Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs.
DeMint, who traveled to Honduras to meet with the coup regime last month, had blocked these two key State Department nominations ostensibly in protest of the administration’s policies to reinstate Zelaya.
White reports that there is every indication that Shannon had already formulated this critical change in policy to abandon the demand for reinstatement when he flew down to Tegucigalpa on Oct. 28, and that coup leader Roberto Micheletti knew this. That left only President Zelaya and the rest of the world in the dark as to the real goal of the negotiations.
What will surely go down in the books as one of the worst diplomatic agreements ever, was hammered out by the State Department team—Shannon, joined by Obama advisor Dan Restrepo and the man who has now been sent in to try to clean up the mess, Craig Kelly. It was signed by the two parties on Oct. 29.
The agreement includes a commitment to form a Government of National Reconciliation by Nov. 5. It calls for the Honduran Congress to vote on returning presidential powers with no deadline whatsoever. It includes a non-binding opinion from the Supreme Court, again with no deadline.
In retrospect the trap is clear. The agreement left open the absurd but possible solution of having the coup form the unity government without a legitimate president, with non-compliance made to seem the fault of Zelaya if he refused to participate. So why did Zelaya sign?
Many of us believed at that point that the State Department was negotiating in good faith to reinstate the president and that the Congressional vote was merely a face-saving measure for the coup. Zelaya had laid out a position in negotiations that it should be the Congress, and not the Court, that made the decision to revoke the destitution decree. In the context of unspoken agreements with members of the Honduran Congress and the U.S. State Department, the understanding was that the need to hold recognized elections and the threat of more sanctions had finally broken the intransigence of the coup and paved the way for a return to constitutional rule.
Lest there be any doubt about the deal, DeMint released a press statement bragging “Senator secures commitment for U.S. to back Nov. 29 elections even if Zelaya is not reinstated.”
The statement reads, “I am happy to report the Obama Administration has finally reversed its misguided Honduran policy and will fully recognize the November 29th elections... Secretary Clinton and Assistant Secretary Shannon have assured me that the U.S. will recognize the outcome of the Honduran elections regardless of whether Manuel Zelaya is reinstated. I take our administration at their word that they will now side with the Honduran people and end their focus on the disgraced Zelaya.”
He goes on to lay out his scenario for the anachronism of the first elections staged by a military coup in the 21st century.
“Now, thanks to the Obama Administration’s welcome reversal, the new government sworn into office next January can expect the full support of the United States and I hope the entire international community. I trust Secretary Clinton and Mr. Shannon to keep their word, but this is the beginning of the process, not the end. I will eagerly watch the elections, and continue closely monitoring our administration’s future actions with respect to Honduras and Latin America.”
The Washington script played out. On Nov. 9, the Senate confirmed Valenzuela. DeMint lifted his hold on Shannon's confirmation, although another Republican stepped up to protest, this time over Cuba policy. With Shannon's confirmation still blocked, it seems the Republicans repaid the diplomat in his own coin.
DeMint's crowing is understandable. The recent machinations mean that a rightwing coup could remain in power to preside over elections in which only pro-coup candidates are likely to participate. It means a setback—not defeat—of the popular movement to hold a constitutional assembly and push forward with policies to relieve the suffering of the poor and build greater equality.
But DeMint cannot take full credit for the reversal. The Clinton State Department had been signalling a reversal on the commitment to restore Zelaya for months. Statements became more and more ambivalent, sometimes saying it supported Zelaya's return and others calling only for a "return to constitutional order" without mentioning Zelaya even when pressed. This past week was the first time that it marked a clear "no-Zelaya" strategy option.
In Whites's words, "As Shannon well knew, this change of policy would give away the principal leverage the U.S. could bring to bear to persuade the de facto government to permit the prompt return of President Zelaya." By going back on the commitment to withhold recognition of elections held under a coup regime, the U.S. government has given coup leaders and the armed forces a green light to remain in power until a new president is sworn in on Jan. 27.
That president, if indeed the crisis doesn't explode into even greater proportions before then, will likely not be recognized by most of the countries in the hemisphere or a huge percentage of the Honduran population. Governance in these conditions will be impossible. Unless Zelaya is restored immediately, the groundwork has been laid for a prolonged and severe period of violence and unrest in Central America.
Move Producces Anger and Distrust in Latin America
The Honduran Congress has set no date for voting on reinstatement of President Zelaya and indicated he will not be reinstated before the elecitons.
Recall that Zelaya’s reinstatement was the key point of the San José Accords that the State Department organized under the auspices of Costa Rican president Oscar Arias, and the center of resolutions in the United Nations and the Organization of American States, both supported by the U.S. government.
The UN declaration resolves, “To reaffirm that President José Manuel Zelaya Rosales is the constitutional President of Honduras and to demand the immediate, safe, and unconditional return of the President to his constitutional functions.”
The July 1 resolution of the OAS, “Demands the immediate and unconditional restoration of the legitimate and Constitutional Government of the President of the Republic, Mr. José Manuel Zelaya Rosales, and of the legally established authority in Honduras;” Honduras was suspended from the OAS as a result of the failure to reinstate President Zelaya, amid ongoing diplomatic efforts to achieve that end.
The new U.S. position has raised the ire of other Latin American countries. At a meeting of the OAS Nov. 10, many expressed a commitment not to recognize coup-held electons. Secretary General Jose Insulza stated that the organization would not send elections observers to Honduras.
The Rio Group, which includes the U.S.’s most powerful allies in the region, Mexico and Brazil, issued an unequivocal statement Nov. 6 calling for the immediate reinstatement of Zelaya. It was signed on to by the meeting of Latin American and Caribbean (foreign) ministers held simultaneously in Montego Bay.
The 24 Latin American nations stated, “The immediate reinstatement of president Jose Manuel Zelaya in the office to which he was elected by the Honduran people constitutes an indispensable prerequisite to re-establish constitutional order, rule of law and democracy in Honduras, as well as for the normalization of relations between the Republic of Honduras and the Rio Group and for it to be possible to recognize the results of elections scheduled to take place on Nov. 29.”
Craig Kelly, one of the architects of the diplomacy of deceit revealed in the Oct. 29 agreement, has now been dispatched to patch things up. He did not receive a warm welcome from President Zelaya and unless he carries a mandate for repentence in his briefcase, he will have very little room to maneuver.http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/vi... / ------ Magbana replies to all this: ------ In an article yesterday, Laura Carlsen, suggests that the State Department sold out Honduran democracy in order to unfreeze the hold Sen. DeMint put on diplomatic post confirmations. I doubt this. I think the US had little to sell in that regard since Honduran democracy was never a priority.
But, here is another angle you might want to consider. The hold on Valenzuela’s confirmation prevented him from being in Honduras when Tom Shannon put the screws to President Zelaya last week and from being anywhere near the US’ decision to recognize the November 29th election without reinstatement of Zelaya. Valenzuela’s lack of involvement in the questionable US role in Honduras allows him to come to his new job with clean hands. More importantly, should there be any congressional inquiry in the future about the US’ shenanigans in Honduras, Valenzuela will have “plausible deniability.”
As of now, there is still a hold on Shannon’s confirmation to be ambassador to Brazil and maybe that will be lifted after the Honduran election takes place. DeMint lifted his hold on Shannon’s confirmation at the same time he lifted the hold on Valenzuela. But, retiring Florida Sen. Mel Martinez’ replacement, Sen. George Lemieux, placed a hold on it immediately thereafter. This leaves Shannon in limbo as Valenzuela is in Shannon’s job now and Shannon has yet to hit the beaches of Ipanema.
For the State Department, the more daylight between Shannon’s duplicitous deeds in Honduras and his diplomatic post in the powerhouse of Latin America, the better. I am sure that the Brazilian diplomats in Tegucigalpa have received an earful from Zelaya about what went down with Shannon.http://hondurasoye.wordpress.com/2009/11/1... / ------------------------------------------- I don't think either of these articles is very enlightening as to what really went down in Honduras. I think that what really went down happened at the Obama-Clinton-Pentagon (top brass)-James Baker (Bush Cartel) level, not at the Shannon-Valenzuela-DeMint-Lemieux level (the foreground theater). And I fear that it is very, very, VERY bad, and basically has to do with Rumsfeld's oil war plan for South America and some hold that the Bush Cartel has on Obama. This may go way back to a deal that I think Daddy Bush engineered, in circa late 2006, to rescue Junior from Cheney/Rumsfeld's plan to nuke Iran. The deal offered Bush/Cheney immunity from impeachment/prosecution in exchange for their not nuking Iran (an action that may have brought nuclear powers China and Russia into the fray, on Iran's side--a potential Armageddon). The deal also required Rumsfeld's resignation, although he was probably also given immunity. If this is what occurred in late 2006, then several things follow. One is that the next president of the US had to agree to "the deal." And, with the US voting system now entirely in the discretionary control of a handful of far rightwing voting machine corporations, the global corporate predators and warmongers who rule over us are in a position to easily--EASILY!--determine election outcomes. The candidates were vetted on this "deal," and only those who agreed to abide by it were allowed to go forward. Obama has certainly acted like he agreed to immunity from prosecution for the Bush Junta principles. (His stated reason for not investigating/prosecuting these rancid war criminals--that "we must look forward, not backward"--is absurd on its face, and, from a Constitutional scholar, disgraceful.) Secondly (given an "Iran is off the table" scenario): If the US military's huge war machine was not to get its next oil supply from Iran, where would it get it? What I'm getting at is just about the worst thing that I was hoping against hope was not true--that Obama has agreed to the war plan, or, at the least, has agreed to not blocking the war preparations--the Honduran coup (securing the US military base in Honduras), the SEVEN new US military bases in Colombia, the $6 BILLION in military aid to Colombia, the re-activation of the US 4th Fleet in the Caribbean, the continued, virulent psyops-disinformation campaign against Chavez and other leftist leaders--perhaps in the hope (Obama's) that they will not block his re-election in 2012 (and give him an even worse Puke/'Blue Dog' controlled Congress in 2010). Then he will at some point have to decide what his response to the next "Gulf of Tonkin" will be (Colombian/Venezuelan border, or their coastal waters) when the Pentagon springs it on him. The corrupt, failed, murderous US "war on drugs" is both a huge war profiteer boondoggle, and cover for war preparations. Obama has thus far done nothing to stop the war profiteering OR the use of the "war on drugs" to surround Venezuela's main oil reserves and operations (north Venezuela/Caribbean coast) with US war assets (in Colombia, Honduras, Panama and the Caribbean). I thought there was a "hawks vs doves" struggle going on within our government over this war plan that Rumsfeld left on the desk, maybe with Obama on the right side (the "dove" side) of the struggle. I thought I saw, in the Honduran situation as it developed, his increasing awareness of the war planning and his increasing control of the Pentagon, the Bushwhack diplomatic corps in Latin America and other deep insurrectionist elements in our government and national political establishment. It may be true that Obama was NOT lying when he stated his policy for Latin America (peace, respect and cooperation), but he has lost the "hawks vs doves" struggle, for whatever reason (deals he made that are now tying his hands; other ways they've tied him down--Diebolding a Puke/'Blue Dog' Congress into place). OR, he has been a war stalking horse all along--a thing I would hate to believe about him. My gut feeling is that his hands are very tied by deals or election blackmail--that his inclination is peaceful but he doesn't have the power to establish a peaceful policy. What we are seeing in these two articles are the operatives in the foreground, as Obama (or "dove" proponents in his circle of advisers) lost the "hawks vs doves" struggle. This would explain the confusion, ambivalence and reversals of US policy. The Pentagon intends to get its next oil supply from South America--by toppling the Chavez government (and probably the Correa government in Ecuador), likely through a civil war/invasion scenario, no matter what Obama thinks about it. If he tries to stop it, he will be Diebolded out of office in 2012. If he doesn't (or can't), we are likely going to see South Vietnam all over again, as Colombia is prepped as the main proxy army and puppet government for an attempted US assault on Venezuela/Ecuador and takeover of their oil resources. The main beneficiary of this yet more genocidal quest for oil will be Exxon Mobil and brethren, who will get the contracts (as they just did in Iraq) and charge US taxpayers $500/barrel, or whatever the fuck they are currently charging the US military. (I read $500/barrel somewhere this week, but it wasn't documented--I think it was for oil to Afghanistan.) OIL! That is the deep background for the struggle in Honduras. And, while it's important to identify the foreground "players," and understand what they have done and hold them accountable (however we can), and, while I am grateful to the writers of these two articles for doing so, and for trying to analyze the foreground "play," I do think it's rather useless, as to a strategy for the left, merely to blame Shannon, or DeMint--or even Obama and Clinton-- and not see James Baker in the background. Rumsfeld signaled the war plan by his op-ed in the Washington Psst, in Dec 2007. Baker signaled one of the war preliminaries in his op-ed in the same CIA rag of a few weeks ago--the reversal of Obama policy on recognizing the coup elections in Honduras. Both of these op-eds went by unnoticed by leftist commentators. But both are absolutely crucial to understanding what the REAL rulers of the U.S. intend. Rumsfeld's op-ed was directly related (in its very first paragraph) to the effort to lure Hugo Chavez into negotiating with the FARC for hostage releases, and then pulling the rug out from under him and later accusing him of being a "terrorist lover." This was the leadup to the US/Colombian bombing/raid on Ecuador (March 2008), in which ten 500 lb US "smart bombs" blew away the FARC hostage negotiator and all hopes for peace in Colombia's 40+ year civil war. After his preface--that Chavez's help with FARC hostage negotiations is "not welcome in Colombia" (though it had been days before)--Rumsfeld then suggests bombarding the internet with anti-Chavez propaganda and urges "swift action" by the US in support of "friends and allies" in Latin America. Baker, in his op-ed of a few weeks ago, lays out the plan that US diplomats in fact carried out this week--an ugly backstabbing of Zelaya and abandonment of Obama's explicitly stated policy of no recognition of the Honduran election without Zelaya's reinstatement. James Baker--the engineer of the election coup d'etat here in 2000--is, in my opinion, orchestrating this coup and its election absurdity in Honduras, on behalf of the Bush Cartel. James Baker does not weigh in for no reason. Nor does Donald Rumsfeld (who had resigned from the Pentagon a year before his op-ed on Chavez/Latin America). These deep background power players have ONE OVERRIDING OBSESSION and it is OIL! There is really no other good explanation for this sudden reversal of an EXPLICITLY STATED Obama policy. You have to believe that Obama is a goddamned liar and a complicit Bush Cartel tool to explain this reversal, and I don't buy either of those things. The US war machine has been in motion all along on this coup, but they only exercised whatever vulture clutch they have on Obama this week, following James Baker's op-ed. It is not Shannon. It is not Clinton. It is not DeMint. It is the same people who hijacked the US military to invade Iraq--at the cost of a million innocent lives--to steal their OIL.
to begin with, in this deal with Colombia (they said "only" a few hundred US "advisers" in Vietam, early on). They will be immune from Colombian laws. And seven new US military bases will be established in Colombia--a government with one of the worst human rights records on earth--already receiving $6 BILLION in US military aid. Extremely corrupt US puppet government that will do whatever the Pentagon says, to keep that military booty coming. The Pentagon will be using all the civilian airports as well. There is this melding of civilian/military as in Vietnam. The government is militaristic. That is the only way it can stay in power, propped up by lavish US military spending.
Thousands of political leftists, labor leaders, human rights workers, journalists, small peasant farmers and others--people who advocate for the very poor majority of Colombians--have been slaughtered by the Colombian military and its closely tied rightwing paramilitary death squads. The chaos caused by the US "war on drugs" is like the chaos that the CIA was causing in Vietnam--brutal repression of the Buddhists, for instance--to get rid of the US installed president, Diem, before JFK could arrange neutral status for Vietnam in the "Cold War"--as had been arranged for Laos. (This is documented in James Douglass' book, "JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died And Why It Matters"--a very important book.) The US "war on drugs" has caused displacement of several million people in Colombia--mainly extremely pour peasant farmers, some driven from their lands by toxic pesticide spraying, others mostly by the Colombian military and its death squads (whom a UN human rights reports just said are responsible for 75% of the extrajudicial murders in Colombia). Many of the displaced have fled over the borders into Venezuela and Ecuador, mostly from the Colombian military and its death squads. This kind of mayhem is designed to easily control a country's population--much like Rumsfeld used in Iraq, and certainly like the CIA used in Vietnam--to bend every event and every resource toward whatever the US purpose is.
The objects of all of this military spending and basically US invasion of Colombia--"invited" by the very corrupt government (also similar to Vietnam)--is neither drug interdiction nor the FARC leftist guerrillas of Colombia's 40+ year civil war. The object appears to me to be to create a launching pad into neighboring countries--rather like Honduras was for the Reagan killers in the 1980s (launching death squads into Nicaragua and El Salvador) but on a much bigger scale. The destinations for the launching pad would be Venezuela's main oil region adjacent to Colombia in the north (on the Caribbean--where the US 4th Fleet is now roaming, reconstituted by the Bushwacks) and into Ecuador's main oil region adjacent to Colombia to the south. The object of the CIA in Vietnam was to create a civil war. They established the corrupt South Vietnamese government and funded it and its army, in opposition to the far more legitimate government of Ho Chi Minh (the country's liberator from the French colonialists) in the North. The oil war plan that I think Rumsfeld left on the desk for South America may involve creating civil wars in Venezuela's and Ecuador's oil regions.
In fact, Ecuador's president has stated publicly that there is a coordinated rightwing plot to instigate secessionist movements against the governments of three countries--Ecuador, Venezuela and Bolivia. The Bushwhacks tried out the secessionist idea last September in Bolivia, with the white separatist movement, which wanted to split off Bolivia's gas/oil rich eastern provinces into a fascist mini-state in the control of Bolivia's main resource. That effort failed, but it may be tried again. Fascist politicians in Venezuela's and Ecuador's oil regions openly talk of secession. This is another similarity to Vietnam--rightwing malcontents and greedbags getting lots of US aid, and the US then being invited to invade the country in 'defense' of these 'patriots', and running their own war for their own purposes. Though the object in Vietnam was not oil--the notion of instigating a civil war, by providing material support to forces who otherwise would not have had the support or wherewithal to oppose a legitimate government, is hauntingly familiar.
Those of us who have been following events in these countries over the last several years know that the US/Colombia have already rehearsed a joint bombing/raid into Ecuador (the bombing/raid that killed 25 sleeping people in Raul Reyes' temporary hostage release camp just inside Ecuador's border). That raid was useful for stopping all hope for peace in Colombia's civil war, for psyops against Ecuador's leftist president, as well as against Chavez, and for a third purpose (possibly the main one) of a US/Colombia coordination of forces in staging a border incident. As to psyops, the Colombians claimed to have seized Reyes' laptop computer--at a site that was blasted by ten 500 lb US "smart bombs" (according to the Ecuadoran military, who also said that Colombia did not have the capability to deliver such bombs)--and then began issuing wild statements saying, for instance, that Chavez was helping the FARC get a "dirty bomb," and that Correa was also a "terrorist lover." The incident almost caused a war between the US/Colombia and Ecuador/Venezuela (March 2008). Lula da Silva of Brazil credits Chavez with preventing it.
So, clearly the region is being set up for another "Gulf of Tonkin"-type incident, which would be triggered when the secessionist forces inside Venezuela's and Ecuador's oil regions are ready to "declare their independence" and ask for US/Colombian support. And I believe this is what Rumsfeld was talking about, in his op-ed of 12/1/07 in the Washington Post, in which he urges "swift action" by the US in support of "friends and allies" in Latin America. (The op-ed is entitled, "The Smart Way to Defeat Tyrants Like Chavez.")
Another parallel to Vietnam--and one of the spookiest ones--is the QUIETUDE in the US about the buildup of US military forces in South America. This is very similar to what was happening in the US circa early 1960s, while the CIA manufactured a war in Vietnam, and JFK eventually turned against it and tried to stop it. Three days after JFK's assassination, LBJ said, "Now they can have their war." He was talking about Vietnam. There is more to this, but I won't go into it here. My point is that these dire events that were occurring within the government--for instance, the struggle between JFK and the CIA and the Joint Chiefs over nuking Russia, and over Vietnam--the American people had no idea that our government was planning a war that would kill 2 million people in Southeast Asia, and over 55,000 US soldiers. By the 1964 election (after Kennedy's death the previous November), LBJ could run as "the peace candidate" (and win by a huge landslide) and the voters did not know that he was lying. (I remember it well. It was my first vote for president. I voted for peace!) By 1965, we were in a full-scale war in Vietnam, on the basis of the "Gulf of Tonkin" incident which has been manufactured--invented, made up, not real.
The deal for establishment of seven new US bases in Colombia was done in secret, excluding the Colombian congress and people. Neither was there any consultation with other South American leaders, all of whom have objected to this US buildup. But the Great Quiet in the US is even more remarkable and disturbing. The seven bases deal has to come to the US Congress for approval. The Bushwhack appointee to the Colombian embassy, Brownfield--a very bad dude, believe me--just "signed" this deal in Colombia on behalf of the US government. I have no idea what President Obama thinks of it, but he may be helpless to prevent it, even if he opposes it. Jim DeMint is blackmailing Obama, by holding up all of this Latin America appointments, ostensibly because Obama opposed the rightwing coup (DeMint's good buds) in Honduras, but this blackmail may be more connected to the Colombian seven bases deal, with very significant war profiteer booty involved--but even more than this, with a WAR PLAN involved, lurking somewhere in the Pentagon, out of sight, out of mind.
It took four months for the White House to understand the high cost that a coup regime would exact in the region. Beset by the various problems which he faces in his foreign policy, above all, by the rapid deterioration of the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan and the miring of his troops in Iraq, Obama wrested the steering wheel from his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, the main architect of support for the putschists, and sent Thomas Shannon to Tegucigalpa with the task of restoring order in the tumultuous back yard. Shortly afterward, Micheletti shelved his bravado and meekly accepted what had previously been unacceptable. Of course, Shannon had just laid down the imperial mandate. To sweeten the moment, he publicly expressed his admiration for the two leaders of Honduran democracy: the putschist and the deposed.
November 1, 2009
Honduras: An Improbable Solution
By Atilio A. Boron
English translation: Machetera
-----------------
It'll be interesting to see if this turns out to be the common perception in Latin America--that Hillary Clinton was the bad guy as to the coup, not Obama. I don't know if this writer is just guessing, or has some confirming scuttlebutt. He makes this statement confidently, but without backing it up at all.
It is certainly true that the US seemed to be a "house divided" over the last four months, with Obama saying the right things--Zelaya must be restored, etc.--from Day One, but the US not acting aggressively (as it obviously had the clout to do, when Shannon swooped in) to oust the coup. I wasn't sure about Clinton (and I still am not), primarily because Jim DeMint (a Bushwhack puke) has been blackmailing Obama on Honduras (or ostensibly on Honduras), holding up all Obama's Latin America appointments because Obama supported Zelaya. I had it figured that Obama/Clinton refrained from officially deeming this a military coup, because US law would then not only trigger automatic, severe economic sanctions, but required that the matter be approved by Congress, and the Bushwhacks had set it up so that Jim DeMint was laying in wait for Obama to hand him his ass on this--a stunning setback on L/A policy.
I thought it may have been quite a shrewd move by Obama/Clinton to keep the matter out of Congress, and that seemed very Clintonian. We may not agree with Clinton on much, but she is without question a smart political maneuverer. It was looking to me like an internal "hawks vs doves" (Bushwhack vs Obama) power struggle, within the US government (rife with Bushwhack moles), with both Obama and Clinton struggling to gain control of the government, and Clinton possibly on Obama's side. (She may be a corpo-fascist herself, but she was trying to implement Obama's stated policy of peace, respect and cooperation--and the cooperation part involves deals they want with Brazil, whose president has backed Zelaya 100%.)
So, I suspected Bushwhack moles in the Pentagon, the CIA and the State Dept. (the diplomatic corps, particularly) working with DeMint, McCain, James Baker, Negroponte, et al, to, a) sabotage Obama's policy of peace, respect and cooperation in L/A, and b) secure an important asset (the US military base in Honduras) for Rumsfeld's oil war plan in S/A.
As to the latter, another part of the war plan has EXTREMELY QUIETLY been "signed" this week in Colombia, by the Bushwhack operative in the embassy (Amb. Brownfield)--a deal negotiated in secret, excluding Colombia's congress and its people, and without consulting other L/A leaders (who have strongly objected) for the establishment of seven new US military bases in Colombia. With those bases, the US air/naval bases in Honduras and the US 4th Fleet (reconstituted by the Bushwhacks in summer '08), the US military has Venezuela's main oil reserves and operations (northern Caribbean coast) surrounded. In addition to war planning, these war assets involve a whole lot of US taxpayer booty. The 7-bases deal involves 600 US soldiers and 600 mercenaries and military contracts of every kind and more military aid for Colombia (already receiving $6 BILLION from you and me)--a country with one of the worst human rights records on earth. And this deal for new bases DOES have to be approved by the US Congress. That is where it is heading next.
These things--the Honduran coup, the 7 new US bases in Colombia, the US 4th Fleet and other actions were set in motion prior to Obama, and it is very difficult to know for sure what he thinks of them, but if he wants peaceful relations in L/A, and wants deals with Brazil, consider this: Brazil's president has not only backed Zelalya 100%, he has said that the US 4th Fleet is a threat to Brazil's oil fields (not just Venezuela's), and it is Brazil that proposed a "common defense" in the context of the newly formalized S/A "common market," UNASUR. The new left in L/A (an overwhelmingly successful political movement, with leftist presidents elected in almost every country) considers the US military a threat. They don't like it or the US "war on drugs." Latin Americans overwhelmingly want the US military out of their countries. Ecuador, Bolivia and Paraguay have kicked them out, recently. Interestingly, Mel Zelaya had proposed converting the US military base in Honduras to a commercial airport--which likely sealed the coup from the point of view of Pentagon war planners, and may be why the US commanders at their Honduran base stood down when the plane carrying the kidnapped president stopped at that base for refueling. There may be other reasons for that stand-down, but collusion with the coupsters is the no. 1 probability. (And a very interesting question is: Who gave that order to stand down? Obama? Clinton? Neither? The Bushwhack ambassador? The "Southern Command" acting on its own? )
Anyway, this is the line-up of things in Latin America: hawks vs doves; war planning and hostility vs peaceful cooperation. Obama on one side (stated policy) and an array of Bushwacks and warmongers on the other. Where is Clinton in all this? Is she paving the way for war, or trying to implement a better policy against a strong Bushwhack undertow? I don't know the answer to that for sure, nor how sincere Obama is on his stated policy. They did the right thing in Honduras at long last, but it is a lousy, late-in-the-day deal which ignores the people of Honduras and their demand for reform. Was Obama/Clinton's lassitude deliberate or the result of an Obama/Clinton disagreement, or the result of their not being in full control of the US government?
A lot of leftist commentators have been quick to condemn the Obama team, and they certainly have history on their side (past US policy), and they also have reason to distrust both Obama and Clinton because of previous positions (campaign statements, campaign advisors, votes, policies, etc.--especially Clinton, but Obama has not been great on L/A issues either). This commentator is seeing something I also perceived, which was division--a conflicted policy, a US internal struggle--and blames Clinton. I'm still not sure.
Cuba’s education index ... equal(s) (the) highest in the world, along with Australia, Finland, Denmark and New Zealand. Cuba’s education index is 0.993 of a possible score of 1.
(Cuba's) adult literacy rate is 99.8% and school enrolments are 100%. Public expenditure on education in Cuba is 14.2% of total government expenditure. This is higher than Australia (13.3%) and the US (13.7%) .
Cuba tops the world in the ratio of female to male enrolment in primary, secondary and tertiary education, at 121%.
Cuba’s life expectancy is 78.5 years, the highest along with Chile in Latin America and the Caribbean. It compares favourably with Australia (81.4 years) and the US (79.1 years).
While Cuba ranks at or near the top in health and education measures, its low GDP per capita, the third element of the HDI, reduces its HDI score. With GDP included, the report ranks Cuba 51st overall in the overall HDR ranking.
Cuba is ranked 95th in the world in GDP per capita. The gap between its low GDP ranking and much higher overall HDI ranking reveals its human development is significantly higher than its GDP per capita might indicate.
The difference between these two rankings can be seen as a measure of the efficiency of converting a nation’s income into the health and education of its people. Cuba heads the world in this category, by a wide margin.
For example, Mexico has more than double Cuba’s GDP, but has a lower HDI. The US is ranked nine in GDP per capita but falls to 13 in HDI ranking, demonstrating a relatively poor conversion of its wealth into health and education for its people. http://www.greenleft.org.au/2009/816/41981 -------------- In other words, with far fewer resources, Cuba achieves far superior results in education and health care. It's possible to have excellent education and health care with everyone living modest lifestyles--no $600 million salaries/bonuses for CEOs, no humungous private corporations pushing the latest unnecessary goo-gaws or poisoned foods on the populace with billions of dollars of propaganda, no mega-corps, monopolies and extremely corrupting lobbyists, no "globalisation" (job-killing, ocean-polluting, sweatshop labor promoting cheap imports), no second yachts and third mansions, no corporate resource wars--revenues sufficient for a decent, low-impact life for everyone, but not for greedbag hoarding, gambling and killing. Forcing the extremely rich and the privileged to share has resulted in horrors that we wouldn't want to see repeated--in Stalinist Russia, eastern Europe and Maoist China--but not in Cuba, which has developed a uniquely Cuban form of communism that has survived, while the big communist systems crumbled, because it is different--more democratic, more humane and arguably more genuine (truer to the ideals of the earliest communists). I've sometimes thought that communism in places like Russia took on the character of prior tyrannies because Russians had never experienced anything else and were very isolated from European and American democracies. Cuban communism, however, was born right next to the "land of the free, home of the brave," and--much like Vietnam--was influenced by our revolution and democratic progress (the labor movement, the women's suffragist movement, the anti-slavery movement, the civil rights movement), and also by the original Bolivarian revolutions that freed Latin America from Spain and Portugal, and the Haitian revolution. It was born with notions of freedom in the air. It has never had gulags and forced labor camps. Cubans wouldn't put up with that. It has been ruled by a more or less benevolent dictator (I think "benevolent monarch" is the right phrase), possibly necessary because of how much danger Cuba has been in, from the corpo-fascist anti-democrats of the US, throughout its history. Not a mad Stalin, however. Nor a 'Big Brother' Mao. More a "philosopher king" type, who holds the country together with something that closely resembles "consent of the people" and is arguably more democratic than our system has become--now run by oiligarchs and war profiteers and banksters. We could learn from Cuba--something our Overlords very much don't want us to do. Study the good parts, sort out of the bad--reject some things, experiment with others--like a free people should be able to. Statistics like those in this UN Human Development Report 2009 don't get trumpeted by our corpo-fascist press, and they do everything they can to unjustly demonize Cuba. They don't want us to know that you can have excellent education and health care with low GDP. It's only when the rich loot us all that these things are "unaffordable."
are quite busy in Colombia--on spying, war planning, colluding with fascists in Venezuela, developing US/Colombia integration of forces and equipping Colombia with high tech spying and psyops capabilities. I think what we are looking at there is VERY SIMILAR to Pentagon/CIA activities in South Vietnam, early in the war. They are equipping a proxy army ($6 BILLION in US taxpayer military aid), creating seven new US military bases (operated jointly) in addition to the existing one, and are helping to prop up a thuggish narco-fascist government. Colombia has one of the worst human rights records on earth. That is the optimum environment for US Pentagon/CIA operations.
An example of a situation that could become another "Gulf of Tonkin" (manufactured incident to trigger a war)--that is, a rehearsal of US/Colombia systems for creating such an incident--occurred early last year (March 2008), when Colombia hit a temporary FARC (leftist guerrilla) hostage release camp, just inside Ecuador's border, with ten 500 lb U.S. smart bombs, killing most of the 25 people who were sleeping there. The Ecuadoran military visited the site, reported on what likely caused the enormous craters, and said that Colombia was not capable of delivery those bombs. They believe that a US plane and pilot delivered them. Prior to the bombing (and raid over the border to shoot any survivors in the back--the Ecuadoran military found bodies in their pijamas shot in the back)--Colombia was tracking the guerrilla leader's (Raul Reyes') satellite phone (or so the story goes) and that is how they dropped the bombs on the right place (for maximum carnage. There are a lot of problems with this (Colombian) story. Among them, Reyes was an experienced guerrilla leader--he used a satellite phone and then did not immediately move elsewhere--as far away from that spot as he could get--before setting up a camp? In any case, what seems clear-and became clearer later, with the Colombian "rescue" of Ingrid Betancourt--is that the raid on Ecuador was conducted with very sophisticated war technology and was likely orchestrated from the "war room" in the US embassy in Bogota.
This incident almost caused a war between the US/Colombia and Ecuador/Venezuela. It also ended all talk of peace in Colombia's 40+ civil war. Reyes was engineering the release of FARC hostages in a bid for peace--and according to reports--was just about to release Ingrid Betancourt herself, in Ecuador, when the bombs fell. Spanish, Swiss and French envoys were in Ecuador for this purpose on the day of the bombing/raid, and were warned away from the area. These envoys, as well as Betancourt's husband, the President of Ecuador and others, all attested to this purpose of the Reyes temporary camp just inside Ecuador's border. Similar things occurred in South Vietnam in the early 1960s, stopping efforts toward peace in that divided country (including JFK's efforts to use the Diem government to arrange "neutral status" for Vietnam in the "Cold War (as with Laos)-- the CIA created violent incidents, and assassinated Diem--against JFK's orders--to prevent peace). (See "JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters," by James Douglass.)
Another result of the bombing/raid on Ecuador was the infamous "miracle laptop" (later, laptopS), supposedly belonging to Raul Reyes, confiscated from the blown-away campsite, which Colombia has claimed--loudly, in a steady stream of pronouncements over the last two years--contain "evidence" that Chavez and Correa are "terrorist-lovers," take money from the FARC, give money to the FARC, were helping the FARC obtain a "dirty bomb," etc., etc., etc. This is a Rumsfeld specialty--manufacturing "evidence" as excuses for war--as we learned to our grief on Iraq. And, given Rumsfeld's interest in the matter at the time (12/1/07 op-ed in the Washington Post), I suspect that his "Office of Special Plans" was involved.
As I said, the optimum environment for US Pentagon/CIA operations is a puppet government, a civil war and generalized terror and mayhem--all of which they foster and perpetuate, and even create out of nothing.
I have no doubt whatsoever that the Pentagon has a war plan--specifically an oil war plan--in South America, probably designed by Rumsfeld and probably the alternative--Plan B--for obtaining sufficient oil to run the huge US war machine, after Plan A (extending the Iraq War to Iran) didn't work out. (Iran is too well defended; China and Russia might have come in, on Iran's side; US military brass balked at using nukes on Iran, and coordinated with others to oust Rumsfeld.) The South American plan is clearly still in motion--and involves securing the US military base in Honduras (President Zelalya had proposed converting it to a commercial airport), the seven new US military bases in Colombia, the enormous military aid to Colombia (second biggest US military aid package in the world), the reconstitution of the US 4th Fleet in the Caribbean and other indicators--not the least of which is the very intense and unjustified psyops/disinformation campaign against the Chavez government in Venezuela, and also against Correa in Ecuador and Morales in Bolivia.
All of this is expensive, unnecessary (to a peaceful policy in Latin America) and provocative. Even Brazil's president has expressed concern, and it was Brazil--not Venezuela--that proposed a South American "common defense" in the context of their new "common market," USASUR. (Lula da Silva has said that the US 4th Fleet poses a threat to Brazil's oil reserves.)
Another hint of how this war may be instigated was the US/Bushwhack collusion with white separatists in Bolivia, last September (2008). In fact, Ecuador's president has publicly stated that there is a coordinated rightwing plot to instigate civil war in three countries--Ecuador, Venezuela, Bolivia. The scenario in Bolivia involved split-off of the oil/gas rich eastern provinces into a fascist mini-state in control of Bolivia's main resources. Ecuador's and Venezuela's main oil reserves and operations are located in regions of these countries that are adjacent to Colombia (and in Venezuela's case also adjacent to the Caribbean). Rightwing politicians openly talk of secession in these regions. Morales in Bolivia--with UNASUR's full backing--acted quickly to quell the secession of Bolivia's eastern provinces, where the fascists were rioting, seizing an airport, shutting down a gas pipeline and machine-gunning peasant farmers. One of Morales' first acts was to throw the US ambassador out of the country. The insurrection was being funded and organized right out of the US embassy.
Whatever Barack Obama's intentions may be--and his stated policy is peace, respect and cooperation in Latin America--these war forces are extremely powerful, and seem to have their own momentum. It may be irrelevant who the president is. (The CIA very likely eliminated the only president who has ever stood against them--JFK.) (Read Douglass' book!) So, Venezuela is likely correct that Colombia is spying on them--and Colombia more than likely has a lot of help in that regard.
There are only four weeks until the election, and the country has been under martial law for four months. Many leftist activists have been arrested, beaten, tortured, raped, and some have been murdered. The police and the military are everywhere, and there is no freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of transit or habeas corpus protection.
An election under these circumstances may suit Bushwhacks just fine--it's their kind of "election"--and none other than James Baker, the "fixer" of Florida 2000, is all for it (WaPo op-ed last week). But anyone who believes in democracy can only contemplate this brutal farce with disgust. And it will in no way solve the crisis in Honduras, where a huge leftist democracy movement is demanding fundamental reform of Honduras' political/government system.
The issue of a return to the rule of law, and reinstatement of the rightful, elected president, Mel Zelaya, is the current focus of the crisis, but it is not what the problem in Honduras is all about. The problem is rule by the rich elite and the military, in the interests of U.S. global corporate predators and war profiteers. Honduras is a U.S. client state, like Colombia--and is more and more resembling Colombia, a country with one of the worst human rights records in the world. Brutal rule by the rich is enforced in both places by billions of U.S. tax dollars in military aid, and the U.S. military is present in both countries, in Honduras at the Soto Cano U.S. military base (where the Junta plane carrying the kidnapped president stopped for re-fueling, while the U.S. military stood down), and in Colombia at numerous military bases (seven new ones recently established).
Mel Zelaya has been robbed of four months--going on five months--of the only term allowed him in the Honduran Constitution--a Constitution written by Reagan's henchmen in the 1980s, which limits the president to ONE (4 year) term, in order to prevent a president from achieving sufficient power to challenge the oligarchy and the military on behalf of the poor majority. That has not, and will not likely, be rectified. Zelaya was doing things like raising the minimum wage. All that--good government policy to help the poor--has been brought to a violent halt, and undone. The candidates of the two main parties are front men for the coup. The left is dealing with murders and wounds (one congressional candidate has broken bones, inflicted by the police), a complete lack of justice, four months with no media, no money, of course (while John McCain has larded $43 million U.S. taxpayer dollars on rightwing groups in Honduras, through the International Republican Institute of the USAID), and cannot conceivably mount effective political campaigns in the next four weeks, even if all illegal and unconstitutional restrictions on them were lifted tomorrow.
The international community has said that it will not recognize this election, and it should not. The election needs to be postponed for four months, and Zelaya restored to office to finish the full term that he is entitled to. This is what the Honduran people want, as opinion polls have already established (Zelaya has a 67% approval rating!) Once that is done, independent outside organizations, such as the OAS and the Carter Center, need to be brought in to poll the Honduran people on the following:
1. Whether or not to restart the entire election process, at the nomination stage, and what timeframe would be fair to all parties?
2. Whether or not to form a Constituent Assembly (constitutional convention) to discuss and amend the Honduran Constitution, with all segments of society participating. (--the original plebiscite that Zelaya proposed as an advisory vote; this time it should be binding).
This is what is needed to restore peace and tranquility, and the rule of law, to Honduras. It cannot be quick. Why should it be? The Junta has thrown the rulebook out, and committed many atrocities. This cannot be mended by a Junta-run election, even if Zelaya is restored to office. The rich elite has ripped Honduran society to pieces. It needs REAL mending. And a country-wide discussion of the fundamental law of the land would be an excellent way to put "Humpty-Dumpty" back together again in a new and better way.
the way of the WMDs in Iraq, into the trash bin of history's Big Lies.
Thanks for posting! Great article! Explains why huge margins of Venezuelan, Bolivian and Ecuadoran voters keep voting for these 'commie dictators' who are soon going to bring their countries to perdition, any day now.
Venezuela just made yet another big business deal, this time with France and Spain on Venezuela's new gas find. And investors are flocking to Bolivia to make a deal with Morales on Bolivia's rich lithium deposits. And, lo and behold, everybody benefits when sovereign governments look out for the interests of their people!
As for international cash reserves, saved by these 'commie dictators'' CONSERVATIVE management of the public's money, Obama can eat his heart out--and we and our children can suffer the debt load of a trillion dollar deficit to make the rich richer and put the war profiteers in clover, while leftist governments in South America enjoy the flexibility and security of OPERATING IN THE BLACK, while fully funding all social programs.
No surprise that our "blue-eyed wonders" on Wall Street hate and relentlessly slander these leftist leaders.
It is not a great surprise that it is "the worst"--considering that it was written by Reagan's henchmen to enshrine the power of the military and the "ten families"--but it is something of a surprise that Arias said it (--quoted by Greg Grandin in an article in The Nation this week). Arias is as close as you're going to get to an Obama/Clinton State Dept. spokesman in Latin America. He was Clinton's designated initial negotiator in the Honduran situation. He also worked closely with the Bushwhacks to impose CAFTA on Costa Rica and to inflict a very demoralizing blow on the left and the unions in Costa Rica, who lost that vote by a hairsbreadth, after fighting extremely hard to defeat it, with Arias calling in all of his political chips in CR to ram it through. CAFTA is head to head with ALBA, the Venezuela-organized trade group in the Caribbean. The issue is US-dominated "free trade for the rich" vs a more egalitarian, grass roots oriented trade group with Venezuela as the biggest, most powerful member but by no means in a parallel position to the US in CAFTA (which is more like "Bambi Meets Godzilla"). CAFTA was no benefit whatsoever to Honduras, which continued to have the highest poverty rate in Latin America. That is why President Zelaya abandoned CAFTA and joined ALBA, with immediate benefits to the poor in Honduras (for instance, cheap oil from Venezuela and lowered bus ticket prices). So, Oscar Arias is no friend of Hugo Chavez or of the poor. He has fought tooth and nail for the rich. Further, the initial peace proposal that emerged rather quickly from his brokering of the parties in Honduras included restoring Zelaya to his rightful office but greatly limiting his powers as president and specifying that Zelaya drop the proposal for a Constituent Assembly to revise the Honduran Constitution (that proposal was coming from the unions and other grass roots groups and has widespread support in Honduras). Now we have Arias saying that it's "the worst Constitution in the world." He also said that, if a fair election cannot be conducted in Honduras (and it is patently obvious that that cannot occur), the "only solution" is to hold a Constituent Assembly. I hope that what is going to happen is this (although I don't think it's wise to hold your breath until the US does the right thing in this situation): The US officially calling for a vote, yes or no, on forming a Constituent Assembly, ousting the Junta, putting Zelaya back in charge and working with the OAS to run a clean election on this issue in Honduras. The US clearly has the power to do these things. Honduras is a US-dependent country, with a large US military base and presence (which stood down while the plane carrying the kidnapped president refueled there on its way out of the country). The Junta can then engage in a civilized political process--in which they lose some points and gain some points vs the poor majority of Honduras--or they can get the fuck out of Honduras and go to their real homeland in Miami. They claim to be "patriots" and to love their country and that is why they are ripping it to shreds, but what they really love is money. That is the motive behind their vulture-like grip on Honduran society. If they really loved their country, they would never would have shot up the president's house, kidnapped him at gunpoint and exiled him, nor would they be brutalizing the Honduran people, after ripping up the very Constitution they claim to be defending. That is love of money. Holding out the hope that our country does the right thing...  
exactly what he said. It does not discuss the regulation that this official thinks was violated, nor provide any context for judging the official's statements or action. And the article ends with the following sentences: "It (Venezuelan TV) also includes a talk show hosted by the country's president, Hugo Chavez. // New regulations for cable TV in the country could also see cable channels forced to carry Chavez's frequent speeches."
What do new regulations about requiring public interest programming, that "COULD" see a requirement to run the president's speeches, have to do with the Justice Minister's view of a cartoon that he thinks encourages children to be scofflaws?
This odd pairing of issues is arbitrary and prejudicial. And the latter point is speculative (regulations that COULD do something). The BBC is not exempt from the "degrade Hugo campaign" of First World corpo/fascist media. I've heard outrageous bias and outright lies from BBC radio hosts about Chavez and Venezuela.
The item itself--if true (which we can't know without a quotation and the regulatory context)--is, of course, rather silly. It's in the "Entertainment" section of BBC, which perhaps accounts for the very low quality journalism. But it may also be designed to counter Oliver Stone's new documentary on the Bolivarian Revolution in South America, "South of the Border," which is sympathetic to that revolution and has gotten a lot of publicity lately. The BBC came under fierce assault by the Blairites for its independence on Iraq War issues, specifically the Bush/Blair propaganda about WMDs in Iraq. That may be influencing its treatment of yet another First World assault on a Third World oil country. We should be wary of any corpo/fascist-influenced news agency on Chavez/Venezuela/South American leftist issues, even if they are not directly owned by corpo/fascists.
Another missing bit of context is that Venezuela is in the process of creating a better regulatory framework for use of its public airwaves (and cable), along the lines of our former "Fairness Doctrine" including requirements of public service (for the license) and anti-monopoly laws (--all deep-sixed by the Reaganites, here, to our everlasting grief). And I would also imagine that the issue of scofflaw corporate TV would be especially sensitive in Venezuela, since RCTV actively participated in the violent military coup of 2002, and (rightfully) lost its license because of this (among other violations of Venezuela broadcast law). Further, the Chavez government has been viciously and wrongfully accused of promoting drug traffic because it does not go along with the failed, corrupt, murderous US "war on drugs." These are other context issues that could and should be mentioned in regard to this news item. In isolation, banning a cartoon seems silly. With the tag about Chavez's speeches, the article reveals bias and possible ill intent. The lack of context further enforces my suspicion of ill intent.
In summary, the banning of something "to protect children," and the rights, duties and "freedom of speech" parameters of public/government regulation of the airwaves are important issues in any democracy. This item trivializes the issue, and contributes--however subtly--to the corpo/fascist "cartoon" of "Chavez, the dictator." (--speaking of cartoons!) There is insufficient context to judge this item, and that "COULD be" intentional.
I wanted to just say, "Shame on the BBC!" for publishing such crap. But I thought I should explain my reaction to the article. Same old, same old--requiring hours of my time to try to track down the truth.
Nearly 60% of the American people opposed the war on Iraq (all polls, Feb. '03, just before the invasion). Their views were not only minimized by the corpo/fascist media, their views were positively black-holed by the corpo/fascist media, so that all of us--THE MAJORITY--who opposed that war felt isolated, disempowered and demoralized.
I think that the object of corpo/fascist propaganda--whether on health care, war or other corporate/war profiteer projects--is not to convince the majority, but rather to demoralize the majority. When you start having the thought: "Wow, my fellow Americans must be nuts," or, "The rightwingers are winning the argument," beware of what you are really thinking, deep down--that your views are in the minority and all is hopeless.
That was a VERY IMPORTANT realization for me, personally--pre-Iraq War, when I hunted around for opinion polls (and had to hunt hard) and found, to my utter astonishment, that MOST Americans opposed the war. Frankly, I was wondering if I had somehow ended up in a crazy, fascist, goose-stepping country. Not true. MOST Americans believed, as I did, that the Iraq War was wrong. They just couldn't be heard. Their views were NOT reflected by the corpo/fascist media. And something had gone very, very, VERY wrong with our democracy.
And if you add in some percentage of people who are naive and/or uninformed, or disinformed, say 10%, I think you get an even clearer picture of REAL American opinion--i.e., nearly 70% against the war, or, say, 66% approval of Obama vs 20% approval of Pukes (rather than 56/30, as per the above). I think there is, in truth, an overwhelming progressive majority in the country--not just big, REALLY big. The intensity of the corpo/fascist media propaganda needs to be taken into account. They disinform some--not a lot, but some. But it is not really that small percentage of naive or uninformed/disinformed people that they are after. They are after the rest of us--not to convince us--they know they can't--but to make us believe that there is no hope for change.
Just a note: There IS hope for change, but we have first to get rid of the 'TRADE SECRET' voting machines, now owned and controlled mostly by ONE far, FAR rightwing corporation--ES&S (which just bought out Diebold, and, believe me, is worse than Diebold). Transparent vote counting is the fundamental condition of democracy, and of all beneficial change. Without it, we are essentially powerless. That is why transparent vote counting was taken away. That is how Bush/Cheney got "re-elected" in 2004, with such a big majority having opposed their war policy, and in the midst of revelations of torture and other scandals. There is no other purpose to fast-tracking a system on entirely non-transparent vote counting machines all over the country BUT to rig elections. That system is still in place. It gives the far, FAR rightwing the ability to play our system like a piano--to permit the election of an Obama, then to un-elect Obama; to switch from (s)electing Pukes for Congress to (s)electing "Blue Dogs" for Congress (who might as well be Pukes); and then to crash another rightwing junta right down upon our heads, while we stand helplessly by. Congress is not going to change this. It is up to we, the people, to change it--and this can still be done at the local/state level, where power over voting systems still resides and where ordinary people still have some potential influence. DEMAND vote counting that everyone can see and understand--of your local registrar and local/state officials. Join an election integrity group and get on it. This is the best thing that we can do to insure that government policy is responsive to the will of the progressive majority.
The article is about US military "soft power"--for instance, sending the US navy ship "Comfort" on cruises down the West African coast or Latin America's Pacific coast, to provide humanitarian aid--such as medical care services--with the ulterior motive of getting access to small countries' military bases, to be used in time of war. Some critics, even inside the Pentagon, apparently, criticize this practice as the "militarization of humanitarian aid."
But the very biggest instance of Pentagon "soft power"--that is, carrying out military missions for other than military/war purposes--and, by far, the most dangerous to the sovereignty of other countries, and to us--the funders of these activities, US taxpayers, and our children, who may become the "cannon fodder"--is the US "war on drugs."
During the transition from Bush to Obama, I read some military commander in Afghanistan say that the Pentagon was changing its mission in Afghanistan to the "war on drugs"--a convenient, all-purpose "justification" for continued, massive military spending. And I thought: 'Right. The war against OBL is a flop. Got to find some other excuse for all those no-bid contracts!" Last summer, the Bushwhacks changed the bill authorizing "war on drugs" funding ($6 BILLION) to Colombia, to ADD "the war on terror" to the "war on drugs." Presumably now, US taxpayer money will go to killing the leftist guerrillas in Colombia, who have been fighting the fascist narco-thugs running Colombia for some 40 years. Further, the US plans to establish seven* new US military bases in Colombia, which means that our "cannon fodder"--and planes, high tech equipment, bombs and other weapons--will be used to directly kill people in one side of a civil war.
The writer of this article, David Axe, says almost nothing about this. But this is the very biggest instance of the Pentagon "hammering swords into plowshares and back into swords"--utilizing a civilian goal to get (and to give) military funding, and changing the civilian goal into a military goal: flying military planes from South America to Africa in a war situation. And that does not exhaust the possibilities of seven US military bases in Colombia, ostensibly for the "war on drugs" and now to kill FARC guerrillas. For instance, with the newly reconstituted US 4th Fleet in Caribbean (by the Bushwhacks last year), the US military base in Honduras secured by a rightwing military coup, and the seven new US bases in Colombia, the US has Venezuela's main oil reserves and facilities surrounded. Did this same military not just recently slaughter a hundred thousand innocent people, in one week of "shock and awe" bombing alone, to steal their oil?
I don't know who David Axe is, or why he has such a big black hole in his article on Pentagon "soft power." But it does strike me as rather a noticeable black hole. Black holes are a stellar phenomenon that swallow up everything in the vicinity and emit no light.
----------------
*(This author says five new US military bases in Colombia. I've more often read seven; and other documents--such as an Information Sheet issued by the US embassy in Colombia indicates that the number of bases, troops and private contractors is open-ended.)
and I don't mean just lying, but rather taking the truth and turning it on its head, and then justifying torture and murder and mass deaths and war, and massive thieving, using the language of truth (for instance, bringing "freedom" to Iraq by slaughtering a million people, or calling the grossest forms of exploitation and death "free trade") is trackable to Miami. The anti-Castro Miami mafia was certainly not the first to employ this form of propaganda--Super-Lying or Uber-Lying--but they have been one of the most successful examples of this sickness in the political sphere in the US prior to the Bush Junta.
They paved the way for the Bush Junta. The Cuban Five were trying to prevent acts of terrorism--such as the CIA/Miami mafia bombing of the Cubana airliner. And they get thrown in prison here and treated like terrorists--and the actual terrorists--the bomb planters--not only go free, but are celebrated as heroes in Miami (or in certain circles in Miami--I shouldn't condemn all Miamians). Similarly, this anti-Castro mafia is filthy on drug trafficking and associated crime. They were filthily corrupt when they ran Cuba like a brothel, and they brought their corruption with them to Miami, and claim to be "freedom fighters.". And out of this cauldron of corruption comes the US "war on drugs" which is anything BUT a "war on drugs." It is the opposite of that. It protects the big drug lords, and simultaneously provides filthily corrupt fascists who are in league with the anti-Castro mafia in Miami, in Colombia, with $6 BILLION of US tax dollars in military aid, to protect the big drug lords' networks all the way back to the source, and torture and kill political leftists, union leaders, human rights workers and others as a sort of side benefit.
And Bush then gives the filthily corrupt leader of Colombia the "Medal of Freedom" and calls Colombia "the greatest democracy in Latin America" or some such Super-Lie.
It is quite mind-boggling what the Miami mafia has accomplished. They basically run US foreign policy in Latin America. And that policy is truly "Alice in Wonderland" jabberwocky. Real democracy, when it arises in Latin America--as it has done recently-- is reviled, slandered, smeared, hated, and all the resources of our government go into overturning it, and when one of these democracies rejects the US "war on drugs" and actually starts interdicting big drug shipments and catching major criminals, the lies and slander increase exponentially, and assassination and war plots are hatched, to put a stop to it. (I'm thinking of Bolivia, but it's a pattern.)
The Miami mafia has driven our public policy INSANE.
Again, they are not alone in being the BIGGEST LIARS of all time. They have plenty of company. But as a recent phenomenon, in the political sphere in the US, they can place their black star up there with the Bush Junta and AIPAC as examples of "Red Queen" logic: If the white roses offend you by their color, order them to be painted red! It doesn't matter if the roses are then dead roses. What matters is that everybody has to see them as red, because you say so. And if anybody disobeys you in this INSANE dictate, "off with their heads!" Quite literally.
That's US foreign policy in Latin America, as run by the Miami mafia. Poor innocent Alice, who can't understand the logic of this, doesn't realize how much money has changed hands to force this insanity on everybody all across the Land of the Red Queen.
The Cuban Five, who were trying to STOP terrorist acts are in prison, and the self-admitted terrorists, who planted a bomb on an airliner full of people, blowing them all to smithereens, are the toast of Miami!
It is not far from that 'logic'--not far at all--to blowing a hundred thousand people to smithereens to "get Saddam" and to steal their oil.
There is nobody better at brainwashing young minds than the Catholic Church.
THANK GOD the Bolivarians are offering a SECULAR education and a SECULAR government to those who want to free their minds. I was mightily grateful to our own--and to the Founders who established that principle--when I finally needed to bust out of that prison that the Catholic Church had built around my soul.
Venezuelan parents will be free to do that their children, if that's what they want to do, but the government won't be paying for it, and the rest of society will be on the freedom path, uncoerced by the extremely fascist religions of Rome or predatory capitalism.
It's interesting how the leftists are the real Christians, when you look at what they actually advocate and do (feeding, clothing the poor, brotherhood/sisterhood with the poor, equality, sharing, attending to the common good), yet they are always accused of being "godless" by the people who loot, stomp on, dominate, kick, beat, torture, hate, exploit, over-work, loathe, and, one way or another, kill the poor.
When the fascists in Venezuela did their coup attempt in 2002, the first thing they did was to suspend the Constitution, the National Assembly, the courts and all civil rights. And the next thing they would have done, had they succeeded, was to start dropping poor people and their leftist advocates out of airplanes, or chainsawing them while alive and dumping their body parts into mass graves, like they do in Colombia, that most religious of countries.
Their protests against free education, secularism and "participatory democracy" are absurd (and the organization of it all has most certainly been paid for by you and me).
----------------------
The rightwing are such goddamn liars. When they ran Venezuela, they couldn't be bothered with education of the poor majority, and utterly neglected it. The Chavez government has poured zillions of the oil profits into the education system, including adult education, and wiped out illiteracy in five years. Now they're going for a SECULAR (fact-based, reason-based focus) and CIVICS education, and the fascists and upper Catholic clergy are up in arms. The last thing in the world they want is a well-educated populace versed in their own rights as citizens and human beings, and empowered to organize in their own interests.
The Education Law does two things: It guarantees an education through university as a human right, enshrined in the Constitution, and it promotes "participatory democracy" as the focus if civics education. It leaves it up to schools, teachers and parents how to interpret the latter, just as the Chavistas have left it up to community councils to determine local needs. This is the MAIN governing principle of the Bolivarian Revolution that our corpo/fascist press cannot fathom, and completely ignores. The Chavistas are about as anti-authoritarian as you can get. They are pro-REAL democracy. Chavez is their SERVANT--as it should be--NOT their tyrant. They put him in office. They kept him in office when the fascists tried to topple him. They vote for him in big numbers. He reflects THEIR views. The Chavistas are the MAJORITY, and they believe in PARTICIPATORY democracy--everybody equal, everybody has a say, decisions emerge and policies are undertaken after widespread discussion.
This was true of the Education Law as well--something that James Suggett points out in his Venezuelanalysis article. The Education Law has been discussed for years--in many town halls organized by the National Assembly, to which everyone was invited. It has gone through several versions, with widespread public participation. All of its provisions were hammered out in public. The final, refined, legislative document was put before the National Assembly and voted for last week, but it is a goddamned lie that this law was "rammed" through in a week without public discussion.
The members of the National Assembly are separately elected by the people--in an election system that is far, far more transparent than our own. The National Assembly is pro-Chavez by choice of the people. When our corpo/fascist press and their anti-Chavez echo chamber claims that Chavez "controls" the National Assembly, they never mention that the National Assembly is independently elected! Chavez doesn't control the National Assembly. The National Assembly--representing the people of Venezuela in their districts--controls Chavez--or rather, they are all in general accord with the will of the people, subject to transparent elections!
And all of these legislators, and their constituents, and Chavez, are well aware of the need for grass roots organization--empowerment of the people, "participatory democracy"--to keep it that way. That's why they emphasize this most basic form of democracy in the Education Law in the Constitution. They don't want the people to yield their sovereignty to anyone. They are encouraging--and always have encouraged--the full sovereignty of each individual and the empowerment of each individual through LOCAL--on the ground, nearby, locally organized, wide-open mechanisms like the community councils. They see power as an organism or network with MANY centers. These individual and community centers of power converge to create, empower and control the national government. This is a MUCH MORE democratic system than our own, in which the national government has completely diverged from the will of the people on everything from egregiously unjust war to taxpayer-funded bonuses to financial criminals. We see the effects of the atrophy of our democratic system every day. The Venezuelans are trying every way they can to AVOID this--to avoid rule by oligarchs and global corporate predators and war profiteers, who manage to get hold of the power mechanisms of democracy--while the people SLEEP (are indeed deliberately put to sleep by disempowering corporate media)--and then squeeze the life out of the democracy in their own narrow, greedbag interests.
The Bolivarian Revolution--like our own democracy, at the beginning, and renewed over the centuries until recently--is an experiment in self-rule. It has its failures and successes like any such experiment, but it keeps trying. That is democracy's core principle--to keep trying, to keep renewing itself, to welcome new ideas, to encourage leadership wherever it arises, and to entrust to widespread participation the hope that the best ideas will "rise to the top" and the best people will emerge to implement them. Democracy is never perfect. That is its strength, not its weakness. It is always subject to reform.
The Chavez "cult of personality" is not particularly healthy in a democracy. But it's better than the "cult of war," or the "cult of Bush," or the "cult of Michael Jackson." And if Chavez were truly a "dictator," the people of Venezuela would long ago have tossed him out and found someone else to be president. They have had every opportunity to do so. Yet they continually--in transparent elections and in opinion polls--give him the highest marks. So he is not a "dictator" to them. He is serving their interests. In fact, he is very like our own FDR, who ran for and won four terms in office. FDR was also called a "dictator"--by the rightwing press. But when he tried to "pack the Supreme Court" (as they put it), what policy was he serving? Take a wild guess.
SOCIAL SECURITY! The rightwing court, appointed by his rightwing predecessors, were threatening to declare Social Security unconstitutional, and if they had not been pressured by FDR's threat to "pack the Supreme Court," your mom and dad, and your grandma and grandpa would have no pension today. And if the rightwing of today has their druthers, the fund will be privatized and looted before you get to it.
The charge of "dictator" has to be weighed against reality. Is it "dictatorial" to provide a free education, or pensions for the elderly, or to seek balance and fairness in use of the public airwaves? Or is it merely strong leadership in the public interest? Is it "dictatorial" to be a politician, to like the sound of your own voice, to parade about with flags and berets, to have devotees and even worshipers, to want to please people, to conceive visionary ideas and seek to implement them (ideas like "participatory democracy"!) (...or, ahem, Social Security)?
Is it "dictatorial" to have consistently high (60% range) approval ratings? No, it is not. All of these things merely amount to the temptation to be a "dictator." When examined, in reality, the word "dictator" is ridiculous--is an absurd lie. It is wildly off the mark as to what is REALLY going on in Venezuela. It is not a perfect democracy. It is not yet a fully "participatory" democracy. But it is most certainly a country in which the will of the people is being listened to, and the interests of the people are being served. Can we say that of our own country?
If you had asked me, before I read this OP, which election or elections Ted Kennedy had run for president in, I would not have been able to say 1980 against Carter, but now I remember. It was only 12 years, at that point, from the second Kennedy assassination--of Robert, just as he had won the California primary and was clearly on the road to the White House. One of Robert Kennedy's primary opponents had been Eugene McCarthy, whom I voted for in the California primary because he was the one who had stood up and challenged LBJ on the Vietnam War (early on, in New Hampshire--driving the incumbent LBJ out of the race). RFK had been more cautious, more political about it--gauging his chances. I knew that RFK would win California and go on to the White House. He was as charismatic as his brother John, and was riding a wave of American revulsion at the Vietnam War and an amazing American awakening on social justice. I voted for McCarthy to "send RFK" a message to keep his word about ending the war. I think now that he would have, and that's why... Bang, bang, shoot, shoot. Please read James Douglass' book, "JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters." He makes an overwhelming case that the CIA assassinated JFK and the issue was war. JFK was initially a typical "Cold Warrior" but soon began to change as he faced the awful reality of nuclear warfare. He was the first and only president who faced that decision--who came within a hairsbreadth of "pushing the button." The Joint Chiefs believed they had the advantage of Russia on nuclear weapons in 1962 (during the Cuban Missile Crisis) and very much wanted to use them, and angrily pressured JFK to do so. They thought that hundreds of thousands of casualties here would be a 'win' because Russia would be totally annihilated. JFK refused and made his own deal with Krushchev, pulling US missiles out of Turkey, to avoid Armageddon. He opened back-channels to Krushchev and Castro, to get around CIA/Pentagon warmongering. The CIA was meanwhile instigating a proxy war in Vietnam. JFK had sought to counter the CIA after the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, early in his term. He vowed to smash the CIA "into a thousand pieces" after the Bay of Pigs, and fired the CIA Director. To counter the CIA in Vietnam, he began seeking neutral status for Vietnam, like Laos, with the CIA sabotaging him every step of the way. He was also the first president to propose limitations on nuclear weapons (the Test Ban Treaty), again totally opposed by the Joint Chiefs and the CIA. Bang, bang, shoot, shoot. JFK had been counting on a big win--the American peoples' desire for world peace--in 1964, to finally deal with the CIA and the war profiteers. And he was not wrong. After he was killed, the American people gave LBJ one of the biggest landslides in history, in 1964, running as the "peace candidate." (Oh God, the bitter memories!) (That was my first vote for president. I voted for peace.) RFK was his brother's only ally within the top echelons of the US government on the matter of world peace. (I did not know this when I voted for McCarthy in the 1968 California primary.) The American people wanted peace. It was too late. The "military-industrial complex"--which Ike warned about--was already entirely out of control, and assassinated a president and a presidential candidate, to enforce their will. And we have been an increasingly nazified, war-mongering country ever since. Douglass is a doing a trilogy. His second book is going to be on RFK. And I think he is going to say that the CIA assassinated RFK as well. The RFK assassination was more cunning. The JFK assassination had CIA fingerprints all over it. (Really, the case is shut--they did it.) RFK's murder has more mystery to it, and is much harder to penetrate. (My guess: the CIA learned more about how to create adequate cover within the US, in the five years between the two assassinations.) But the timing of the RFK assassination could not speak more eloquently of the motive and the perpetrators. He was "JFK on steroids" from their point of view. We were at THE critical juncture in the history of war and peace, and in the history of our country, when RFK was assassinated: Would the American people consent to becoming the new Nazis--the militarized global empire that Hitler dreamed of--or would we fulfill our promise of democracy, generosity and peace, so evidently within our power as the victors of WW II? Would JFK's "new generation of leadership" turn back the monster of war, and seek a world of fair competition, and even some cooperation, between the capitalist and communist systems, and would the US recognize legitimate aspirations for social justice in countries like Cuba and Vietnam (as JFK evidently privately wished), or would we become...? The Bush Junta, slaughtering hundreds of thousands of innocent people to steal their oil... 1968: Bang, bang, shoot, shoot. Yup, they did RFK too. Twelve years later, when Ted Kennedy challenged Carter--whom I viewed as one of the "acceptable" Democrats, like Humphrey, who had resigned themselves to the "US as war machine"--we were a bitter people, with these profoundly disturbing wounds inside of us, of both of our best leaders having been assassinated, and their murders covered up, because the assassins were within our own government. Most of us had not quite made this reality conscious. We were a sick people, in many respects--like individuals in families with covered up secrets. And I remember now that I thought Teddy Kennedy shouldn't run, because he would be assassinated and we just couldn't take any more. Martin Luther King had also been assassinated a few months before RFK (that will be Douglass' third book). Bang, bang, shoot, shoot x 3. All dead. I may have voted for Teddy in the primaries in 1980. I can't recall. I probably did. (Was he still in the race by the California primary? Memory blank.) I was bewildered and alienated (though I never stopped voting). And, looking back on the events in 1980, from the perspective of post-Bush Junta, I can only figure that the corpo/fascists who now run our government, not yet having the capability to directly miscount our votes with 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code throughout an electronic voting system, with no audit/recount controls--as they have now--used all their other powers over us to destroy even a mildly progressive government such as Carter's, in order to begin the Great Looting (Reaganism), which preceded the Great March To Corporate Resource Wars (Bushwhackism). I think Carter's demise was wholly manipulated--by the far rightwing, through the oil corps, the financial corps, the 'news' monopolies and the Pentagon (which permitted Reagan's thugs to commit goddamn treason in Iran--bargaining with the Iranians to keep hold of the US hostages until after the 1980 election). And we must also not forget Reagan's reign of terror in Latin America--which included the slaughter of two hundred thousand Mayan villagers in Guatemala, in addition to the wars on Nicaragua and El Salvador and other "dirty wars." I don't think Jimmy Carter--clearly a man with a conscience--would have let all that happen. Part of my judgement of how Carter was ousted derives from Carter's activities since 1980. It's hard to see politicians through the thick fog of the corpo/fascist press. Out of the limelight, he has shown some amazing visionary qualities. For instance, the Carter Center's work on honest elections in Latin America has been one of the transformative elements of the region. It has resulted in the present, amazing reality: leftist governments elected in Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador, Bolivia, Paraguay (!), Uruguay, Chile, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala. So, thinking back to why Carter got "rabbited" by the corpo/fascist press (rather like "Swift-boating" or "scream taping"--obsessive focus on irrelevant issues or incidents, to destroy a progressive leader; Carter said he encountered a giant rabbit while he was on vacation fishing--and the corpo/fascist press went wild), it was likely because of this tendency of Carter's to promote good government, with the rich and corporate lusting after the Great Looting, which requires bad government. In short, I had lost hope by the time Teddy Kennedy ran against Carter in 1980. There were still a few good guys in our government--Teddy was one; and others in Congress (those who did investigations of Iran/Nicaragua, and the banking scandals, or who investigated and debunked the "lone gunman" bullshit about the JFK assassination). But I, like everyone else, was brainwashed into thinking that the American people had "chosen" Ronnie Raygun as president--which just added to my state of depression and alienation. I no longer believe that, after seeing how the corpo/fascist press covered up Bush Jr.'s election thefts. I think Ronnie Raygun's 'election' was as manipulated as Bush Jr's in 2000 (pre-'TRADE SECRET' code voting systems). With the power to "Swift-boat" and to "scream tape," and the EASY power, now, to directly miscount the votes, they don't have to assassinate good leaders. Good leaders cannot be elected here (except for a few tokens) unless they agree to corpo/fascist rule and the Forever War. We are seeing that with Obama (whom I think won by a bigger margin than we know, on the issue of the Iraq War, and also on the projection of hope onto him of real reform, whose mandate was shaved to curtail his reformist tendencies, and who was vetted by the Corporate Rulers and made deals with them in order not to be Diebolded. One of the deals was immunity for the Bush Junta principles. Another may have been giving Clinton and the Bushwhacks a free hand in Latin America, where they are setting up Oil War II.) By 1980, I and my country's political establishment were at very great odds. I had lost my country by that time, and it was little more than a curiosity to me that Teddy Kennedy was running for president. Why would he do that, and be killed? --I remember wondering. John Lennon was assassinated that year--late 1980. The door on change had closed. We were now a venal, greedy, bloodthirsty, militaristic empire. Our great opportunity to be something better was over. I am an American patriot. I love my country and its people and our greatest ideals of democracy and social justice very, very much. I think we are the greatest experiment in democracy that has ever occurred, with our astonishing mix of cultures abiding in peace together, across this vast landscape. But I have been in a state of trauma, from all of those assassinations, all these years. Two things have begun to heal me. One is James Douglass' book on JFK, which directly addresses the spiritual wound to our country of that assassination. The other is the heartening success of the leftist democracy movement in Latin America. I am grateful to Carter for his part in that. That is likely among the reasons he was ousted. He wanted peace with Latin America. Another was the peace he brokered in the Middle East. But the main one was the preliminary to the Forever War--destroying the great, progressive American middle class, and utterly devastating the poor--by the Great Looting. On our backs now, from the Great Looting, we have no defenses against the "military-industrial complex." They can do with us as they will. They even achieved direct, 'TRADE SECRET' control of our vote counting system! Obama is out, in case you were wondering. And the next war will be against South America, for their oil. Unless we rise up peacefully, like the South Americans are doing, and reclaim our democracy.
|
Latest Threads
The ten most recent threads posted on
the Democratic Underground Discussion Forums. Greatest Threads
The ten most recommended threads posted
on the Democratic Underground Discussion Forums in the
last 24 hours. What are the Traitorgate cover-ups covering up?
The reason Fitzgerald hasn't indicted anyone on the Plame/Brewster-Jennings outingS--though he has a number of the outers by the short hairs--Cheney, Libby, Rove, Armitage, Novak--COULD be that he is either suspicious of the story (political revenge) or already knows that it is a cover story. And that points to Rumsfeld, in my book. Office of Special Plans. Look at this way: This conspiracy--if it was, indeed, a conspiracy to plant the nukes in Iraq after the invasion--would have two tracks, political and operational. Cheney in the charge of the political end. Rumsfeld in charge of the operational end. Cheney segues the forged docs into a full-scale allegation against Iraq on nukes, and insures that it gets into Bush's SOTU speech (against advice from several agencies). He continues to adamantly defend that charge no matter how often it is totally and completely debunked. Why doesn't he temper it--show a bit of caution (considering the evidence)? Nope. It has got to be THAT charge--over and over. In addition, the whole Junta goes into summer '03 still maintaining that WMDs will be found (--although many will soon switch to "Iraqi freedom" as motive for the war). It's all set up for the phony "find"--and a triumphant Bush-Blair announcement that will smother all criticism, and all talk of "sexed up" prewar intel, and will cement their political positions with their FIRST and foremost justification for the war: WMDs. Rumsfeld (if this theory is true) has meanwhile got several black ops teams (possibly connected to the notorious Iran/Contra arms dealer Manucher Ghorbanifar, who was present at the Rome meeting of Pentagon Neo-Cons and SISMI in late 2001, where many suspect the Niger forgeries were cooked up) moving nukes illicitly into (or on their way to) Iraq. He's got NYT WMD propagandist Judith Miller "embedded" with the U.S. troops who were "hunting" for WMDs (and, according to reports, actually directing, or trying to direct, their efforts), ready to get the "big scoop" of a WMD "find." (She said she had an "embed" contract signed by Donald Rumsfeld. Whether it's true or not, why would she claim it? It's like saying: "...but they TOLD me there WOULD BE a story"! She had Rumsfeld's word--or the word of someone speaking for him.) And Rumsfeld furthermore permitted the creation of chaos in Iraq--in his failure to stop the looting and the breakdown of all order (in fact laughing at). Civil chaos was a prime condition for planting WMDs in Iraq and then "finding" them. It was also a prime condition for setting up a puppet government to sign the oil contracts, giving away Iraqis' interest in their only resource (--and for massive looting by corps like Halliburton). Anyway, that's how it would be: Cheney covering the political front--and scrambling to cover up the "incompetence of others" (as he put it in his memo on not wanting Libby to be the fall guy) when the shit started hitting the fan. No WMDs. Nuke allegation based on forgeries. Wilson calling them out on the false allegation. And David Kelly, in England, whistleblowing to the BBC about the "sexed up" prewar intel. It would have been RUMSFELD's responsibility to get those WMDs planted and "discovered." What we are seeing may be the political fallout of his failure to do so. (We are also seeing him gone--with no change in Iraq War policy. Was it the midterm elections? Or was it that he was operational head of this attempted massive deceit--a phony "find" of weapons--which Cheney in now having to cover for--politically and legally?) Back in early July 2003, Kelly, under interrogation at a "safe house" --after he had been outed to his bosses (late June 2003)--revealed that he knew something MORE (--Kelly "could say some uncomfortable things," is how it was reported to Tony Blair on July 7, 2003 (Hutton report))-- but he promised not to speak of it publicly ("I wasn't about to give away any government secrets" is how Kelly put it). I suspect that THIS was the trigger for the Plame/B-J outingS. Not Wilson's article of July 6, but rather the report to Blair on July 7 that Kelly "could say some uncomfortable things." (He was already whistleblowing, so it wasn't something that he HAD said--i.e., the "sexed up" the prewar intel--it was something that he COULD say. What ELSE did he know?) He had friends in Iraq--from his visits there as UN weapons inspector. He had told them that if they cooperate with the UN inspections, there would be no invasion. (And he then told a friend that if there WAS an invasion, he would be "found dead in the woods"--a truly haunting prefiguration.) IF there was a scheme to plant the weapons, he was in a good position to hear about it (--and my distant judgment of his character--excellent scientist, true believer in his mission of stopping WMD proliferation--is that he would have been offended by it; this could even have been the trigger for his own whistleblowing--it pissed him off that such deception was attempted or planned.) IF the WMD-planting theory is true, the Blairites discovery that Kelly knew about this nefarious scheme would have put tremendous pressure on the Bushites (and the Blairites), because it would appear to them that the plot was in imminent danger of being exposed--whether it was or not. How far had it gone? Who all knew? There were a couple of reports in the Islamic press about botched US efforts to plant WMDs in Iraq (--and what happened to THOSE people (local observers)--Abu Ghraib?). Was the CIA itself about to expose them (contrary to their tradition of secrecy)? But mainly, WHO ELSE knew? If the Brits couldn't keep a lid on it, how many people, from how many directions, could come at them, with facts and evidence about this audacious effort to deceive? So, in their panic, they outed EVERYBODY--the entire network of deep cover foreign agents and contacts, built up over the years, of friends of the US and friends of humanity, whose job it was to keep us all safe from illicit traffic in weapons of mass destruction. The multiple-outing was because they DIDN'T KNOW--who had foiled them, and who knew. Their purpose: 1) to punish and disable anybody who had foiled their scheme (including getting them killed by their own governments or by other bad actors); or (if they were still trying to plant the nukes or other WMDs, in July 2003) to destroy the network of WMD detectors and foilers that was slowing things up. By fall 2003, with the CIA enraged at the assault on its own agents, and calling for an investigation, they had to give it up--and switch to "Iraqi freedom" as the motive for the war (which is just about the time that that "talking point" was brought forward). Someone upthread asked, why did they kill Kelly, and not Wilson and Plame? I imagine that Wilson and Plame have lived with that fear. But the critical difference between Plame and Kelly may be that Plame, as a NOC and a high-placed CIA operative, is sworn to a lifetime of keeping government secrets, and Kelly was not. He was a scientist on loan to different agencies (including the UN weapons inspection team). He was not a spy (that we know of). He was already whistleblowing. He was "off the reservation," and could not be trusted, when he promised, under interrogation, not to disclose "government secrets." Also, she has the protection of the CIA--which, if it kills its own, likes to make that decision itself, I would imagine. And Kelly did not have any such protection. The Blair government and British intel agencies cut him loose. They outed him to the press, and sent him home without protection and apparently without surveillance. And if he WAS under surveillance, they let him bleed to death all night under a tree near his house. (--doesn't add up--none of it adds up). As for Wilson, he, a) comes under CIA protection as the husband of a NOC, I would imagine, and b) sought the protection of widespread publicity for his dissent. Kelly, too, was the subject of a blazing public controversy in England--one caused by his government's deliberate outing of him to the press. He did not seek publicity. In fact, he backed down somewhat under the kleig lights. It may have been his fatal mistake, allowing the "many dark actors playing games"* around him to spin a web of deceit around his assassination. If he had stuck to his allegation 100% (re: the "sexed up" prewar intel--which turned out, of course, to be 100% true), and had not tried to backpedal a bit, and get himself out of the way of the Blairites' pointed guns, his murder might have been significantly more difficult to cover up, and the plan to kill him abandoned. It also may be a measure of the how dangerous he was to the Bushites/Blairites that they had him killed in the midst of the publicity. One more thought: Kelly's murder may have saved the Wilson's. Three WMD-related murders in one week was too much to cover up. ---------- *(On the day he died, Kelly wrote an email to none other than Judith Miller--an old colleague of his--in which he expressed concern about the "many dark actors playing games." She had emailed him, stating that a "fan" of his had told her that he did well in the hearing that week (note: by all accounts, except this one, he did NOT do well--he was severely stressed during the parliamentary hearing at which he backpedaled on his whistleblowing accusations). He wrote back to her that he would know more by the end of the week, and that there were "many dark actors playing games." He added "thank you for your friendship and support at this time." I've recently begun to wonder if that was an ironical tag. Did he suspect her of being one of the "dark actors"? Of how he got outed to his bosses? His emails to other friends of his that day were upbeat and forward-looking--about his daughter's upcoming wedding, and plans to return to Iraq. He may have been worried about "dark actors," but he was not suicidal. He thought the storm had blown over.) (Note: Miller had used him as a major quoted source in her book "Germs" about bioweapons, published just after 9/11.) *(Notably, Miller has refused to disclose the OTHER topics of conversation between her and Libby (besides Wilson/Plame and the NIE). Fitzgerald had to agree to this, to get her testimony against Libby on his perjury/obstruction. A week after her first conversation with Libby (mid-June) about Wilson/Plame and the NIE, Kelly was outed to his bosses (as the BBC whistleblower)--initiating the train of events that led to his death several weeks later (three days after Plame was outed). And the other thing that Miller has been secretive about is the "dark actors" email itself. She wrote the NYT news obit on Kelly's death, and did not disclose this email, or her close connection to the subject of the article. It was his family who later disclosed the email.) --------- So--does Fitzgerald suspect or know that there is something much worse behind the Plame/B-J outingS, beyond Cheney and the political coverup, that has caused him to grant immunity to the actual outers (political operatives), and to be digging deeper into this onion, in his stated purpose of understanding WHY these outings occurred? And is it this--that the Niger forgeries were just Part 1 of a yet more nefarious scheme to plant the weapons--a scheme hatched out of the Pentagon, by Donald Rumsfeld, that Cheney is now covering up? Dunno. And Rumsfeld name hasn't come up at all, so far, in this case (that I know of). Fitzgerald appears to be building a conspiracy case against Cheney. But when you add up all the people whom Fitzgerald has NOT indicted--and the lack of indictments on the outing crime itself (despite a lot of evidence against certain people, just in the available info)--you have to wonder if he isn't trying to go deeper. The non-indictments (so far) could be part of the strategy of nailing Cheney for conspiracy. But the WHY of that conspiracy is still not known, except on a superficial level (effort to silence dissent--political motive). -------------------------------------- Originally posted by Peace Patriot in General Discussion Thu Feb 08th 2007, 01:52 PM Comment #150 at http://www.democraticunderground.com/discu... Visitor Tools
Use the tools below to keep track of updates to this Journal.
|
