UK Coup Erupts: Theresa May Cabinet In Revolt, Plotting Her Imminent Overthrow

Theresa May may have days, if not hours, left as prime minister of the UK following a full-blown cabinet coup on Saturday night as senior ministers moved to oust the UK prime minister and replace her with her deputy, David Lidington.

According to the Sunday Times, following a “frantic series of private telephone calls”, senior ministers agreed the prime minister must announce she is standing down, warning that she has become a toxic and “erratic” figure whose judgment has “gone haywire.”

The plotters reportedly plan to confront May at a cabinet meeting on Sunday and demand that she announces she is quitting. If she refuses, they will threaten mass resignations or publicly demand her head. The “conspirators” were locked in talks late on Saturday to try reach a consensus deal on a new prime minister so there does not have to be a protracted leadership contest.

The Sunday Times, which reported that up to 11 cabinet minister confirmed they wanted the prime minister to make way for someone else, said that at six senior ministers want her deputy, David Lidington, to deliver Brexit and then make way for a full leadership contest in the autumn. Lidington’s supporters include cabinet remainers Greg Clark, Amber Rudd and David Gauke. The chancellor, Philip Hammond, also believes Lidington should take over if May refuses this week to seek a new consensus deal on Brexit. Sajid Javid, has agreed to put his own leadership ambitions on hold until the autumn to clear the way for Lidington — as long as his main rivals do the same.

The relatively unfamiliar – especially outside the UK – Lidington “is understood not to be pressing for the top job but is prepared to take over if that is the will of cabinet. He would agree not to stand in the contest to find a permanent leader.”

A cabinet source said: “David’s job would be to secure an extension with the EU, find a consensus for a new Brexit policy and then arrange an orderly transition to a new leader.”

Lidington’s friends want him to pledge to allow the cabinet to decide Brexit policy in order to get Hunt and Gove on board, urging the three cabinet heavyweights to work together to take control of the government.

Michael Gove, a leading Brexiteer in the 2016 referendum, and Foreign Minister Jeremy Hunt also have some support.

Hunt, the foreign secretary, does not support Lidington because he believes he would do a deal with Labour to take Britain into a permanent customs union with the EU, although he has lost confidence in May’s ability to take advice or deliver the deal.

Meanwhile environment secretary Gove has a leadership team in place and a raft of supporters who have been recruited in a series of secret dinners hosted by Mel Stride, the Treasury minister. Gove is said to be ready to support Lidington if others do but is sceptical that agreement will be reached.

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As the Times details, the coup erupted “after a week of mistakes” by May, who delivered a television statement that alienated the MPs whose support she needs for her Brexit deal and then flirted with backing a no deal before performing a U-turn.

One cabinet minister said: “The end is nigh. She won’t be prime minister in 10 days’ time.”

A second said: “Her judgment has started to go haywire. You can’t be a member of the cabinet who just puts your head in the sand.”

Similar to recurring mentions of the 25th Amendment in the US, concerns about May’s mental and physical resilience are widely shared. Officials in parliament were so concerned about May’s welfare they drew up a protocol to extract her from the Commons if she collapsed at the dispatch box.

For now May has refused to comply with the coup’s demands, and the Times sources at Downing Street say May has not yet come to the conclusion that she should resign and is still being encouraged by her husband Philip to fight on. But she has also lost the confidence of key allies whose job it is to maintain party discipline. Whether she remains or quits, the current Brexit process remains irreparably broken: Julian Smith, the chief whip, believes there is no prospect of the prime minister winning support for her deal unless she announces that she is standing down so the second phase of Brexit negotiations can be conducted by a new leader.

Smith told May that she should offer to go in the summer. May last night won the backing of Gisela Stuart, the most high-profile Labour supporter of the Vote Leave campaign. Writing in The Sunday Times, Stuart said: “It’s not the deal we want but it is the only deal we have.”

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But Smith and other senior Tories believe that May’s resignation is a prerequisite to securing the support of key Brexiteers Boris Johnson, Dominic Raab and Jacob Rees-Mogg for the deal — without whom it is doomed to defeat.

In a desperate last ditch move to save her seat, May’s team is said to be working on a plan to secure the support of the Democratic Unionist Party and Labour MPs by granting them a say on the final trade deal, to be negotiated after Brexit.

That appears to be too little, too late: MPs claimed that just one member of the whips’ office, Mike Freer, wants May to carry on.

In an astonishing challenge to her authority one senior whip, Paul Maynard, told May to her face that she should go because she was “betraying Brexit” and “destroying our party”. Sir Graham Brady, the chairman of the 1922 committee of backbenchers, is “at the end of his chain” and also thinks May should resign.

Another cabinet minister said: “If the prime minister no longer has confidence of the parliamentary party, is badly placed to win over support of other parties and patience with her is almost run out among the EU 27 — then her continuing is a real problem.”

Meanwhile, in bad news for pound bulls, with May’s authority in freefall, Times sources said it is unlikely that the prime minister will hold a third meaningful vote on her Brexit deal this week. Instead she will be a passenger as MPs vote tomorrow on a motion that will let them seize control of Wednesday’s Commons business to host a series of “indicative votes”, where MPs can express a preference for alternatives to May’s Brexit plan. That could lead to pressure for a new referendum or a Norway-style deal that keeps Britain in the single market.

The most likely outcome, however, is even more chaos and confusion as in addition to having no real Brexit plans ahead of the (extended) hard Brexit headline in three weeks, the UK will soon be without a real leader.

* * *

And so with the UK facing a political coup, much remains unsure, with Times deputy political editor Sam Coates tweeting that:

  • are we really sure that it will be left to an “interim” PM to change direction of the county?
  • still clearly disagreement over timetable from different parts of cabinet
  • no contest involving Tory membership means massive row

The report of the political revolt comes, ironically, just hours after hundreds of thousands of Britons poured into the streets of London demanding a second public vote.

Marchers,  accompanied by live performances from noted U.K. musicians including DJ Fatboy Slim, clogged the streets of central London as they walked from Hyde Park to Parliament Square to hear from the opposition Labour Party mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and deputy Labour leader Tom Watson.
Watson promised to back Theresa May’s twice-defeated political deal — breaking from the party’s position — in return for her  agreement to put the withdrawal accord to a public vote.

“I will support your deal, I will help you get over the line, to help avoid a disastrous no-deal Brexit, but only if you let the people vote on it,” Watson said.

And while most of the attendees favor Britain staying in the bloc, the rest of the UK reportedly remains sternly against going back to that other vortex of political chaos known as the European Union.

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Appendix: for those who still pretend to bother about the Brexit process and where we currently stand, the following flowchart from AFP should give you a rough idea.

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Three Neo-Nazis Lead Ukraine’s Presidential Contest: Gallup Finds Ukrainians Despise All the Candidates

Eric Zuesse

Gallup headlined on March 21st, “Ukraine’s Election: Voters Disenchanted Ahead of Key Vote”, and “World-Low 9% of Ukrainians Confident in Government”. Might the reason for both be that no candidate in the contest is respected by the Ukrainian public, and that only three — the candidates with the least-low public approval — are the only ones who have even a remote chance of winning, and that all three of those candidates are racist-fascists, or hold the ideology of nazism? This will be documented here:

Nazism, which is the ideology of fascism but with a heavy added component of racism, has been doing well in post-‘revolutionary’, or post-2013, or post ‘Maidan’ ‘revolution’, Ukrainian politics. The form of racism that dominates today’s Ukraine is against Russians more than against Jews, and so though the ideology is the same as was Germany’s nazi ideology, its main ethnic target isn’t the same. Some of Ukraine’s leading nazis are, in fact, Jews who hate Russians. Whereas Germany’s nazis wanted to exterminate all Jews, Ukraine’s nazis want to exterminate all Russians. But this is all that Ukraine’s voters are being offered, ever since the democratically elected President was thrown out in February 2014. He was fairly unpopular, but not as despised as the politicians who replaced him and his Government are.

The three top Presidential contenders in the upcoming March 31st election, as shown in all the polling, are:

Yulia Tymoshenko, the former ‘gas princess’ who had been convicted and sent to prison for skimming from Ukraine’s gas monopoly, the National Oil and Gas Company of Ukraine. She had established herself as a passionately anti-Russian Prime Minister and had been the preferred candidate of the Barack Obama U.S. Administration to win the 25 May 2014 election, but that election was instead won by a more moderate anti-Russian, the candy and shipbuilding oligarch Petro Poroshenko, who, as President, continued the ethnic-cleansing campaign that had been started by the interim leader of Ukraine who had been selected as Ukraine’s leader in a famous phone call by Victoria Nuland, who was U.S. President Obama’s top operative planning and executing the February 2014 U.S. coup, which coup overthrew the elected President, who hadn’t been sufficiently anti-Russian to suit U.S. President Obama. When I posted the transcript of that phone call years later, I noted that: “This historically mega-important phone-call, which was posted to the internet a week later, on February 4th — three weeks before the man whom she named there received (just as she had instructed) the appointment to lead the post-coup Ukraine — isn’t even being denied by Washington. Instead, it’s either ignored by them, or else totally misrepresented, in the ‘historical’ accounts by the agents of the U.S. regime.” The person she selected there to rule the interim government was “Yats” Yatsenyuk, Tymoshenko’s choice, who was chosen because if Nuland had appointed Tymoshenko, then Tymoshenko would have been unable to run in the 25 May 2014 Ukrainian Presidential election.

Petro Poroshenko, the incumbent President, and Ukrainian oligarch who had beaten Tymoshenko in the 2014 contest. He continued the ethnic cleansing campaign because unless enough of the voters in the far eastern region of Ukraine — where the elected President who had been ousted had received over 90% of the votes — were killed or else evacuated Ukraine (mostly by fleeing into neighboring Russia), Ukraine would again have an insufficiently anti-Russian Government to satisfy the U.S. Government, which wanted Ukraine in NATO. Consequently, both the Obama Administration and the IMF were strong supporters of continuing the ethnic-cleansing campaign. (And the U.S. regime is also using white phosphorous to burn whole areas to death in Syria, and a French officer who complained about it was punished by the French Government.) That campaign in far-east former Ukraine had enough success so as to ensure continuation of a rabidly anti-Russian Ukrainian Government, in elections such as now are taking place.

Volodmyr Zelenskiy, the popular Ukrainian actor and comedian who played Ukraine’s President on Ukranian TV, in a series telecast on a TV channel that is owned by the Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoyskyi, who, as a U.S.-appointed governor in eastern Ukraine during Poroshenko’s Presidency, had planned and overseen in Odessa on 2 May 2014 a massacre of opponents of the U.S. coup. Subsequently, Poroshenko fired Kolomoyskyi — an oil and gas oligarch himself — because Kolomoyskyi’s personal team of thugs, which he called his “militia,” had raided the National Oil and Gas Company of Ukraine, in order to expel the new government-appointed chief. So, Kolomoyskyi hates Poroshenko, and is determined that Poroshenko not be re-elected. His preferred candidate, and employee, Zelenskiy, leads in the polling, thus far. Zelenskiy is like a Ukrainian Donald Trump, who also won because he had no plicy-making track-record and he ran against people who did.

Here are recent polling results:

On March 13th, Reuters headlined “Comedian Zelenskiy extends Ukraine presidential poll lead”, and reported SOCIS polling during 5-10 March showed 20.7% for Zelenskiy, 13.2% for Poroshenko, and 11.0% for Tymoshenko.

Wikipedia’s article “Opinion polling for the 2019 Ukrainian presidential election” shows trendlines for each polling organization and for each of the three major candidates. Zelenskiy is now around 25%, and both Poroshenko and Tymoshenko are each around 18%.

Therefore, Zelenskiy seems to be heading into a run-off against either Poroshenko or Tymoshenko.

The Gallup report on March 21st, “World-Low 9% of Ukrainians Confident in Government”, said that:

Currently in the lead — according to other national polls in Ukraine — is comedian and actor Volodymyr Zelensky, who is most widely known for playing the president of Ukraine in the popular television series “Servant of the People.” Like his character on the show, Zelensky is campaigning largely on an anti-corruption platform — which likely resonates with many voters. Incumbent Poroshenko is working to shift the focus off of the many scandals he has been accused of and is taking a hard-line stance, promising to join NATO and reclaim Crimea if he wins re-election. Tymoshenko initially led the large field of candidates but has fallen in the polls recently as rumors regarding her involvement in corrupt deals for natural gas have resurfaced.

However, whoever will ultimately win, will almost certainly continue the U.S. Government’s campaign to get Ukraine admitted into America’s anti-Russian military alliance, NATO, so as to be able to place U.S. missiles close enough to Moscow so that a blitz knockout blow to conquer Russia could — some U.S. strategists hope and believe — become possible.

Obama’s strategy to conquer Russia is being carried forward by his successor, Trump.

Here is additional background on each of the three individuals who is a prospective next President of Ukraine:

Tymoshenko: In a phone-conversation with a political supporter on 18 March 2014, while Tymoshenko was Barack Obama’s and Hillary Clinton’s preferred candidate to replace the democratically elected President of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, whom Obama’s February 2014 entirely illegal and very bloody coup in Ukraine had just recently overthrown, the then Ukrainian candidate to replace Yanukovych, Tymoshenko said “We should take weapons and shoot those God damned Russians along with their leader [Putin]. … I hope that [as Ukraine’s President] I will use all my connections [especially Obama and Clinton], and stir the entire world to action in order to make Russia into a field of scorched earth. … We should burn them with nuclear weapons!” Since Ukraine had no nuclear weapons, she was expressing there the hope that her connections inside the U.S. White House and State Department would produce a Third World War that would terminate Russia.

Poroshenko: The way he carried out the ethnic-cleansing campaign that had been started by the interim leader of Ukraine whom Obama’s agent Victoria Nuland had appointed, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, was to capture and kill all leaders of the resistance, and to bomb and terrorize into submission the residents in the resisting region. Under Yatsenyuk, a system was planned to be patterned upon Hitler’s treatment of Jews, Gypsies and other unwanted people, and it entailed concentration camps, but Poroshenko just wanted the people to die or else escape into Russia, so they’d not be voting in any future Ukrainian election. He also wanted the U.S. to help him to defeat the resistors, so that Ukraine could retake Crimea, which had been part of Ukraine during 1954-2014 but was Russian — and strongly pro-Russian ever since at least 1783. The Soviet dictator, Khruschchev, had been Ukrainian, and he arbitrarily transferred Crimea from Russia to Ukraine in 1954. Obama and Clinton insisted that Khruschev’s arbitrary decision continue to be honored, regardless of what the residents of Crimea wanted. Trump does likewise.

Zelenskiy: His patron, Kolomoyskyi, was one of the two main planners of the 2 May 2014 extermination inside the Odessa Trade Unions building, in which people who had distributed leaflets opposing the coup were trapped and burned and clubbed and shot to death. Like Donald Trump when Trump had run for the U.S. Presidency in 2016 against Clinton, Zelenskiy has no political track-record, but only political blatherings, by which his alleged policy-views can become (however dubiously) inferred by voters. And he seems likely to become Ukraine’s President in the same way that Trump did: by having no actual policymaking track-record, and running against opponent(s) whose policymaking track-records the electorate already know to be rotten.

The U.S. regime praises Ukraine now as a ‘democracy’ (and Americans apparently believe that). Before the U.S. take-over, it was called (by the U.S. Government and its allies) ‘authoritarian’ or ‘a dictatorship’. (That was when Ukraine had a freely elected President, who represented the whole country, instead of a truncated country, without the two regions that have the most strongly pro-Russia voters, who had voted the heaviest for that democratically elected President. The U.S. regime wants to control those regions, too, but without its residents. The U.S. regime wants the land, but not the people. The U.S. wants those people there eliminated. This is the type of ‘democracy’ America now is.)

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of  They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of  CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.

Trump’s Coup In Venezuela: What You’re Not Being Told

Authored by Jorge Martin via Venezuelanalysis.com,

Washington is growing increasingly desperate as its coup efforts go further south in Venezuela…

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The failure of the February 23 “humanitarian aid” provocation on the Venezuelan border was a serious blow for Trump’s ongoing coup attempt. There were mutual recriminations between self-appointed Guaidó, Colombian President Duque and US Vice-President Pence. The US could not get a consensus from its own Lima Cartel allies in favour of military intervention.

The coup was losing momentum. Then, on March 7, just days after Guaidó’s anti-climactic return to Caracas, the country was plunged into a nationwide blackout from which it has not yet fully recovered. What caused it? How is it related to the “regime change” attempt? And, most importantly, what are imperialism’s plans and how can they be fought?

February 23 was supposed to be the coup’s D-Day. The idea was never to actually deliver “humanitarian aid” into the country, but rather to create a “people’s power” moment, where large crowds of opposition supporters on both sides of the border defied the Venezuelan armed forces, which, when faced with a large crowd of peaceful demonstrators, would then switch sides and join Trump’s puppet, Juan Guaidó. On the day, however, things did not go according to Washington’s plan. The crowds of opposition supporters did not materialise in the expected numbers. “Aid” trucks did not cross the border and by the end of the day, Rubio, Abrams and Guaidó were left with egg all over their faces.

They made a big story about “Maduro burning the aid trucks” at the Santander bridge on the Colombian border. US officials even insisted this justified military intervention under the Geneva Convention. Never mind the fact that the Convention only applies in cases of war, the fact is that the aid truck that was burned was set on fire by a “peaceful” opposition supporter throwing a molotov cocktail at the Venezuelan border guards. Several media outlets (teleSURRT) explained that this was the case right from the beginning and even produced video footage to prove it. That did not stop US officials like Marco Rubio and John Bolton from blaming Maduro and the chorus of the world’s bourgeois mass media from parroting the lie:

Now, two weeks too late, even the New York Times has been forced to admit that “one [Venezuelan government] claim that appears to be backed up by video footage is that the protesters started the fire.” The same NY Timesinvestigation also concludes that the Venezuelan government was right in saying the US and the opposition were lying about the trucks containing medicine: “the claim about a shipment of medicine, too, appears to be unsubstantiated, according to videos and interviews.”

The admission by the NY Times, though it is unlikely to be covered as widely as the initial false reports, is very significant. We knew the US was lying, right from the beginning, as there was proof. Now it has been forced to admit it. This should provide a salutary lesson for the next time the US or its Venezuelan opposition make any outrageous claims about the “Maduro regime.” The lesson is: “question everything Washington and the mass media tell you about a government they want to overthrow.”

That evening, as if on cue, the Venezuelan opposition social media operation started to explode with the hashtag #IntervencionMilitarYA (#MilitaryInterventionNOW), aimed at putting pressure on the US and its allies to launch a military intervention in the country. The campaign is very revealing as to the character of the opposition (pro-imperialist and traitors to their own country), but also as to the morale of their ranks (they do not think they are the agents of “change” but rather invest all their hopes in Trump).

Having been defeated on February 23, the meeting of the Lima Group of countries in Bogotá the following morning was a further setback. Let us remember that the Lima Group (more accurately known as the “Lima Cartel”) is an ad-hoc group of countries created with the explicit aim of overthrowing the Venezuelan government when the US could not get enough votes at the Organisation of American States for its bellicose resolutions. Before the meeting even started, there were public statements by Chile, Brazil and Paraguay explicitly ruling out military intervention.

The case of Brazil is noteworthy because there is a major split within Bolsonaro’s cabinet, and between him and the Armed Forces. Under pressure from the generals and his own vice-president, General Hamilton Mourão, the far-right president has been forced to retreat from several of his public statements, specifically, support for the transfer of the Brazilian embassy to Jerusalem and granting the US army access to a military base in Brazil. When the Lima Group decided in January to cut off all contact with the Venezuelan armed forces, the Brazilians kept communication lines open. The Brazilian army went as far as vetoing the presence of US soldiers in the border with Venezuela as part of the so-called “humanitarian aid” operation on 23 February.

Contrary to the attitude of the Colombian state, which turned a blind eye and even helped the opposition rioters on the border with Venezuela, the Brazilians contained them and prevented clashes. The reason is not that the Brazilian generals are in any way progressive, nor that they stand by the principle of sovereignty, but rather they understand that any major conflict in Venezuela, including the possibility of a civil war, could have a major impact on Brazil, with which it shares a large and inhospitable border. The last thing the Brazilian generals want is accidentally getting sucked into a major armed conflict in Venezuela, which they know would not be a simple affair.

Faced with such reluctance, the Bogotá meeting on 25 February ended with a statement that used strong words of condemnation and issued unspecified threats, but did not contain any serious commitment to the next steps in the “regime change” operation. The US announced the inclusion of a few more Venezuelan officials on their sanctions list, including four regional governors. Hardly the “military intervention now” that the opposition demanded.

Media reports have talked of recriminations from Mike Pence (who had cut off his trip to South Korea to attend the meeting) to Guaidó. According to one report, Pence told Guaidó that “everything was failing in the offensive against the chavista regime, the biggest complaint was because of the continued loyalty of the armed forces to Maduro.” Apparently, Guaidó had promised the US that if they were to get “the main world leaders to recognise him… at least half of the high ranking officers would defect. It didn’t happen.” The other main criticism was regarding the Venezuelan opposition’s appraisal that Maduro’s “social base had disintegrated. The crisis revealed that support for the government has in fact diminished, but is not inexistent”.

Of course, one should take such reports with a pinch of salt as sources are not quoted. However, the general frustration of the US with the Venezuelan coup is very real and makes this particular report plausible. Another reportin the Wall Street Journal talked of Chilean President Piñera and Colombian President Duque also being angry at Guaidó at the meeting:

“The opposition had publicly sold the plan by promising that an outpouring of Venezuelans on both sides of the border would link up, Mr. Maduro’s security forces would back down and truckloads of aid would enter for hungry Venezuelans. ‘I think they built up expectations that weren’t carried out,’ said an opposition operative who was familiar with the discussions. ‘They built up that there was going to be more aid, that it would get in. And that the military would rise up. And it didn’t happen that way.’”

The WSJ article is quite detailed:

“‘As time passed, [Piñera] kept asking Guaidó where are the people who are coming from the other side?’ said the person. The responses weren’t satisfactory, he added. ‘Everything failed: coordination, information, organization,’ said a senior Latin American official.”

The picture painted here is of an angry exchange in which all blamed Guaidó, when in reality Washington is responsible for the whole design of the coup. The US officials in charge of the coup were so frustrated that they started a completely ridiculous polemic against the media (CNN included), which had started to described Guaidó as “self-proclaimed” or “leader of the opposition” as opposed to giving him the title of “the interim president,” a title that Washington had worked so hard to create:

The hawks in Trump’s administration – Bolton, Pompeo and Abrams – made a series of fatal miscalculations.

First, they assumed Maduro had no support whatsoever, underestimating the strength of anti-imperialist feeling in the face of a brazen US coup attempt, and the fact that, while support for Chavismo has diminished, it still managed to get over 30 percent of the census to vote for Maduro a year ago. Moreover, in the last few weeks, there has been a series of impressive, anti-imperialist mass rallies led by Diosdado Cabello in all states in the country.

Second, they thought that the opposition was able to mobilise large numbers of people who are prepared to go all the way in an open clash with the government. In fact, the opposition ranks, having been betrayed by their own leaders in 2017 and defeated in their previous attempts in 2013 and 2014, are distrustful of the opposition leaders and sceptical about their own ability to remove the government they hate. They have put all their illusions and hopes in a US-led military intervention and that is a state of mind which can produce a large rally (for instance on January 23) but not a sustained mobilisation to overthrow Maduro.

The failure of February 23 furthermore left Guaidó abroad, in Colombia. He thought he would come back victorious, at the head of a US convoy of “humanitarian aid,” but found himself having violated a court order not to leave the country and stranded in Bogotá. He started a short tour of Latin America, on board a Colombian plane, but soon the US called him to order. He discarded a plan to continue his tour in Europe and was told in no uncertain terms that he had to return to Venezuela as “he was losing momentum.”

Again, Abrams, Bolton and Rubio attempted to build up Guaidó’s return as another D-Day, baiting Maduro to arrest him on arrival in order to build a casus belli for foreign intervention. It resulted in another flop. Guaidó returned on March 4, the assembled EU ambassadors received him at the airport and then he went to a rally in the east of Caracas… But to his disappointment and that of his minders in the US, he was not arrested (although he should have been arrested, there were plenty of reasons to do so).

Blackout

Then came the blackout. Starting on Thursday, March 7, just before 5pm, a major power failure affected 18 out of the country’s 23 states and the Capital District. In Caracas, the Metro stopped working and tens of thousands had to walk their way home, in the dark. After a few hours it became clear that this was a major incident and power would not be restored quickly. The government decreed Friday a national holiday.

The country’s main electricity generator, the Simon Bolivar Hydroelectric plant, known as El Guri Dam, had crashed. El Guri produces about 80 percent of the country’s electricity and restoring it is a delicate operation. It is now more than four days since the initial incident and power is only slowly being restored in many parts of the country. Over the weekend, on several occasions, electricity was returned to different parts of the country, only to be switched off again.

The situation is serious. The government decreed another holiday for March 11 and 12. Back-up electricity generators keep power supply to essential installations, like hospitals, but there are serious problems with public transport. Shops do not accept card payments and many have increased prices and resorted to only accepting payment in dollars. There are also problems with the water supply, telecommunications (phone and internet) are very intermittent, and food stored in fridges and freezers risks being lost, etc.

The government has blamed the blackout on sabotage at El Guri and of course Washington and the opposition have been quick to reject such idea, blaming the power cut on a wildfire affecting the 765Kv power line between El Guri and the Malena substation. This would have brought down the power line and then in turn triggered a security stoppage at the El Guri Hydro plant. However, the opposition have produced no actual evidence of such a fire and the New York Times correspondent Anatoly Kurmanaev has rejected this hypothesis:

The government’s claim is that there was a cyberattack against the system that controls the El Guri turbines and regulates power generation and supply down the 765KV line to Malena. The government has also declared that, when power was restored on Saturday, March 9, there was another such attack, and that these attacks have been carried out by US imperialism.

For those tempted to dismiss these accusations as a “conspiracy theory,” let us look at the following facts. First, the US and the mass media blatantly lied about the burning of the “aid” truck just two weeks ago. Furthermore, what credibility has Marco Rubio got? On March 10, he tweeted there had been an explosion at a “German Dam,” when in reality a Venezuelan opposition journalist by the name of Germán Dam had reported an explosion at a power substation.

In an even more callous twist, Rubio “reported” 80 babies having died at a hospital in Maracaibo due to the blackout, only to be corrected by the chief of the Wall Street Journal South America Bureau: the hospital had recorded no neonatal deaths. None. Zero. Ninguna. Why should we believe anythingthese people say?

Secondly, such an attack is possible and has been carried out before, even on Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition systems that are not online. For those interested, just look up the US-and-Israeli-made Stuxnet virus, which was used to attack Iran’s nuclear power programme in 2010. That virus specifically attacked Siemens control systems, like many of those that run the El Guri turbines. An article in Forbes by a specialist admits:

In the case of Venezuela, the idea of a government like the United States remotely interfering with its power grid is actually quite realistic… Given the U.S. government’s longstanding concern with Venezuela’s government, it is likely that the U.S. already maintains a deep presence within the country’s national infrastructure grid, making it relatively straightforward to interfere with grid operations. The country’s outdated internet and power infrastructure present few formidable challenges to such operations and make it relatively easy to remove any traces of foreign intervention. Widespread power and connectivity outages like the one Venezuela experienced last week are also straight from the modern cyber playbook” [my emphasis].

While the article in the end says a different scenario is highly likely, it nevertheless highlights “the inability to definitively discount U.S. or other foreign intervention.”

Third, there is the matter of timing. The coup was stalling. Guaidó had returned to the country but was clearly losing momentum. What better time to implement a major attack on the electricity grid, to demonstrate that the government is not in control, turn the population against the government and further intensify the propaganda about “humanitarian crisis” and “chaos”? Minutes after the outage was reported, Rubio, Bolton and Guaidó were already furiously and callously tweeting blame for the government and almost gloating at peoples’ suffering. The blackout has also taken place just days before the arrival of the EU International Contact Group mission which is to investigate in situ whether there is a “humanitarian crisis” or not. How convenient!

Of course, to any explanation of the blackout, its severity and its prolonged nature, we must add several other factors.

One is the fact that the Venezuelan grid has been starved of investment and maintenance for several years, something the left wing of the Bolivarian movement has discussed openly. The US is quick to point out this as the main cause, forgetting that sanctions have prevented the country from re-negotiating its foreign debt, which has sucked in an increasing amount of the country’s foreign reserves. We must add that the Maduro government has chosen to pay the foreign debt and hand over preferential dollars to the capitalists rather than use these reserves differently. This means that sabotage is taking place in a system that has already been weakened and therefore can be more easily damaged.

Another is the fact that thousands of workers have left their jobs in the industry as a result of the economic crisis which has destroyed completely the purchasing power of wages. The first to leave were the more experienced and highly skilled, precisely those who will be needed most now when it comes to bringing back a very delicate and finely tuned system. This process of abandonment was aggravated after the last currency conversion in August 2018, when the government destroyed collective bargaining and wage differentials in the public sector.

A third is that some of these problems would have been alleviated, or perhaps prevented, had the workers in the industry maintained the levels of workers’ control introduced during the Chavez government. Let us not forget that electricity workers at one point were at the forefront of the struggle for workers’ control, which was undone by the bureaucracy.

Finally, the more recent US sanctions on PDVSA have prevented Venezuela from importing and producing the fuel needed for the thermoelectric plants that should have provided a back up when El Guri Hydro went down.

What next for imperialism?

The situation in Venezuela depends greatly on factors that are developing behind the scenes. It is impossible to say what is actually happening in the military barracks and in the officers’ quarters. The whole policy of US imperialism is designed to put pressure on them, by making the situation in the country unbearable, so that the generals perhaps draw the conclusion that their interests might be best served by removing Maduro from power. This is achieved by sanctions designed to hurt the economy. The latest development on this front are the threats issued by Bolton and Abrams to punish, not only US companies trading with PDVSA or the Venezuelan government, but also financial institutions in third countries. The aim is clear: to completely strangle the Venezuelan economy until it chokes the government into giving up. This is a criminal policy that is hurting the poor and workers of Venezuela first and foremost, completely discrediting the idea that Washington is at all concerned about an alleged “humanitarian crisis.”

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As we have argued before, this ongoing imperialist coup attempt can only be fought back with revolutionary measures, striking blows against the coup plotters at home and their puppet masters abroad. (Flickr/The White House)

As for the possibility of military intervention, it is clear that the US would like Latin American countries to front it, but there is no appetite in the Lima Group for military adventures, which can prove costly and damaging. That leaves the US with very few options, the main one being to increase the pressure, through sanctions, sabotage, provocations, etc. This much was admitted by Elliot Abrams in a conversation with two Russian pranksterswhen he thought he was talking to the Swiss president. He said: “We think it is a mistake tactically to give them endless reassurances that there will never be American military action. But I can tell you this is not what we are doing. What we are doing is exactly what you see, financial pressure, economic pressure, diplomatic pressure.”

To this we have to add the ideas likely harboured by some in the US administration about the creation of a “Free Venezuelan Army” and their “president” getting control of some territory (preferably close to the border, perhaps in Tachira), in a repeat of operations used in Syria and Libya. An article in Bloomberg has revealed that renegade Venezuelan former general Cliver Alcalá had a group of 200 armed men in Colombia ready to cross the border on 23 February, but he was stopped by the Colombians. Rubio has also played up the issue of military defectors and Guaidó met with a group of them in Cúcuta, praising them for “defecting” and warning that “we will have to cross back”.

There is also a sense of urgency for the likes of Bolton, Pompeo, Abrams and Rubio. They hoped for a quick resolution in this push for “regime change” back in January, but they failed. They probably calculate that they need a resolution well before the 2020 election in the US. Frustration and impatience only make them more dangerous and ready to deploy tricks they have not yet used.

As we have argued before, this ongoing imperialist coup attempt can only be fought back with revolutionary measures, striking blows against the coup plotters at home and their puppet masters abroad. That means arresting them and putting them on trial. Expropriating the coup-plotting oligarchy as well as the multinationals. Above all, the revolutionary organisation of the people from below needs to be strengthened by arming and developing the militias in every working-class neighbourhood, introducing workers control in all factories and workplaces and generally unleashing the revolutionary initiative of the masses.

Internationally, we need to continue and strengthen the campaign against our own imperialist governments in the US, the EU and the Lima Group countries, all of whom are, to one degree or another involved in this reactionary plot.

Venezuela — More Might Makes Right

How much more brazen could it be — our attempted coup in Venezuela? Are our leaders expecting that mainstream media will succeed once again in selling us the maniacal march of the American Empire?

But we have been through enough,

The post Venezuela — More Might Makes Right appeared first on Global Research.

Trump Wants Half a Billion Dollars to Finance Regime Change in Venezuela

At his Monday press conference, Mike Pompeo said “we’ve asked (Congress to appropriate) up to $500 million…to restore the economy of the Venezuelan nation (sic) (and) help Juan Guaido.”

He failed to explain the ongoing Trump regime coup plot, nor …

The post Trump Wants Half a Billion Dollars to Finance Regime Change in Venezuela appeared first on Global Research.

Martial democracy? Some Thais prefer coup-maker for PM

March 13, 2019

By Panu Wongcha-um

BANGKOK (Reuters) – When Thai voters go to polls on March 24 in the first elections since a military coup, there will be at least three parties on the ballot openly campaigning to keep the military in power through democracy.

At a recent rally of the pro-army Palang Pracharat party, a speaker laid out the case for electing junta leader Prayuth Chan-ocha, who seized power from an elected government when he was army chief in 2014 in the second coup in a decade.

“Throughout his time in power, the country has been at peace and he has worked for the people,” party co-founder Suriya Juangroongruangkit told thousands of supporters in Samut Prakan, a province south of Bangkok

“This kind of dictatorship, the kind that benefits the people, do you all want him? Do you want him to stay in power?” Suriya asked.

The crowd enthusiastically shouted approval. And they could get their way in the general election.

After two coups and years of military rule, it might seem counterintuitive that a significant segment of Thai voters would want to enshrine military rule with a democratic stamp of approval, a sort of hybrid, martial democracy.

But pro-military parties have a built-in advantage under new electoral rules written by the junta.

They have also made powerful campaign appeals invoking traditional Thai values of loyalty to the monarchy and seeking harmony instead of conflict.

Thai politics has been anything but harmonious in the past 15 years, with both opponents and supporters of ousted former premier Thaksin Shinawatra taking to the streets and at times paralyzing government and commerce.

Polarization between the largely rural-based “red shirt” supporters of Thaksin and mainly urban-based “yellow shirts”, who support the royalist military establishment, has resulted in outbreaks of violent protests, judicial intervention to oust governments and the two coups.

Thaksin himself lives in self-imposed exile after being toppled in a 2006 coup and convicted of corruption. Parties loyal to his populist policies have kept on winning elections.

The upcoming election marks the first time that anti-Thaksin parties have so directly campaigned for an army-linked government.

“This election is in a way a referendum on the military government and the military coup over the four and a half years,” Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political analyst at Chulalongkorn University told Reuters.

NATION, BUDDHISM, KING

As the junta leader, Prayuth has not officially campaigned for Palang Pracharat, but he has made references to staying on in his job.

“Could I have the love and unity back? Could there be no more conflicts? Promise me and the country. I will bring the country forward,” a smiling Prayuth told supporters in northeastern Khon Kaen province as he visited a new train station.

“Who is still with me?” he asked at another point, prompting applause. He later posed for selfies with supporters.

Palang Pracharat, which was formed last year, has been using nationalism, which is centered on the three pillars of nation, Buddhism and the monarchy, as a device to promote Prayuth as well as to tarnish their opponents.

Some party rallies have recently started playing not only the national anthem but also the anthem of King Maha Vajiralongkorn, who is to be officially crowned just six weeks after the election after taking the throne upon the death of his revered father in 2016 after a 70-year reign.

Thailand ended absolute monarchy in 1932, but reverence for the king is deep-rooted and the military portrays itself as the guardian of the monarchy.

Palang Pracharat groups former cabinet ministers of the military government as well as veteran politicians from established parties. It argues that it can close the chapter on the Thaksin era and rid the nation of conflict.

In arguing for keeping Prayuth in power, it gives an alternate vision to anti-Thaksin voters who have previously supported the pro-establishment Democrat Party.

‘PARLIAMENTARY DICTATORSHIP’

Conservative Thais who filled the ranks of the yellow shirt protests abhor the confrontational-style and what they see as profligate policies of the former telecommunications tycoon Thaksin, who they accuse of buying election victories with handouts.

“Before the coup, there were lots of problems in parliament and also many protests,” Suporn Atthawong, 54, a former pro-Thaksin activist now running for a constituency seat for Palang Pracharat in northeastern province of Nakhon Ratchasima told Reuters.

“They called it democracy, but in reality it was a parliamentary dictatorship,” he said.

In questioning the efficacy and cultural value of democracy, Thailand’s pro-military parties hint at a throwback to old-style “strong man” government in a region that has seen a new authoritarianism, characterized by Philippine leader Rodrigo Duterte and Cambodia’s Hun Sen.

Prayuth can count on the support of at least two other newly created parties – the People’s Reform Party and the Action Coalition for Thailand Party.

Perhaps most importantly, he stands to benefit from electoral rules that allow the junta to appoint the entire 250-seat upper house Senate, which would give him a big head start in the race to 376 votes in parliament – 50 percent of seats in both houses, plus one – needed to choose the prime minister.

But the pro-military parties are by no means guaranteed an election win.

The main pro-Thaksin Pheu Thai party, which was ousted from power in 2014 and in 2006, retains solid support.

Pheu Thai’s main prime ministerial candidate, Sudarat Keyuraphan, said her party was contesting despite the military dominance of the process because it thinks it can gain enough seats to form a coalition with other parties seeking to end military rule.

“There are many new parties. But in the end, there are only two choices – a choice extending Prayuth’s rule … and the other choice is those parties that want to end the dictatorship,” Sudarat said.

(Additional report Panarat Thepgumpanat in Bangkok and Patpicha Tanakasempipat in Khon Kaen; Editing by Kay Johnson and Robert Birsel)

We Are Being Lied into War Again

This is not the first time our government and our media have conspired to drag the American people into war with another country—or helped create a coup that will inevitably have disastrous results

***

I was 23 when we invaded …

The post We Are Being Lied into War Again appeared first on Global Research.

We Are Being Lied into War Again

This is not the first time our government and our media have conspired to drag the American people into war with another country—or helped create a coup that will inevitably have disastrous results

***

I was 23 when we invaded …

The post We Are Being Lied into War Again appeared first on Global Research.

Black Alliance for Peace Heads to Venezuela

If you’re reading this blast, you’re aware of some of the ways the U.S. empire has manipulated in its latest attempt at a coup in Venezuela. In an act of brazen illegality, the Trump administration has barred the Bolivarian republic

The post Black Alliance for Peace Heads to Venezuela appeared first on Global Research.

Syria Accuses U.S. Stole 40+ Tons of Its Gold

Eric Zuesse, originally posted at strategic-culture.org

The Syrian National News Agency headlined on February 26th, “Gold deal between United States and Daesh” (Daesh is ISIS) and reported that,

Information from local sources said that US army helicopters have already transported the gold bullions under cover of darkness on Sunday [February 24th], before transporting them to the United States.

The sources said that tens of tons that Daesh had been keeping in their last hotbed in al-Baghouz area in Deir Ezzor countryside have been handed to the Americans, adding up to other tons of gold that Americans have found in other hideouts for Daesh, making the total amount of gold taken by the Americans to the US around 50 tons, leaving only scraps for the SDF [Kurdish] militias that serve them [the U.S. operation].

Recently, sources said that the area where Daesh leaders and members have barricaded themselves in, contains around 40 tons of gold and tens of millions of dollars.

Allegedly, “US occupation forces in the Syrian al-Jazeera area made a deal with Daesh terrorists, by which Washington gets tens of tons of gold that the terror organization had stolen, in exchange for providing safe passage for the terrorists and their leaders from the areas in Deir Ezzor where they are located.”

ISIS was financing its operations largely by the theft of oil from the oil wells in the Deir Ezzor area, Syria’s oil-producing region, and they transported and sold this stolen oil via their allied forces, through Turkey, which was one of those U.S. allies trying to overthrow Syria’s secular Government and install a Sunni fundamentalist regime that would be ruled from Riyadh (i.e., controlled by the Saud family). This gold is the property of the Syrian Government, which owns all that oil and the oil wells, which ISIS had captured (stolen), and then sold. Thus, this gold is from sale of that stolen black-market oil, which was Syria’s property.

The U.S. Government claims to be anti-ISIS, but actually didn’t even once bomb ISIS in Syria until Russia started bombing ISIS in Syria on 30 September 2015, and the U.S. had actually been secretly arming ISIS there so as to help ISIS and especially Al Qaeda (and the U.S. was strongly protecting Al Qaeda in Syria) to overthrow Syria’s secular and non-sectarian Government. Thus, whereas Russia started bombing ISIS in Syria on 30 September 2015, America (having become embarrassed) started bombing ISIS in Syria on 16 November 2015. The U.S. Government’s excuse was “This is our first strike against tanker trucks, and to minimize risks to civilians, we conducted a leaflet drop prior to the strike.” They pretended it was out of compassion — not in order to extend for as long as possible ISIS’s success in taking over territory in Syria. (And, under Trump, on the night of 2 March 2019, the U.S. rained down upon ISIS in northeast Syria the excruciating and internationally banned white phosphorous to burn ISIS and its hostages alive, which Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama had routinely done to burn alive the residents in Donetsk and other parts of eastern former Ukraine where voters had voted more than 90% for the democratically elected Ukrainian President whom Obama’s coup in Ukraine had replaced. It was a way to eliminate some of the most-undesired voters — people who must never again be voting in a Ukrainian national election, not even if that region subsequently does become conquered by the post-coup, U.S.-imposed, regime. The land there is wanted; its residents certainly are not wanted by the Obama-imposed regime.) America’s line was: Russia just isn’t as ‘compassionate’ as America. Zero Hedge aptly headlined “’Get Out Of Your Trucks And Run Away’: US Gives ISIS 45 Minute Warning On Oil Tanker Strikes”. Nobody exceeds the United States Government in sheer hypocrisy.

The U.S. Government evidently thinks that the public are fools, idiots. America’s allies seem to be constantly amazed at how successful that approach turns out to be.

Indeed, on 28 November 2012, Syria News headlined Emir of Qatar & Prime Minister of Turkey Steal Syrian Oil Machinery in Broad Daylight” and presented video allegedly showing it (but unfortunately providing no authentication of the date and locale of that video).

Jihadists were recruited from throughout the world to fight against Syria’s secular Government. Whereas ISIS was funded mainly by black-market sales of oil from conquered areas, the Al-Qaeda-led groups were mainly funded by the Sauds and other Arab royal families and their retinues, the rest of their aristocracy. On 13 December 2013, BBC headlined “Guide to the Syrian rebels” and opened “There are believed to be as many as 1,000 armed opposition groups in Syria, commanding an estimated 100,000 fighters.” Except in the Kurdish areas in Syria’s northeast, almost all of those fighters were being led by Al Qaeda’s Syrian Branch, al-Nusra. Britain’s Center on Religion & Politics headlined on 21 December 2015, “Ideology and Objectives of the Syrian Rebellion” and reported: “If ISIS is defeated, there are at least 65,000 fighters belonging to other Salafi-jihadi groups ready to take its place.” Almost all of those 65,000 were trained and are led by Syria’s Al Qaeda (Nusra), which was protected by the U.S.

In September 2016 a UK official “FINAL REPORT OF THE TASK FORCE ON COMBATING TERRORIST AND FOREIGN FIGHTER TRAVEL” asserted that, “Over 25,000 foreign fighters have traveled to the battlefield to enlist with Islamist terrorist groups, including at least 4,500 Westerners. More than 250 individuals from the United States have also joined.” Even just 25,000 (that official lowest estimate) was a sizable U.S. proxy-army of religious fanatics to overthrow Syria’s Government.

On 26 November 2015, the first of Russia’s videos of Russia’s bombing ISIS oil trucks headed into Turkey was bannered at a U.S. military website “Russia Airstrike on ISIS Oil Tankers”, and exactly a month later, on 26 December 2015, Britain’s Daily Express headlined “WATCH: Russian fighter jets smash ISIS oil tankers after spotting 12,000 at Turkish border”. This article, reporting around twelve thousand ISIS oil-tanker trucks heading into Turkey, opened: “The latest video, released by the Russian defence ministry, shows the tankers bunched together as they make their way along the road. They are then blasted by the fighter jet.” The U.S. military had nothing comparable to offer to its ‘news’-media. Britain’s Financial Times headlined on 14 October 2015, ”Isis Inc: how oil fuels the jihadi terrorists”. Only America’s allies were involved in this commerce with ISIS — no nation that supported Syria’s Government was participating in this black market of stolen Syrian goods. So, it’s now clear that a lot of that stolen oil was sold for gold as Syria’s enemy-nations’ means of buying that oil from ISIS. They’d purchase it from ISIS, but not from Syria’s Government, the actual owner.

On 30 November 2015 Israel’s business-news daily Globes News Service bannered “Israel has become the main buyer for oil from ISIS controlled territory, report”, and reported:

An estimated 20,000-40,000 barrels of oil are produced daily in ISIS controlled territory generating $1-1.5 million daily profit for the terrorist organization. The oil is extracted from Dir A-Zur in Syria and two fields in Iraq and transported to the Kurdish city of Zakhu in a triangle of land near the borders of Syria, Iraq and Turkey. Israeli and Turkish mediators come to the city and when prices are agreed, the oil is smuggled to the Turkish city of Silop marked as originating from Kurdish regions of Iraq and sold for $15-18 per barrel (WTI and Brent Crude currently sell for $41 and $45 per barrel) to the Israeli mediator, a man in his 50s with dual Greek-Israeli citizenship known as Dr. Farid. He transports the oil via several Turkish ports and then onto other ports, with Israel among the main destinations.

After all, Israel too wants to overthrow Syria’s secular, non-sectarian Government, which would be replaced by rulers selected by the Saud family, who are the U.S. Government’s main international ally.

On 9 November 2014, when Turkey was still a crucial U.S. ally trying to overthrow Syria’s secular Government (and this was before the failed 15 July 2016 U.S.-backed coup-attempt to overthrow and replace Turkey’s Government so as to impose an outright U.S. stooge), Turkey was perhaps ISIS’s most crucial international backer. Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s leader, had received no diploma beyond k-12, and all of that schooling was in Sunni schools and based on the Quran. (He pretended, however, to have a university diploma.) On 15 July 2015, AWD News headlined “Turkish President’s daughter heads a covert medical corps to help ISIS injured members”. On 2 December 2015, a Russian news-site headlined “Defense Ministry: Erdogan and his family are involved in the illegal supply of oil”; so, the Erdogan family itself was religiously committed to ISIS’s fighters against Syria, and they were key to the success of the U.S. operation against Syrians — theft from Syrians. The great investigative journalist Christof Lehmann, who was personally acquainted with many of the leading political figures in Africa and the Middle East, headlined on 22 June 2014, “U.S. Embassy in Ankara Headquarter for ISIS War on Iraq – Hariri Insider”, and he reported that the NATO-front the Atlantic Council had held a meeting in Turkey during 22-23 of November 2013 at which high officials of the U.S. and allied governments agreed that they were going to take over Syria’s oil, and that they even were threatening Iraq’s Government for its not complying with their demands to cooperate on overthrowing Syria’s Government. So, behind the scenes, this conquest of Syria was the clear aim by the U.S. and all of its allies.

The U.S. had done the same thing when it took over Ukraine by a brutal coup in February 2014: It grabbed the gold. Iskra News in Russian reported, on 7 March 2014, that “At 2 a.m. this morning … an unmarked transport plane was on the runway at Borosipol Airport” near Kiev in the west, and that, “According to airport staff, before the plane came to the airport, four trucks and two Volkswagen minibuses arrived, all the truck license plates missing.” This was as translated by Michel Chossudovsky at Global Research headlining on 14 March, “Ukraine’s Gold Reserves Secretly Flown Out and Confiscated by the New York Federal Reserve?” in which he noted that, when asked, “A spokesman for the New York Fed said simply, ‘Any inquiry regarding gold accounts should be directed to the account holder.’” The load was said to be “more than 40 heavy boxes.” Chossudovsky noted that, “The National Bank of Ukraine (Central Bank) estimated Ukraine’s gold reserves in February to be worth $1.8 billion dollars.” It was allegedly 36 tons. The U.S., according to Victoria Nuland (Obama’s detail-person overseeing the coup) had invested around $5 billion in the coup. Was her installed Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk cleaning out the nation’s gold reserves in order to strip the nation so that the nation’s steep indebtedness for Russian gas would never be repaid to Russia’s oligarchs? Or was he doing it as a payoff for Nuland’s having installed him? Or both? In any case: Russia was being squeezed by this fascist Ukrainian-American ploy.

On 14 November 2014, a Russian youtube headlined “In Ukraine, there is no more gold and currency reserves” and reported that there is “virtually no gold. There is a small amount of gold bars, but it’s just 1%” of before the coup. Four days later, Zero Hedge bannered “Ukraine Admits Its Gold Is Gone: ‘There Is Almost No Gold Left In The Central Bank Vault’”. From actually 42.3 tons just before the coup, it was now far less than one ton.

The Syria operation was about oil, gold, and guns. However, most of America’s support was to Al-Qaeda-led jihadists, not to ISIS-jihadists. As the great independent investigative journalist Dilyana Gaytandzhieva reported on 2 July 2017:

In December of last year while reporting on the battle of Aleppo as a correspondent for Bulgarian media I found and filmed 9 underground warehouses full of heavy weapons with Bulgaria as their country of origin. They were used by Al Nusra Front (Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria designated as a terrorist organization by the UN).”

The U.S. had acquired weapons from around the world, and shipped them (and Gaytandzhieva’s report even displayed the transit-documents) through a network of its embassies, into Syria, for Nusra-led forces inside Syria. Almost certainly, the U.S. Government’s central command center for the entire arms-smuggling operation was the world’s largest embassy, which is America’s embassy in Baghdad.

Furthermore, On 8 March 2013, Richard Spenser of Britain’s Telegraph reported that Croatia’s Jutarnji List newspaper had reported that “3,000 tons of weapons dating back to the former Yugoslavia have been sent in 75 planeloads from Zagreb airport to the rebels, largely via Jordan since November. … The airlift of dated but effective Yugoslav-made weapons meets key concerns of the West, and especially Turkey and the United States, who want the rebels to be better armed to drive out the Assad regime.”

Also, a September 2014 study by Conflict Armaments Research (CAR), titled “Islamic State Weapons in Iraq and Syria”, reported that not only east-European, but even U.S.-made, weapons were being “captured from Islamic State forces” by Kurds who were working for the Americans, and that this was very puzzling and disturbing to those Kurds, who were risking their lives to fight against those jihadists.

In December 2017, CAR headlined “Weapons of the Islamic State” and reported that “this materiel was rapidly captured by IS forces, only to be deployed by the group against international coalition forces.” The assumption made there was that the transfer of weapons to ISIS was all unintentional.

That report ignored contrary evidence, which I summed up on 2 September 2017 headlining “Russian TV Reports U.S. Secretly Backing ISIS in Syria”, and reporting there also from the Turkish Government an admission that the U.S. was working with Turkey to funnel surviving members of Iraq’s ISIS into the Deir Ezzor part of Syria to help defeat Syria’s Government in that crucial oil-producing region. Moreover, at least one member of the ‘rebels’ that the U.S. was training at Al Tanf on Syria’s Jordanian border had quit because his American trainers were secretly diverting some of their weapons to ISIS. Furthermore: why hadn’t the U.S. bombed Syrian ISIS before Russia entered the Syrian war on 30 September 2015? America talked lots about its supposed effort against ISIS, but why did U.S. wait till 16 November 2015 before taking action, “’Get Out Of Your Trucks And Run Away’: US Gives ISIS 45 Minute Warning On Oil Tanker Strikes”?

So, regardless of whether the U.S. Government uses jihadists as its proxy-forces, or uses fascists as its proxy-forces, it grabs the gold — and grabs the oil, and takes whatever else it can.

This is today’s form of imperialism. Grab what you can, and run. And call it ‘fighting for freedom and democracy and human rights and against corruption’. And the imperial regime’s allies watch in amazement, as they take their respective cuts of the loot. That’s the deal, and they call it ‘fighting for freedom and democracy and human rights and against corruption around the world’. That’s the way it works. International gangland. That’s the reality, while most of the public think it’s instead really “fighting for freedom and democracy and human rights and against corruption around the world.” For example, as RT reported on Sunday, March 3rd, about John Bolton’s effort at regime-change in Venezuela, Bolton said: “I’d like to see as broad a coalition as we can put together to replace Maduro, to replace the whole corrupt regime,’ Bolton told CNN’s Jake Tapper.” Trump’s regime wants to bring clean and democratic government to the poor Venezuelans, just like Bush’s did to the Iraqis, and Obama’s did to the Libyans and to the Syrians and to the Ukrainians. And Trump, who pretends to oppose Obama’s regime-change policies, alternately expands them and shrinks them. Though he’s slightly different from Obama on domestic policies, he never, as the U.S. President, condemn’s any of his predecessors’ many coups and invasions, all of which were disasters for everybody except America’s and allies’ billionaires. They’re all in on the take.

The American public were suckered into destroying Iraq in 2003, Libya in 2011, Syria in 2011-now, and so many other countries, and still haven’t learned anything, other than to keep trusting the allegations of this lying and psychopathically vicious and super-aggressive Government and of its stenographic ‘news’-media. When is enough finally enough? Never? If not never, then when? Or do most people never learn? Or maybe they don’t really care. Perhaps that’s the problem.

On March 4th, the Jerusalem Post bannered “IRAN AND TURKEY MEDIA PUSH CONSPIRACY THEORIES ABOUT US, ISIS: Claims pushed by Syrian regime media assert that US gave ISIS safe passage out of Baghuz in return for gold, a conspiracy picked up in Tehran and Ankara”, and simply assumed that it’s false — but provided no evidence to back their speculation up — and they closed by asserting “The conspiracies, which are manufactured in Damascus, are disseminated to Iraq and Turkey, both of whom oppose US policy in eastern Syria.” Why do people even subscribe to such ‘news’-sources as that? The key facts are hidden, the speculation that’s based on their own prejudices replaces whatever facts exist. Do the subscribers, to that, simply want to be deceived? Are most people that stupid?

Back on 21 December 2018, one of the U.S. regime’s top ‘news’-media, the Washington Post, had headlined “Retreating ISIS army smuggled a fortune in cash and gold out of Iraq and Syria” and reported that “the Islamic State is sitting on a mountain of stolen cash and gold that its leaders stashed away to finance terrorist operations.” So, it’s not as if there hadn’t been prior reason to believe that some day some of the gold would be found after America’s defeat in Syria. Maybe they just hadn’t expected this to happen quite so soon. But the regime will find ways to hoodwink its public, in the future, just as it has in the past. Unless the public wises-up (if that’s even possible).

—————

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of  They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of  CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.

Burning Aid: Apparent Deception on Colombia-Venezuela Bridge

Marco Rubio and coup leaders are accusing the Venezuelan National Guard, but Max Blumenthal lines up opposing evidence.   By Max Blumenthal in Caracas Grayzone The Trump administration’s coup against Venezuela culminated on Feb. 23 with U.S.-backed opposition attempting to ram several…

Burning Aid: An Interventionist Deception on Colombia-Venezuela Bridge?

Sen. Marco Rubio and coup leaders claim the Venezuelan National Guard burned US aid trucks on the bridge in Colombia. But all available evidence points in the opposite direction.

***

The Trump administration’s coup against Venezuela culminated on February 23 …

The post Burning Aid: An Interventionist Deception on Colombia-Venezuela Bridge? appeared first on Global Research.

Lawsuit Filed In 25th Amendment Coup, ‘Gang Of Eight’ Knew

The attempt to overthrow a sitting president can amount to treason, and independent government watchdog, Judicial Watch has filed a lawsuit to find out exactly how far they went after Andrew McCabe admitted that the ‘gang of eight’ knew.

Source:

Not only did the “Gang of Eight” know that Rod Rosenstein and Andrew McCabe were plotting a coup against a sitting president, Judicial Watch has announced that it has filed a lawsuit to get to the bottom of the treasonous attempt.

According to statements made by former acting FBI Director McCabe, top Justice Department officials considered asking Cabinet members to invoke the 25th Amendment against President Donald Trump in order to remove him from office.

McCabe said Tuesday “that none of the top eight congressional leaders objected when he briefed them in 2017 on the bureau’s decision to open a counterintelligence investigation.”

“The purpose of the briefing was to let our congressional leadership know exactly what we’d been doing,” McCabe claimed.

McCabe admitted that he ordered the investigation, but said others were involved, notably Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.

“And I told Congress what we had done,” he said.

“No one objected,” he added in the interview. “Not on legal grounds, not on constitutional grounds and not based on the facts.”

However, independent government watchdog, Judicial Watch, wants the truth.

The group filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice for all records of communication of former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, the Office of the Attorney General Jeff Sessions, or the Office of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein discussing how to remove President Trump from office based on ‘unfitness.’

“Additionally, the lawsuit seeks all recordings made by any official in the Office of the Attorney General or Deputy Attorney General of meetings in the Executive Office of the President or Vice President.

“The suit was filed after the Justice Department failed to respond to three separate FOIA requests dated September 21, 2018 (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:19-cv-00388)). The lawsuit seeks all written and audio/visual records of any FBI/DOJ discussions regarding the 25th Amendment and plans to secretly record President Trump in the Oval Office.”

President Trump recently tweeted: “The biggest abuse of power and corruption scandal in our history, and it’s much worse than we thought. Andrew McCabe (FBI) admitted to plotting a coup (government overthrow) when he was serving in the FBI, before he was fired for lying & leaking.”

“It is no surprise that we are facing an immense cover-up of senior FBI and DOJ leadership discussions to pursue a seditious coup against President Trump,” stated Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “This effort to overthrow President Trump is a fundamental threat to our constitutional republic so Judicial Watch will do everything it can in the courts to expose everything possible about this lawlessness.”

The “Gang of Eight” included, at the time, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), then-Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and then-House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

Rosenstein has denied that he was involved with the plot, or that he suggested wearing a wire to entrap the president for the coup, saying McCabe’s claim is “inaccurate and factually incorrect.”

McCabe later walked back his remarks, with a spokesperson issuing a statement that he did not “participate in any extended discussions about the use of the 25th Amendment, nor is he aware of any such discussions.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham vowed to conduct oversight over “those who watch us.”

“It’s one of the most significant moments in American history if it’s true,” Graham said. “You had the acting head of the FBI talking to the deputy attorney general about replacing the president. So what I’ll do — oversight is part of my job. We do have checks and balances, so the Congress will watch those who watch us. I’ll try to find out who was in these meetings and talk to all of them, and figure out who is lying because somebody’s lying.”

Many people agree. They want to know who’s lying too, who tried to oust a sitting president, and why the government has repeatedly denied requests under the FOIA law.

How the Russiagate Hoax Has Led to the ‘Sovietization of America’

by Dr Stephen F Cohen, 21st Century Wire: “Collusion,” “contacts,” selective prosecutions, coup plotting, and media taboos recall repressive Soviet practices. Having studied Soviet political history for decades and having lived off and on in that repressive political system before Mikhail Gorbachev’s reforms – in Russia under Leonid Brezhnev in the late 1970s and early 1980s -I […]

The post How the Russiagate Hoax Has Led to the ‘Sovietization of America’ appeared first on SGT Report.

If Truth Is Politicized, All Is Lost. Trump Grants Free Rein to the Crazed Neocons

Trump’s surrender to the  neoconservatives makes it impossible for an informed person to support him.  He has signed off on the coup against democracy in Venezuela, and he has placed all life at risk by pulling out of the INF

The post If Truth Is Politicized, All Is Lost. Trump Grants Free Rein to the Crazed Neocons appeared first on Global Research.

If Truth Is Politicized, All Is Lost. Trump Grants Free Rein to the Crazed Neocons

Trump’s surrender to the  neoconservatives makes it impossible for an informed person to support him.  He has signed off on the coup against democracy in Venezuela, and he has placed all life at risk by pulling out of the INF

The post If Truth Is Politicized, All Is Lost. Trump Grants Free Rein to the Crazed Neocons appeared first on Global Research.

Trump Vows to Go After Deep State Traitors Who Attempted Coup

President Trump vows to expose deep state traitors who attempted coup

President Trump has vowed to seek justice against the deep state traitors who plotted to unseat him from the Presidency. 

Trump took to Twitter on Monday and slammed former Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, accusing him of lying, following a CBS interview Sunday in which McCabe admitted the DOJ attempted a coup against the President.

Infowars.com reports: “Wow, so many lies by now disgraced acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe. He was fired for lying, and now his story gets even more deranged.” Trump tweeted.

The president also blasted Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, saying that McCabe and “Rosenstein, who was hired by Jeff Sessions (another beauty), look like they were planning a very illegal act, and got caught.”

“There is a lot of explaining to do to the millions of people who had just elected a president who they really like and who has done a great job for them with the Military, Vets, Economy and so much more.” Trump wrote.

“This was the illegal and treasonous “insurance policy” in full action!” Trump added, referring to the term used by FBI agent Peter Strzok to describe the deep state plan to oust Trump should he win the election.

During McCabe’s interview, he asserted that Rosenstein was “counting votes, or counting possible votes” among cabinet officials to unseat the President.

Attempting to exonerate himself, McCabe claimed “I didn’t have much to contribute” and that Rosenstein was the driving force behind the attempted coup.

“The deputy attorney general was definitely very concerned about the president, about his capacity and about his intent at that point in time,” he claimed.

Trump Vows to Go After Deep State Traitors Who Attempted Coup

President Trump vows to expose deep state traitors who attempted coup

President Trump has vowed to seek justice against the deep state traitors who plotted to unseat him from the Presidency. 

Trump took to Twitter on Monday and slammed former Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, accusing him of lying, following a CBS interview Sunday in which McCabe admitted the DOJ attempted a coup against the President.

Infowars.com reports: “Wow, so many lies by now disgraced acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe. He was fired for lying, and now his story gets even more deranged.” Trump tweeted.

The president also blasted Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, saying that McCabe and “Rosenstein, who was hired by Jeff Sessions (another beauty), look like they were planning a very illegal act, and got caught.”

“There is a lot of explaining to do to the millions of people who had just elected a president who they really like and who has done a great job for them with the Military, Vets, Economy and so much more.” Trump wrote.

“This was the illegal and treasonous “insurance policy” in full action!” Trump added, referring to the term used by FBI agent Peter Strzok to describe the deep state plan to oust Trump should he win the election.

During McCabe’s interview, he asserted that Rosenstein was “counting votes, or counting possible votes” among cabinet officials to unseat the President.

Attempting to exonerate himself, McCabe claimed “I didn’t have much to contribute” and that Rosenstein was the driving force behind the attempted coup.

“The deputy attorney general was definitely very concerned about the president, about his capacity and about his intent at that point in time,” he claimed.

The International Rogue Nation: America

Eric Zuesse

In 2003, America (and its lap-dog UK) invaded and destroyed Iraq on the basis of lies to the effect that the U.S. (and UK) regime were certain that Saddam Hussein had and was developing weapons of mass destruction. These U.S. allegations were based on provable falsehoods when they were stated and published, but the regime’s ‘news’-media refused to publish and demonstrate (or “expose”) any of these lies. That’s how bad the regime was (and its media’s ‘news’ were) — this was virtually a total lock-down against truth, and for international conquest (in that case, of Iraq): it was mass-murder and destruction on the basis of sheer lies, by the regime and its stenographers.

That’s today’s U.S. Government — that’s its reality, not  its ‘pro-democracy’ and ‘human rights’ myth. (After all: its main ally is the Saud regime, which the U.S. regime is now helping to starve and kill by cholera perhaps millions of Houthis to death.)

In 2011, the U.S. regime, then under a different nominal leader than in the Iraq invasion, invaded and destroyed Libya — also on the basis of lies that its press (which is controlled by the same billionaires who control the nation’s two political Parties) stenographically published from the Government and refused ever to expose as being lies.

In 2011-2019 (but actually starting undercover in 2009), the U.S. regime (and its then allies King Saud and Tayyip Erdogan, and the Thanis who own Qatar) hired tens of thousands of jihadis from around the world to serve as foot-soldiers (the U.S. regime calls them ‘rebels’), in order to bring down Syria’s secular, non-sectarian, Government, and thereby, via these jihadist proxy-forces, they invaded and destroyed Syria — likewise on the basis of lies that the ‘news’-media hid, secreting from the public such facts as that “The US Government’s Interpretation of the Technical Intelligence It Gathered Prior to and After the August 21 Attack CANNOT POSSIBLY BE CORRECT.” But the lies are never publicly acknowledged by any of the participating regimes and their press.This is an international empire of death and destruction based upon lies.

In 2011-2014, the U.S. regime perpetrated a bloody coup that ousted Ukraine’s democratically elected Government and replaced it by a fascist rabidly anti-Russian regime that destroyed Ukraine and perpetrated ethnic cleansing. How much of this reality was being reported in the U.S. regime’s press, at the time, or even afterward? It was hidden news at the time, and so those realities have since become buried, to become now only hidden history; and the U.S. regime and its ‘news’-media continue to hide all of this ugly reality. It remains hidden, and isn’t mentioned by either the regime or its press.

Right now, the U.S. regime (along with its other lap-dog Canada) is perpetrating, or at least attempting to perpetrate, a coup to take over Venezuela.

On February 8th, the Latin American Geopolitical Strategic Center (CELAG) issued their study, “The Economic Consequences of the Boycott of Venezuela”, and reported that throughout the five-year period of 2013-2017, Venezuela’s “economy and society suffered a suffocation [of] $ 22.5 billion in annual revenues, as a result of a deliberate international strategy of financial isolation [of Venezuela]. Evidently, this financial pressure intensified since 2015 with the fall in the price of crude oil.” So: that’s a total loss of over $112 billion from Venezuela during the entire 5-year period, and the result has become (especially after 2014) the impoverishment of the country. The U.S. regime and its allies and their propaganda-media blame, for that, not themselves, but the very same Government they’re trying to take down. The U.S. regime and its allies have contempt for the public everywhere. The more that Venezuelans blame their own Government for this impoverishment, instead of blame America’s Government for it, the more that their exploiters will have contempt for them, but also the more that their exploiters will benefit from them, because the exploiters’ taking control of the Government will then be much easier to do.

The U.S-and-allied exploiters are attempting to install in Venezuela a man who has absolutely no justification under the Venezuelan Constitution to be claiming to be the country’s ‘interim President’. For some mysterious reason, Venezuela’s President isn’t calling for that traitor to be brought up on charges of treachery — attempting a coup — and facing Venezuela’s Supreme Judicial Tribunal on such a charge, which Tribunal is the Constitutionally authorized body to adjudicate that matter. So, Venezuela’s Government is incompetent — but so too have been all of its predecessors since at least 1980, and incompetence alone is not Constitutional grounds for replacing Venezuela’s President by a foreign-imposed coup. At least Venezuela’s actual President is no traitor, such as his would-be successor, Juan Guaido, definitely is.

Did Venezuela invade America so as for America’s economic war against it to be justified? Did Iraq invade America so as for America’s destruction of it to be justified? Did Libya invade America so as for America’s destruction of it to be justified? Did Syria invade America so as for America’s destruction of it to be justified? Did Ukraine invade America so as for America’s destruction of it to be justified? None of them did, at all. In each and every case, it was pure aggression, by America, the international rogue nation.

Back in 1986, regarding America’s international relations including its coups and invasions, the U.S. quit the International Court of Justice (ICJ), when that Court ruled against the U.S. in the Iran-Contra case, Nicaragua v. United States, which concerned America’s attempted coup in that country. But though the U.S. propaganda-media reported the Government’s rejection of that verdict in favor of Nicaragua, they hid the more momentous fact: the U.S. Government stated that it would not henceforth recognize any authority in the ICJ concerning America’s international actions. The public didn’t get to know about that. Ever since 1986, the U.S. Government has been a rogue regime, simply ignoring the ICJ except when the ICJ could be cited against a country that the U.S. regime is trying to destroy (‘democratize’). And then, when the ICJ ruled on 9 March 2005 against the U.S. regime in a U.S. domestic matter where the regime refused to adhere to the U.S. Constitution’s due-process clause regarding the prosecutions and death-sentences against 51 death-row inmates, and the Court demanded retrials of those convicts, the U.S. regime, in 2005, simply withdrew completely from the jurisdiction of the ICJ. Ever since 9 March 2005, the U.S. regime places itself above, and immune to, international law, regarding everything. George W. Bush completed what Ronald Reagan had started.

This rogue regime has no real legitimacy even as a representative of the American people. It doesn’t really represent the American public at all. It is destroying the world and lying through its teeth all the while. Its puppet-rulers on behalf of America’s currently 585 billionaires are not in prison from convictions by the International Court of Justice in the Hague. They’re not even being investigated by the International Court of Justice in the Hague. That’s a U.N. agency. Does the U.N. have any real legitimacy, under such circumstances as this? Can an international scofflaw simply refuse to recognize the authority of the international court? This mocks the U.N. itself. The U.S. places itself above the U.N.’s laws and jurisdiction and yet still occupies one of the five permanent seats on the U.N’s Security Council and still is allowed to vote in the U.N.’s General Assembly. Why doesn’t the U.N. simply expel America? It can’t be done? Then why isn’t a new international legal body being established to replace  the U.N. — and being granted legal authority everywhere regardless  of whether a given national regime acknowledges its legal authority over matters of international law? Why is Venezuela being internationally isolated and sanctioned, instead of the U.S. being internationally isolated and sanctioned?

On top of all that, this is the same U.S. regime that has blocked the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, and that has broken one international agreement after another — not only NAFTA, and not only the nuclear agreement on Iran, and not only many nuclear agreements with first the Soviet Union and then Russia, but lots more — and all with total impunity.

And it’s not only the countries that the U.S. invades or otherwise destroys, which are being vastly harmed by this international monster-regime. How many millions of the flood of asylum-seekers who are pouring into Europe have done that in order to reach safety from America’s bombs and proxy-troops — jihadists and fascist terrorists — which have ravaged their own homelands? What is that flood of refugees doing to Europe, and to European politics — forcing it ever-farther to the right and so tearing the EU apart? Why are not Europeans therefore flooding their own streets with anti-American marches and movements for their own Governments to impose economic sanctions against all major American brands, and demanding prosecution of all recent American Presidents, starting at least with G.W. Bush — or else to vote out of office any national politicians who refuse to stand up against the American bully-regime?

It isn’t only weak nations such as Nigeria that are corrupt and rotten to the core. The entire U.S. empire, and especially its U.S. masters, are.

How much more will the peoples of the world remain suckers to the vast corporate propaganda-operation by that out-of-control beast of a rapacious regime, which displays the Orwellian nerve to label as being a ‘regime’ each and every Government that it seeks to overthrow and to call itself  a ‘democracy’? The U.S. regime is, itself, actually allied the most closely with the world’s most barbaric rulers, the Saud family, that own Saudi Arabia. The U.S. regime is also allied with the apartheid and internationally aggressive regime in Israel. Is such an international gang, as this is, going to get off scot-free, as if there were no international law — or at least none that applies to itself?

And, if the U.S. regime is so concerned to ‘protect democracy’ and ‘protect human rights’ all over the world (as that perennially lying bunch always claim to be the ‘justification’ for their invasions and coups), then why isn’t it starting first by prosecuting itself? (Or, maybe, by prosecuting Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman al-Saud, for his many crimes — and prosecuting his predecessors for financing the 9/11 attacks against Americans?) Well, of course, Hitler didn’t do anything of the sort. (Nor did he prosecute his allies.) He set the standard. Maybe, ideologically, Hitler and Mussolini and Hirohito actually won the war, though this has happened after they first physically lost what everyone had thought was the end of WW II. After all, nobody is prosecuting the U.S. regime today. Isn’t that somewhat like a global victory for fascism — the Axis powers — after the fact? Maybe “we” won the war, only to lose it later. Doesn’t that appear to be the case? Mussolini sometimes called fascism “corporationism”, and this is how it always functions, and functions today by agreement amongst the controlling owners of international corporations that are headquartered in the U.S. and in its vassal-nations abroad.

Is this to go on interminably? When will this international reign of fascism end?

What would happen if all the rest of the world instituted an international legal and enforcement system (under a replacement U.N.) in which all commitments and contractual proceeds to benefit American-based international corporations and the U.S. Government were declared to be immediately null and void — worthless except as regards the claims against  the U.S. entities? (The owners of those entities have been the beneficiaries of America’s international crimes.) Contracts can be unilaterally nullified. The U.S. Government does it all the time, with no justification except lies. Here, it would be done as authentically justifiable penalties, against actually massive global crimes.

The U.S. militarily occupies the world; this is a global empire; it has over a thousand military bases worldwide. Why aren’t the people in all of those occupied countries demanding their own governments simply to throw them out — to end the military occupation of their land?

You can’t have a world at peace, and anything like international justice, without enforcing international law. This is what doing that would look like.

What we know right now is actually a lawless world. That’s what every international gangster wants.

—————

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of  They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of  CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.

Americans Arrested in Haiti Transporting Weapons Cache Amid Uprising

by Alexander Rubinstein, The Anti Media: Even as U.S. President Donald Trump seeks to inspire a military coup against the elected president of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, evidence is mounting that the U.S. government is enabling American mercenaries to violently quell a popular uprising in Haiti. MintPress News previously examined the parallels between the uprising in Haiti and the […]

The post Americans Arrested in Haiti Transporting Weapons Cache Amid Uprising appeared first on SGT Report.

New AG William Barr MUST act against Deep State treason by McCabe and co-conspirators to save our republic

(Natural News) On Thursday reports noted that former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who was fired last year on the recommendation of the Justice Department inspector general’s office for lying to officials, revealed in interviews that he one of the ringleaders involved in an attempted coup against POTUS Donald Trump. To be clear, McCabe didn’t…

President Cools Two Mideast Hot Zones But Ignites Another in South America

U.S. dirty tricks in Venezuela, like the previous decades of covert action intended to destroy nations throughout Latin America, are designed to cripple the nation’s resistance to U.S. hegemony.

By S.T. Patrick

Assuming the Russiagate story were completely true, the Trump campaign would be guilty of encouraging Russian social media trolls to flood Facebook with political attack ads as hackers chipped away at Democrat emails. The Trump campaign would be guilty of encouraging the leaking of those emails, some of which were stored illegally on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s personal home server. They would be guilty of campaign dirty tricks that have become commonplace in American political campaigns since the late 1960s. If all of that were true—and it’s becoming clearer by the week that very little of it was—then that still would not even approach the dirty deeds that American presidential administrations have engaged in throughout Venezuela for decades.

Most recently, it began with a telephone call from D.C. Vice President Mike Pence phoned Juan Guaido, a mid-level politician of the opposition far-right party who had recently been closely associated with street violence across Venezuela. Upon the end of the Pence call, Guaido immediately declared himself president of Venezuela.

Writing for the anti-war website “GrayzoneProject.com,” journalists Dan Cohen and Max Blumenthal called Guaido the “previously unknown political bottom dweller (who) was vaulted onto the international stage as the U.S.-selected leader of the nation with the world’s largest oil reserves.”

The U.S.-supported coup d’etât was immediately backed by typically pro-war, pro-interventionist American media outlets such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and “Bloomberg News.” Among the rubber-stampers were Canada, Israel, parts of western Europe, and the far-right Latin American countries known as the “Lima group.”

Just what Guaido is and why he was chosen for this role seems to be debated among observers of Latin American politics.

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

That “program” appears to be the covert operation by which U.S. intelligence-backed infiltrators are placed in positions of power in foreign governments so that they can ascend to prominence, destroying a nation’s structure in the process. The U.S. and the international banking powers (World Bank, International Monetary Fund etc.) can then descend upon the crippled country, force predatory loans, gain control of the most valuable natural resources, and then control that country from the board room rather than the battlefield.

Cohen and Blumenthal write, “But this is precisely why Guaido was selected by Washington: He is not expected to lead Venezuela toward democracy, but to collapse a country that for the past two decades has been a bulwark of resistance to U.S. hegemony. His unlikely rise signals the culmination of a two decades-long project to destroy a robust socialist experiment.”

Neoconservative Threat, Paul Craig Roberts
Washington’s Perilous War for Hegemony by Paul Craig Roberts on sale at the AFP Store.

The U.S. has targeted Venezuela since the rise of Hugo Chavez in 1998. Chavez survived a variety of assassination plots throughout the administrations of presidents Bush and Obama. Upon his death in 2013, Nicolas Maduro became his successor, who in turn survived three assassination attempts on his own life.

The anti-Chavez student operation began its training in 2005 in Serbia. The training was supplied by the Center for Applied Non-Violent Action and Strategies, or CANVAS, a group that receives a majority of its funding through the National Endowment for Democracy. The NED is a CIA cutout and is largely responsible for serving as the U.S. government’s main outlet for regime-change activities. They topple dictators, but not just any dictator; the NED topples dictators the U.S. government opposes. Leaked emails from Stratfor, a private intelligence group some have labeled as the “shadow CIA,” reveal that “[CANVAS] may have also received CIA funding and training during the 1999/2000 anti-Milosevic struggle.” These are the same people and the same lending trees that now touch the U.S.-backed coup in Venezuela.

At press time, President Donald Trump has called an anti-Maduro military intervention in Venezuela “an option.” Russia has warned against this kind of “destructive meddling.” China and Turkey also oppose the move.

When looking at geopolitical movements, it is wise to look at actions and principles rather than flags, propagandistic labels, and symbology. Looking past “evil empire,” “axis of evil,” and “troika of tyranny” to see the covert attempts at colonial and financial intervention can show us what we have failed to see behind terms like “socialist,” “dictator” or “liberty.” Words do have meaning, but actions are even more telling. Though the Trump administration has made positive recent inroads toward peace in Syria and Afghanistan, the actions that have been taken in Venezuela are ultimately troubling. Cooling one international hot zone does not justify igniting another elsewhere.

S.T. Patrick holds degrees in both journalism and social studies education. He spent 10 years as an educator and now hosts the “Midnight Writer News Show.” His email is [email protected].

Andrew McCabe Admits Attempting Coup to Overturn 2016 Election

Andrew McCabe admits to attempted coup against Trump administration in new interview

Disgraced FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe admitted Thursday that he and others at the Bureau attempted a Coup d’Etat against President Trump.

In an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes”, McCabe boasted that senior officials within the FBI attempted a bureaucratic coup to bring down the Trump administration shortly after Trump’s 2016 election victory.

Citing unproven Russian collusion narratives, McCabe admitted that he tried to gather votes from within the Trump cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment and remove the president from office.

Conservativereview.com reports: In a “60 minutes” preview clip, McCabe forwarded the baseless conspiracy theory that President Trump won the election with the assistance of the Kremlin.

“I was speaking to the man who had just run for the presidency and won the election for the presidency. And who might have done so with the aid of the government of Russia, our most formidable adversary on the world stage,” McCabe said during the interview. “And that was something that troubled me greatly.”

Putting aside that Russia is not “our most formidable adversary” (it’s China, by a mile), to date, not a single piece of evidence has emerged that the “Russia case” was anything but a complete hoax based on opposition research sourced to anonymous Russians that was paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign.

“I wanted to make sure that our case was on solid ground and if somebody came in behind me and closed it and tried to walk away from it, they would not be able to do that without creating a record of why they made that decision,” McCabe continued.

Unfortunately for McCabe, there was no “solid ground” to be found. The Russia investigation came up entirely empty, and the FBI bureaucrats’ leak-and-smear campaigns were not enough to oust the duly elected president through other means.

And the president was not even behind McCabe’s ultimate removal from his post. The former FBI deputy director was fired after a Department of Justice internal probe found that he committed gross misconduct on multiple occasions. The devastating report found that McCabe lied under oath several times. That wasn’t all. He also attempted to sabotage his own FBI colleagues for his personal leaks to the media. McCabe later excused his activity, claiming his lies under oath were a result of the “chaos inside the FBI under siege from [President] Trump and his allies.” Currently, McCabe is under a Department of Justice-authorized grand jury investigation.

Of course, McCabe’s long list of alleged criminal activities and his extreme credibility problem have been almost entirely overlooked in the legacy media stories promoting his “60 Minutes” interview. The same applies to the reality that McCabe’s Russia probe never amounted to anything.

Andrew McCabe was far from the only FBI official to disgrace himself. Other now-fired FBI officials, such as James Comey and Peter Strzok, helped transform the FBI into a political weapon to sabotage the president through the baseless Trump-Russia investigation. There are still only two primary explanations for their conduct. The first is they were simply incompetent and commenced a probe without sufficient nonpartisan evidence. The second and more likely explanation is that McCabe and his cohorts were on a hell-bent quest to overturn the results of the election. Call it what it was: a soft coup attempt. Luckily for our republic, the coup attempt failed.

As Amazon drops New York City project, progressives claim a major coup

February 14, 2019

By Joseph Ax

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wasted no time on Thursday in calling Amazon’s decision to scrap plans to build a major New York outpost with nearly $3 billion in city and state incentives a big victory for progressive politicians.

The democratic socialist congresswoman has become the face of the Democratic Party’s ascendant left wing, thanks in part to her upset victory last year in a district near the proposed Amazon.com Inc development.

“Anything is possible: today was the day a group of dedicated, everyday New Yorkers & their neighbors defeated Amazon’s corporate greed, its worker exploitation, and the power of the richest man in the world,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote on Twitter.

Amazon blamed local opposition for its abrupt reversal, which some saw as the latest evidence of the progressive movement’s surging influence ahead of the battle for the Democratic presidential nomination next year.

“They have shown sufficient power to back off the largest corporation in the world,” Douglas Muzzio, a professor at Baruch College in New York and an expert on city politics and public opinion. “They killed Amazon, the biggest beast around.”

Democratic U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, who has made anti-corporate criticism a key tenet of her 2020 presidential campaign, called the subsidies “billions in taxpayer bribes” and asked on Twitter, “How long will we allow giant corporations to hold our democracy hostage?”

Amazon had already been a favored target for some left-wing politicians due to its dominance of online shopping and reputation for imposing difficult work conditions on warehouse workers. The company has defended its practices and last year raised its minimum wage to $15 an hour, more than twice the federally mandated level.

But since Amazon announced plans for its so-called HQ2 in 2017 and began soliciting bids from hundreds of U.S. cities, the political environment in both New York and the country has shifted significantly.

Last fall, Democrats swept to victory in the U.S. House of Representatives, buoyed by left-wing energy and animus toward Republican U.S. President Donald Trump. In New York, Democrats took control of the state Senate from Republicans for the first time in a decade.

Democratic leaders in the state Senate then nominated Michael Gianaris, whose district includes the proposed Long Island City Amazon site, to a little-known state board that could have vetoed the project.

Gianaris, a Democrat, was a vocal critic of the billions in subsidies offered to Amazon despite initially calling on the company to consider New York.

“This was a shakedown, pure and simple,” Gianaris told reporters on Thursday.

Critics of the deal questioned why the third-most valuable company in the United States – with a chief executive, Jeff Bezos, who ranks as the world’s wealthiest man – required that level of public funding, including tax breaks and grant money.

Amazon also faced anti-gentrification sentiment in a city where income inequality and a lack of affordable housing have become major concerns. Some labor leaders opposed the deal unless Amazon agreed not to oppose unionization efforts, a position that the company representatives rejected.

Still, public polling suggested the deal, which Amazon said would eventually create at least 25,000 jobs, was fairly popular among New Yorkers.

Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio, an enthusiastic backer of the project, faced outrage from left-wing activists who questioned how he could defend the subsidies while staying true to his liberal principles.

But he and Governor Andrew Cuomo, a fellow Democrat who spent the last year burnishing his own progressive bona fides while running for another term, had argued that the deal’s job creation benefits far outweighed any cost.

In a statement, Cuomo cast blame on a “small group of politicians” he accused of putting political interests ahead of their constituents’ needs.

De Blasio, by contrast, put the blame on Amazon for refusing to address local concerns.

“We gave Amazon the opportunity to be a good neighbor and do business in the greatest city in the world,” he said in a statement. “Instead of working with the community, Amazon threw away that opportunity.”

(Reporting by Joseph Ax; Editing by Frank McGurty and Meredith Mazzilli)

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