Political leanings

[Torurot]

Assassinations and Coups
Keeping Track of the Empire's Crimes
http://counterpunch.org/blum08062009.html
By WILLIAM BLUM August 6, 2009

If you catch the CIA with its hand in the cookie jar and the Agency admits the obvious €” what your eyes can plainly see €” that its hand is indeed in the cookie jar, it means one of two things:

a) the CIA's hand is in several other cookie jars at the same time which you don't know about and they hope that by confessing to the one instance they can keep the others covered up; or

b) its hand is not really in the cookie jar €” it's an illusion to throw you off the right scent €” but they want you to believe it.

There have been numerous news stories in recent months about secret CIA programs, hidden from Congress, inspired by former vice-president Dick Cheney, in operation since the September 11 terrorist attacks, involving assassination of al Qaeda operatives or other non-believers-in-the-Empire abroad without the knowledge of their governments. The Agency admits to some sort of program having existed, but insists that it was canceled; and if it was an assassination program it was canceled before anyone was actually assassinated. Another report has the US military, not the CIA, putting the plan €” or was it a different plan? €” into operation, carrying out several assassinations including one in Kenya that proved to be a severe embarrassment and helped lead to the quashing of the program. (The Guardian, July 13, 2009.)

All of this can be confusing to those following the news. And rather irrelevant. We already know that the United States has been assassinating non-believers, or suspected non-believers, with regularity, and impunity, in recent years, using unmanned planes (drones) firing missiles, in Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Somalia, if not elsewhere. (Even more victims have been produced from amongst those who happened to be in the same house, car, wedding party, or funeral as the non-believer.) These murders apparently don't qualify as "assassinations", for somehow killing "terrorists" from 2000 feet is morally and legally superior to doing so from two feet away.

But whatever the real story is behind the current rash of speculation, we should not fall into the media's practice of at times intimating that multiple or routine CIA assassination attempts would be something shocking or at least very unusual.

I've compiled a list of CIA assassination attempts, successful and unsuccessful, against prominent foreign political figures, from 1949 through 2003, which, depending on how you count it, can run into the hundreds (targeting Fidel Castro alone totals 634 according to Cuban intelligence)2; the list can be updated by adding the allegedly al Qaeda leaders among the drone attack victims of recent years. Assassination and torture are the two things governments are most loath to admit to, and try their best to cover up. It's thus rare to find a government document or recorded statement mentioning a particular plan to assassinate someone. There is, however, an abundance of compelling circumstantial evidence to work with. The following list does not include several assassinations in various parts of the world carried out by anti-Castro Cubans employed by the CIA and headquartered in the United States.

1949 - Kim Koo, Korean opposition leader

1950s - CIA/Neo-Nazi hit list of more than 200 political figures in West Germany
to be "put out of the way" in the event of a Soviet invasion

1950s - Chou En-lai, Prime minister of China, several attempts on his life

1950s, 1962 - Sukarno, President of Indonesia

1951 - Kim Il Sung, Premier of North Korea

1953 - Mohammed Mossadegh, Prime Minister of Iran

1950s (mid) - Claro M. Recto, Philippines opposition leader

1955 - Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister of India

1957 - Gamal Abdul Nasser, President of Egypt

1959, 1963, 1969 - Norodom Sihanouk, leader of Cambodia

1960 - Brig. Gen. Abdul Karim Kassem, leader of Iraq

1950s-70s - José Figueres, President of Costa Rica, two attempts on his life

1961 - Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier, leader of Haiti

1961 - Patrice Lumumba, Prime Minister of the Congo (Zaire)

1961 - Gen. Rafael Trujillo, leader of Dominican Republic

1963 - Ngo Dinh Diem, President of South Vietnam

1960s-70s - Fidel Castro, President of Cuba, many attempts on his life

1960s - Raúl Castro, high official in government of Cuba

1965 - Francisco Caamaño, Dominican Republic opposition leader

1965-6 - Charles de Gaulle, President of France

1967 - Che Guevara, Cuban leader

1970 - Salvador Allende, President of Chile

1970 - Gen. Rene Schneider, Commander-in-Chief of Army, Chile

1970s, 1981 - General Omar Torrijos, leader of Panama

1972 - General Manuel Noriega, Chief of Panama Intelligence

1975 - Mobutu Sese Seko, President of Zaire

1976 - Michael Manley, Prime Minister of Jamaica

1980-1986 - Muammar Qaddafi, leader of Libya, several plots and attempts upon his life

1982 - Ayatollah Khomeini, leader of Iran

1983 - Gen. Ahmed Dlimi, Moroccan Army commander

1983 - Miguel d'Escoto, Foreign Minister of Nicaragua

1984 - The nine comandantes of the Sandinista National Directorate

1985 - Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, Lebanese Shiite leader (80 people killed in the attempt)

1991 - Saddam Hussein, leader of Iraq

1993 - Mohamed Farah Aideed, prominent clan leader of Somalia

1998, 2001-2 - Osama bin Laden, leading Islamic militant

1999 - Slobodan Milosevic, President of Yugoslavia

2002 - Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Afghan Islamic leader and warlord

2003 - Saddam Hussein and his two sons

For those of you who collect lists about splendid US foreign policy post-World War II, here are a few more that, lacking anything better to do, I've put together: Attempts to overthrow more than 50 foreign governments, most of which had been democratically-elected. (* = successful ouster of a government.)

Albania 1949-53
East Germany 1950s
Iran 1953 *
Guatemala 1954 *
Costa Rica mid-1950s
Syria 1956-7
Egypt 1957
Indonesia 1957-8
British Guiana 1953-64 *
Iraq 1963 *
North Vietnam 1945-73
Cambodia 1955-70 *
Laos 1958-60 *
Ecuador 1960-63 *
Congo 1960 *
France 1965
Brazil 1962-64 *
Dominican Republic 1963 *
Cuba 1959 to present
Bolivia 1964 *
Indonesia 1965 *
Ghana 1966 *
Chile 1964-73 *
Greece 1967 *
Costa Rica 1970-71
Bolivia 1971 *
Australia 1973-75 *
Angola 1975, 1980s
Zaire 1975
Portugal 1974-76 *
Jamaica 1976-80 *
Seychelles 1979-81
Chad 1981-82 *
Grenada 1983 *
South Yemen 1982-84
Suriname 1982-84
Fiji 1987 *
Libya 1980s
Nicaragua 1981-90 *
Panama 1989 *
Bulgaria 1990 *
Albania 1991 *
Iraq 1991
Afghanistan 1980s *
Somalia 1993
Yugoslavia 1999
Ecuador 2000 *
Afghanistan 2001 *
Venezuela 2002 *
Iraq 2003 *

After his June 4 Cairo speech, President Obama was much praised for mentioning the 1953 CIA overthrow of Iranian prime minister Mohammed Mossadegh. But in his talk in Ghana on July 11 he failed to mention the CIA coup that ousted Ghanian president Kwame Nkrumah in 1966, referring to him only as a "giant" among African leaders. The Mossadegh coup is one of the most well-known CIA covert actions. Obama could not easily get away without mentioning it in a talk in the Middle East looking to mend fences. But the Nkrumah ouster is one of the least known; indeed, not a single print or broadcast news report in the American mainstream media saw fit to mention it at the time of the president's talk. Like it never happened.

And the next time you hear that Africa can't produce good leaders, people who are committed to the welfare of the masses of their people, think of Nkrumah and his fate. And think of Patrice Lumumba, overthrown in the Congo 1960-61 with the help of the United States; Agostinho Neto of Angola, against whom Washington waged war in the 1970s, making it impossible for him to institute progressive changes; Samora Machel of Mozambique against whom the CIA supported a counter-revolution in the 1970s-80s period; and Nelson Mandela of South Africa (now married to Machel's widow), who spent 28 years in prison thanks to the CIA.

William Blum is the author of Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, Rogue State: a guide to the World's Only Super Power. and West-Bloc Dissident: a Cold War Political Memoir.

He can be reached at: [email protected]

[strocube]

I know it's bad, but it seems that it's always WORSE than I could've imagined.
Here in the U.S. we have Pacifica Radio. In L.A. the Pacifica station is KPFK. I support them and what they're doing, but I can only listen to then in small doses or I get way too angry and freaked out.
I wonder if New Zealand will have me?

[Torurot]

only if you renounce your US citisinship ;-)


Americans: Serfs Ruled by Oligarchs
http://counterpunch.org/roberts08192009.html
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS August 19, 2009

€œIn a little time [there will be] no middling sort. We shall have a few, and but a very few Lords, and all the rest beggars.€ R.L. Bushman

€œRapidly you are dividing into two classes--extreme rich and extreme poor.€ €œBrutus€

Americans think that they have €œfreedom and democracy€ and that politicians are held accountable by elections. The fact of the matter is that the US is ruled by powerful interest groups who control politicians with campaign contributions. Our real rulers are an oligarchy of financial and military/security interests and AIPAC, which influences US foreign policy for the benefit of Israel.

Have a look at economic policy. It is being run for the benefit of large financial concerns, such as Goldman Sachs.

It was the banks, not the millions of Americans who have lost homes, jobs, health insurance, and pensions, that received $700 billion in TARP funds. The banks used this gift of capital to make more profits. In the middle of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, Goldman Sachs announced record second quarter profits and large six-figure bonuses for every employee.

The Federal Reserve€™s low interest rate policy is another gift to the banks. It lowers their cost of funds and increases their profits. With the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999, banks became high-risk investment houses that trade financial instruments such as interest rate derivatives and mortgage backed securities. With abundant funds supplied virtually free by the Federal Reserve, banks are paying depositors virtually nothing on their savings.

Despite the Federal Reserve€™s low interest rate policy, beginning October 1 banks are raising the annual percentage rate (APR) on credit card purchases and cash advances and on balances that have a penalty rate because of late payment. Banks are also raising the late fee. In the midst of the worst economy since the 1930s, heavily indebted Americans, who are losing their jobs and their homes, are to be bled into bankruptcy by the very banks that are being subsidized with TARP funds and low interest rates.

Moreover, it is the American public that is on the hook for the TARP money and the low interest rates. As the US government€™s budget is 50 per cent or more in the red, the TARP money has to be borrowed from abroad or monetized by the Fed. This means more pressure on the US dollar€™s exchange value and a rise in import prices and also domestic inflation.

Americans will thus pay for the TARP and low interest rate subsidies to their financial rulers with erosion in the purchasing power of the dollar. What we are experiencing is a massive redistribution of income from the American public to the financial sector.

And this is occurring during a Democratic administration headed by America€™s first black president, with a Democratic majority in the House and Senate.

Is there a government anywhere that less represents its citizens than the US government?

Consider America€™s wars. As of the moment of writing, the out-of-pocket cost of America€™s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is $900,000,000,000. When you add in the already incurred future costs of veterans benefits, interest on the debt, the forgone use of the resources for productive purposes, and such other costs as computed by Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard University budget expert Linda Bilmes, €œour€ government has wasted $3,000,000,000,000--three thousand billion dollars--on two wars that have no benefit whatsoever for any American whose income does not derive from the military/security complex, about which five-star general President Eisenhower warned us.

It is now a proven fact that the US invasion of Iraq was based on lies and deception of the American public. The only beneficiaries were the armaments industries, Blackwater, Halliburton, military officers who enjoy higher rates of promotion during war, and Muslim extremists whose case the US government proved by its unprovoked aggression against Muslims. No one else benefitted. Iraq was a threat to no one, and finding Saddam Hussein and executing him after a kangaroo trial had no effect whatsoever on ending the war or preventing the start of others.

The cost of America€™s wars is a huge burden on a bankrupt country, but the cost incurred by veterans might be even higher. Homelessness is a prevalent condition of veterans, as is post-traumatic stress. American soldiers, who naively fought for the munitions industry€™s wars, for high compensation for the munitions CEOs, and for dividends and capital gains for the munitions shareholders, paid not only with lives and lost limbs, but also with broken marriages, ruined careers, psychiatric disorders, and prison sentences for failing to make child support payments.

What did Americans gain from an unaffordable war in Iraq that lasted far longer than World War II and that put into power Shi€™ites allied with Iran?

The answer is obvious: nothing whatsoever.

What did the armaments industry gain? Billions of dollars in profits.

Obama is the presidential candidate who promised to end the war in Iraq. He hasn€™t. But he has escalated the war in Afghanistan, started a new war in Pakistan, intends to repeat the Yugoslav scenario in the Caucasus, and appears determined to start a war in South America. In response to the acceptance by US puppet president of Columbia, Alvaro Uribe, of seven US military bases in Columbia, Venezuela warned South American countries that the €œwinds or war are beginning to blow.€

Here we have the US government, totally dependent on the generosity of foreigners to finance its red ink, which extends in large quantities as far as the eye can see, completely under the thumb of the military/security complex, which will destroy us all in order to meet Wall Street share price expectations.

Why does any American care who rules Afghanistan? The country has nothing to do with us.

Did the armed services committees of the House and Senate calculate the risk of destabilizing nuclear armed Pakistan when they acquiesced to Obama€™s new war there, a war that has already displaced two million Pakistanis?

No, of course not. The whores took their orders from the same military/security oligarchy that instructed Obama.

The great American superpower and its 300 million people are being driven straight into the ground by the narrow interest of the big banks and the munitions industry. People, and not only Americans, are losing their sons, husbands, brothers, and fathers for no other reason than the profits of US armaments corporations, and the gullible American people seem proud of it. Those ribbon decals on their cars, SUVs and monster trucks proclaim their naive loyalty to the armaments industries and to the whores in Washington who promote wars.

Will Americans, smashed and destroyed by €œtheir€ government€™s policy, which always puts Americans last, ever understand who their real enemies are?

Will Americans realize that they are not ruled by elected representatives but by an oligarchy that owns the Washington whorehouse?

Will Americans ever understand that they are impotent serfs?

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions. This fall CounterPunch/AK Press will publish Robert's War of the Worlds: How the Economy Was Lost. He can be reached at: [email protected]

[alan1chef]

Mass. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy dies at age 77

HYANNIS PORT, Mass. €“ Massachusetts Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, the liberal lion of the Senate, has died after battling a brain tumor. He was 77.

Kennedy's family announced his death in a brief statement released early Wednesday.

For nearly a half-century in the Senate, Kennedy was a dominant voice on health care, civil rights, war and peace, and more. To the American public, though, he was best known as the last surviving brother of a storied political family.

Kennedy was elected to the Senate in 1962, when his brother John was president, and served longer than all but two senators in history.

Over the decades, Kennedy put his imprint on every major piece of social legislation to clear the Congress.





I guess it is the fate of the Kennedy legacy that the worst of the three brothers lived the longest. I never liked the guy...he got away with murder and should have spent his life in prison, not in the Senate. In my opinion, Robert was the best of the three and would have made a great President.

[manarak]

he got away with murder

I can't see in the incident any more than an accident with cover-up of his alcohol level.

Robert was the best of the three and would have made a great President

so you are a leftist after all...

[alan1chef]

Yes, accident....otherwise known in the US as manslaughter....second degree murder...he killed her by his negligence.

Leftist...lol...I believe in voting for the best man for the job at the time...left, right, third party...doesn't matter. At that point in time, Robert Kennedy was the best man for the job.

[manarak]

he killed her by his negligence.

it is not at all certain that she would have survived in the car long enough for rescuers to pull her out in time.

[smuttleydfs]

(manarak @ Aug. 26 2009,14:01)

he killed her by his negligence.

it is not at all certain that she would have survived in the car long enough for rescuers to pull her out in time.

Disregard wannabechief's ignorance.........it is merely reich wing jealousy because there never has been nor will there ever be a republican senator that will be 1/4th as influential as a Kennedy.....it is a physical impossibility

[alan1chef]

You had better read my post on the Ted RIP thread...there are many Republican Senators whom history will rate as better than Teddy.

[Tomcat]

(Torurot @ Aug. 20 2009,13:30) Why does any American care who rules Afghanistan? The country has nothing to do with us.

How some have short memories uh.

Just look back several years ago when Osama, The Mulla Omah and other assorted scumbags were plotting all kinds of varous atrocities against the west from this safe haven . There were training camps dedicated to various terror groups fighting in the name of Allah and the number one target being the Western World.

Pull out of this place now and in five years the virus of terror will return to haunt one and all. make no mistake.

Not only that but the whole country is an giant Opium factory. ..
As the old T shirt says ,, kill em all.. let God sort em out,,

[Torurot]

Are you channeling McCrystal?

Afghanistan Apocalypse part one
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/dreyf...tan_apocalypse
posted by Robert Dreyfuss on 08/26/2009 @ 09:22am

* Comments (74)

Yesterday afternoon at the Brookings Institution, four analysts portrayed a bleak and terrifying vision of the current state of affairs in Afghanistan in the wake of the presidential election. All four were hawkish, reflecting a growing consensus in the Washington establishment that the Afghanistan war is only just beginning.

Their conclusions: (1) A significant escalation of the war will be necessary to avoid utter defeat. (2) Even if tens of thousands of troops are added to the US occupation, it won't be possible to determine if the US/NATO effort is succeeding until eighteen months later. (3) Even if the United States turns the tide in Afghanistan, no significant drawdown of US forces will take place until five years have passed.


Part two

Afghan Apocalypse, Part II
posted by Robert Dreyfuss on 08/27/2009 @ 4:09pm
http://www.thenation.com/blogs....part_ii

* Comments (76)



Afghan civilian deaths decline under new U.S. tactics (except that they don't really!)
http://www.latimes.com/news....3.story

Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan - Western troops have killed far fewer Afghan civilians since the top U.S. general imposed strict new rules of engagement aimed at addressing one of the most contentious issues of the conflict, according to newly declassified U.S. military figures.

However, the data cover a relatively short period of eight weeks, and make it clear that civilians are still dying in large numbers, a pattern blamed in part on the Taliban's campaign of violence surrounding last week's national elections.

The toll on civilians has angered Afghanistan's government and poisoned public opinion against the presence of American and allied troops. The Obama administration has made reducing such deaths a top priority for the U.S. military.

The period since the new rules took effect have also coincided with some of the heaviest losses of the war for Western forces. But military spokesmen deny any link, saying record fatalities were caused by the summer's troop buildup and an accompanying push into areas controlled by the Taliban, rather than any greater hazard to troops posed by the new rules. .....

[jadeite]

(Tomcat @ Aug. 30 2009,11:22) Just look back several years ago when Osama, The Mulla Omah and other assorted scumbags were plotting all kinds of varous atrocities against the west from this safe haven .

So why do you think that would that be? Do you think they just rolled a dice to see who they hated? Could it be these same western powers were the ones meddling with their affairs and leading to their brothers dying in the first place. You kick a dog long enough and eventually it is going to turn around and snap at you. That's what we are seeing.

Pull out of this place now and in five years the virus of terror will return to haunt one and all.  make no mistake.

These people have been around for thousands of years without the need for us to be there giving them a daily whipping and our system of government. That's plain as day. There is no reason why we cannot shake their hands, get out tomorow, and leave them alone. The world will not come to a fiery end but instead will be a more peaceful, free, and prosperous place to be.

Not only that but the whole country is an giant Opium factory

Legalize it and this critical money source disappears. There is not a bigger weapon against the war on terror than doing this. But of course the DEA will have none of this, too many peoples interests to protect.

[Torurot]

Fifty percent (50%) of the WORLDS pharmaceutical grade opium (which is used for morphine etc) is grown in AUSTRALIA!!! WTF, why can't we BUY it off Afghan farmers, give them a proper living etc!! Nope we have to have Americans wreck their living by killing THEIR Opium (livelihood). Why do "they" hate us.........

[Tomcat]

(jadeite @ Aug. 30 2009,18:01) Could it be these same western powers were the ones meddling with their affairs and leading to their brothers dying in the first place.

ahem , pre 9/11 where was the nasty Western World meddling in the affairs of the followers of Allah .  I cant remember the USA invading anyone or the EU for that matter before the shit hit the fan on 9/11

You Liberal make the slightest of excuses for the so called meek and oppressed . Afghanistan was a fucking training camp for every raghead , Chechen and other assorted lowlifes you can name ..

You can stuff your brotherhood of man shite . Socialism , equality, its all bullshit..I know who my enemies are.. make no mistake.

[Torurot]

TomCat, Pre 911 the USA was funding and arming the freedom fighters (Taliban et al) so they could fight (with US "advisors") the US "proxy" war against the Soviets (in Afghanistan). Where do you think they got all the Stingers from? Not to mention all the other places the US was fighting in. How quickly some of you forget, or perhaps never knew!!