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20 May 18
Showing posts with label failed US foreign policy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label failed US foreign policy. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 22, 2018
Tuesday, March 13, 2018
Saturday, February 3, 2018
Rex Tillerson Invokes Possibility of Pinochet-Style Coup in Venezuela
Rex Tillerson stashed his Gazillions overseas so contributes nothing to support local, state or federal governments. A Financial Traitor more self-interested in manipulating for multinational corporations than waging PEACE
The US has a long and tragic history of meddling in nations South of our Borders, assassinating leaders, destabilizing Democracies, creating death squads and violence, much as is currently being accomplished in the US Police State.
Rex Tillerson Invokes Possibility of Pinochet-Style Coup in Venezuela
Wednesday, January 10, 2018
Thursday, July 13, 2017
RSN: Stephen Eric Bronner | Trump and the Russians
 13 July 17
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Stephen Eric Bronner, Reader Supported News
Bronner writes: "Russia is no longer the country of Gorbachev's perestroika and glasnost, just as the United States is no longer the country of Obama."
onald Trump’s presidency and the legitimacy of American elections have both been compromised by Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Hacking in 21 states by Russian nationals (using diplomatic cover) and attempted interference by the former Soviet Union in French and German elections facilitate the vision of a broad strategy with the goal of subverting Western democratic processes. Coupled with Russia’s increasing military involvement in Syria and the still potentially explosive conflict in Ukraine, deep-seated fears are reinforcing the emergence of a new cold-war mentality in the United States.
Whether the actual misconduct of Trump’s team has been exaggerated or not, which has been suggested by some legitimate publications, post-communist anti-communism now increasingly serves as a point of reference for foreign policy. That is not only the case for neo-conservative Republicans fearful of an erratic Trump like Senators Lindsay Graham and John McCain, who demand a more “muscular” foreign policy. It is also true for liberal hawks like Hillary Clinton and Senator Chuck Schumer. The Democratic Party’s preoccupation with leveling tougher sanctions against Russia and taking a hard line on Putin’s policies in Ukraine and the Middle East is intimately connected with exploiting the scandals of the Trump administration, denying the party’s stunning electoral defeat in 2016, and creating the enemy that the national security state needs.
Russia is no longer the country of Gorbachev’s perestroika and glasnost, just as the United States is no longer the country of Obama. Putin is not some innocent enmeshed in the media uproar over hacking and alleged attempts to buy political influence. That response is disingenuous. The idea that Russia would never attempt a cyber-attack on American electoral institutions is as absurd as the idea that the United States would not (or has not) done exactly the same thing in Iran and elsewhere. There is also a way in which the American and Russian presidents are mirror images of one another. The presidents of both states seem intent upon uncovering non-existent conspiracies, attacking “fake news,” aligning with genocidal dictators, and pursuing the dream of making their country “great again.”
Character bleeds into politics. Untrammeled egoism is the tie that binds Trump and Putin, and there is danger in what Freud termed “the narcissism of small differences.” Each believes that he can outwit the other, yet exhibits a peculiar form of comradeship combined with neurotic feelings of inferiority that fuel potentially catastrophic forms of competition between them. Their relationship is strangely reminiscent of that between the two fascist leaders Hynkel and Napoloni in Charlie Chaplin’s unsurpassable The Great Dictator (1940). Indeed, Trump and Putin both identify national interests with their own.
Meaningful foreign policy initiatives call for breaking that supposed connection. Russia is neither a “friend” nor an “enemy.” The choice is not simply between Trump and his critics. There is another alternative. American foreign policy should treat Russia in a professional rather than an ad hoc emotional manner: coldly on some matters (electoral intervention anywhere), warily on others (Ukraine and Crimea), and with the prospect of cooperation on still others (Afghanistan and Syria, Iran, and the fight against ISIS).
The Manichean idea of being “friends” or “enemies” is not only simplistic, and an old song for a new time, but obscures the need for nuance in judging conflicts of interest. Neither the United States nor Russia currently has much to recommend it with regard to respect for human rights or national self-determination. Those are the concerns that should guide progressive judgments, not blind allegiance to one side or the other. Meaningful foreign policy initiatives require nuance and nuance requires distinctions. Not photo-ops but sustained negotiations on developing a differentiated agenda are necessary. Since the election of Donald Trump, however, we have witnessed much of the former and little of the latter. That is what needs to change.
Stephen Eric Bronner is Board of Governors Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University. His most recent books are The Bigot: Why Prejudice Persists and The Bitter Taste of Hope: Ideals, Ideologies, and Interests in the Age of Obama
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Monday, June 19, 2017
South America & Latin America: American Ignorance of History
18 June 17 PM
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Edward Rhymes | Operation Condor: US, Latin American Slaughter, Torture Program
Edward Rhymes, teleSUR
Rhymes writes: "It is altogether fitting to begin any analysis of Operation Condor with its birthplace: Chile. Thousands of people were imprisoned and killed after Augusto Pinochet's 1973 military coup against democratically-elected socialist President Salvador Allende."
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Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet (L) greets U.S Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (R) in 1976 as Operation Condor was in full swing. (photo: Reuters)
The United States was a major backer of the military dictatorships during the 1970s that overthrew some Latin American democracies.
t is altogether fitting to begin any analysis of Operation Condor with its birthplace: Chile. Thousands of people were imprisoned and killed after Augusto Pinochet’s 1973 military coup against democratically-elected socialist President Salvador Allende.
The Nixon administration had helped undermine Allende and then supported Pinochet as he dissolved parliament and began a brutal campaign against Chile’s left that lasted 17 years. His regime conducted raids, executions, abductions, arrests and torture of thousands of Chilean citizens.
More people were killed in the four months following the coup (through December 1973) than in any other year of the dictatorship. According to Amnesty International and the U.N. Human Rights Commission, 250,000 people were detained for political reasons during this period.
In 1974, DINA, the Chilean secret police was officially recognized. During this time, foreign nationals in Chile, including diplomats, were among the killed or "disappeared." In 2011, a Chilean commission investigating human rights abuses under the former military dictatorship said there were much more victims than previously documented.
The Valech Commission’s second report identified another 9,800 people who had been held as political prisoners and tortured. The new figures brought the total of recognized victims to 40,018. An earlier report by the commission documented 27,153 people who suffered human rights violations under military rule. The official number of those killed or disappeared went up to 3,065.
Rand Paul’s childish examples and suspect motives aside, the issue of the targeted assassination of U.S. citizens is not a matter of insignificant importance. Especially when placed in the context of DINA’s 1976 assassination in Washington, D.C. of former Allende foreign minister Orlando Letelier, who opposed Chile’s military regime.
Operation Condor was facilitated through a series of government takeovers in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s: General Alfredo Stroessner took control of Paraguay in 1954; the Brazilian military overthrew the democratic and popular government of Joao Goulart in 1964; General Hugo Banzer took power in Bolivia in 1971 through a series of coups; Chilean forces loyal to General Augusto Pinochet overthrew President Allende in 1973; a military junta headed by General Jorge Rafael Videla seized power in Argentina in 1976.
Although cooperation among the participating nations’ intelligence programs took place before Condor, it was during the Conference of American Armies held in Caracas on Sept. 3, 1973, that Brazilian General Breno Borges Fortes, head of the army, proposed to “extend the exchange of information” between various services in order to “struggle against subversion.”
In March 1974, representatives of the police forces of Chile, Uruguay and Bolivia met with Alberto Villar, deputy chief of the Argentine Federal Police and co-founder of the Triple A death squad, to implement cooperation guidelines in order to destroy the “subversive” threat represented by the presence of thousands of political exiles in Argentina. In August 1974, the corpses of Bolivian refugees were found in garbage dumps in Buenos Aires.
Military dictatorships in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay worked together to track down, kidnap and kill people they labeled as subversives. This list includes leftist activists, labor organizers, students, priests, journalists, guerrilla fighters and their families.
Because of the covert nature of Operation Condor, its full extent may never be known, but researchers estimate that 50,000 were killed, 30,000 were “disappeared” and presumed killed, and 400,000 were jailed and/or tortured, according to the Center for Justice and Accountability.
The United States was a major backer of the military dictatorships during the 1970s that overthrew some Latin American democracies and less than stable governments.
To be clear, there has been little evidence that suggests that the U.S. had operational control of the program. John Dinges, the author of "The Condor Years," stated, "The U.S.’ involvement is described as the green light, red light policy. Kissinger was in Santiago talking to Pinochet and the other leaders talking about human rights publicly — that’s the red light but privately giving them the green light by saying ‘Don’t worry too much about this, we support you’ … You can condemn the CIA all you want for its complicity but to say that the CIA had operational control of Operation Condor, there is simply not the evidence there.”
Nevertheless, there is documentation that shows that the United States was complicit in the actions carried out through Operation Condor in that it was aware of its existence and did nothing to stop it. And it gave organizational, as well as physical support to the program’s participating countries.
Two extremely compelling discoveries about U.S. links to Condor have recently come to light. First is a 1978 Roger Channel cable from Robert White, then ambassador to Paraguay, to the Secretary of State, which read, “By July 1976, the Agency was receiving reports that Condor planned to engage in ‘executive action’ outside the territory of member countries against leaders of indigenous terrorist." This declassified State Department document links Operation Condor to the former U.S. military headquarters in the Panama Canal Zone.
Peter Kornbluh, an analyst with the National Security Archive, also uncovered a 1976 classified document (declassified in 2010), that shows that then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger halted a U.S. plan to curb a secret program of international assassinations by South American dictators.
The document, essentially, a set of instructions cabled from Kissinger to his top Latin American deputy, ended efforts by U.S. diplomats to warn the governments of Chile, Uruguay and Argentina against involvement in Condor.
In the cable, White reported a meeting with Paraguayan armed forces chief General Alejandro Fretes Davalos. Fretes Davalos identified the Panama Canal Zone base of the U.S. military as the site of a secure transnational communications center for Condor.
According to Fretes Davalos, intelligence chiefs from Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay used “an encrypted system within the U.S. telecommunications net(work),” which covered all of Latin America, to “coordinate intelligence information.”
This U.S. base was the same base, by the way, that the U.S. Southern Command, the U.S. Special Forces and the Army School of the Americas called home. The School of Americas connection is salient as tens of thousands of Latin American officers were trained at the SOA, which used the infamous torture manuals released by the Pentagon and the CIA in the mid-1990s.
A case that highlights U.S. involvement in the Condor program was that of Chilean Jorge Isaac Fuentes Alarcon, who was seized by Paraguayan police as he crossed the border from Argentina to Paraguay in May 1975. Fuentes, a sociologist, was suspected of being a courier for a Chilean leftist organization.
Chile’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission later learned that the capture of Fuentes was a cooperative effort by Argentine intelligence services, personnel of the U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires and Paraguayan police. Fuentes was transferred to Chilean police, who brought him to Villa Grimaldi, a notorious DINA detention center in Santiago. He was last seen there, savagely tortured.
When looking at the horrors that took place in Latin America, all with undeniable U.S. support, it is easy to see why someone such as Hugo Chavez was so strident in his fight against foreign influence in his nation’s affairs. This is the ignored history; the forgotten context, through which U.S. relationships with Latin America is viewed. This is the hypocrisy that Latin Americans are profoundly cognizant of and U.S. citizens are abhorrently ignorant of.
Let us remember that the current group of leftist Latin American leaders, remember the atrocities committed through Operation Condor, they don’t have to consult a history book. The ghosts of Condor’s victims will inevitably be invoked, but let us hope that it will also exorcise the demons of brutality and injustice as well.
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Saturday, June 17, 2017
RSN: Eva Golinger: There Is a Very Strong Possibility That President Chavez Was Assassinated
This is worth reading and considering in its entirety.
What was the purpose of de-stabilizing Venezuela?
Is this the CIA gone rogue?
Was their direction to this?
US failed foreign policy has introduced violence and coups in South & Central American - to what purpose?
WHY?
17 June 17 AM
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EXCERPT:
Venezuelan-American lawyer Eva Golinger. (photo: Meridith Kohut)
Eva Golinger: There Is a Very Strong Possibility That President Chavez Was Assassinated
16 June 17
According to the Iawyer and journalist, "there is a very strong possibility that President Chavez was assassinated."
enowned journalist Eva Golinger spoke to teleSUR about the alleged assassination of Hugo Chavez.
Do you think that Hugo Chavez was murdered and, if so, who do you think might have been involved?
I believe there is a very strong possibility that President Chavez was assassinated. There were notorious and documented assassination attempts against him throughout his presidency.
Most notable was the April 11, 2002 coup d’etat, during which he was kidnapped and set to be assassinated had it not been for the unprecedented uprising of the Venezuelan people and loyal military forces that rescued him and returned him to power within 48 hours. I was able to find irrefutable evidence using the U.S. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), that the CIA and other U.S. agencies were behind that coup and supported, financially, militarily and politically, those involved.
Later on, there were other attempts against Chavez and his government, such as in 2004 when dozens of Colombian paramilitary forces were captured on a farm outside of Caracas that was owned by an anti-Chavez activist, Robert Alonso, just days before they were going to attack the presidential palace and kill Chavez.
There was another, lesser-known plot against Chavez discovered in New York City during his visit to the United Nations General Assembly in September 2006. According to information provided by his security services, during standard security reconnaissance of an event where Chavez would address the U.S. public at a local, renowned university, high levels of radiation were detected in the chair where he would have sat. The radiation was discovered by a Geiger detector, which is a handheld radiation detection device the presidential security used to ensure the president wasn’t in danger of exposure to harmful rays. In this case, the chair was removed and subsequent tests showed it was emanating unusual amounts of radiation that could have resulted in significant harm to Chavez had it gone undiscovered. According to accounts by the presidential security at the event, an individual from the United States who had been involved in the logistical support for the event and had provided the chair was shown to be acting with U.S. intelligence agents.
There were numerous other attempts on his life that were thwarted by the Venezuelan intelligence agencies and particularly the counterintelligence unit of the Presidential Guard that was charged with discovering and impeding such threats. One other well known attempt was in July 2010 when Francisco Chavez Abarca (no relation), a criminal working with Cuban-born terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, responsible for bombing a Cuban airliner in 1976 and killing all 73 passengers on board, was detained entering Venezuela and later confessed he had been sent to assassinate Chavez. Just five months earlier, in February 2010, when President Chavez was at an event near the Colombian border, his security forces discovered a sniper set up just over a quarter of a mile away from his location, who was subsequently neutralized.
While these accounts may sound like fiction, they are amply documented and very real. Hugo Chavez defied the most powerful interests, and he refused to bow down. As head of state of the nation without the largest oil reserves on the planet, and as someone who openly and directly challenged U.S. and Western domination, Chavez was considered an enemy of Washington and its allies.
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Friday, May 5, 2017
Drumpf's War With North Korea? THINK!
Chicken Hawk Drumpf out of ignorance, ignores history, ignores carnage and the idiocy of WAR.
How many more WARS will the Military-Industrial-Congressional-Neo Con Complex promote to BUILD AMERICAN EMPIRE? And how many more WARS will Americans blindly support?
During the Korean War, the United States dropped more bombs and napalm on North Korea than was used against the Japanese during World War II. The carpet bombing destroyed all of the cities and most of the villages in North Korea. More than 3,000,000 Korean civilians died in the war—most were in the North. Since the war ended with a cease fire in 1953, the North has been governed by the Kim family dictatorship, which uses the threat of American aggression to maintain its ironfisted physical and mind control of the North Korean people.
President Trump is now threatening another destructive war against the North Korean people and their society. He must not be allowed to do this—there is another way to deal with the problem. As a matter of policy, Trump can redirect his energy and efforts onto the person of Kim Jong-un, the country’s dictator, who not only threatens the safety of other nations, but who holds his own people in slavery. Why should the United States make war against a captive nation and its helpless people when there is a more effective solution?
The Failure of War as an Instrument of Public Policy
Making war against nation states and their people no longer works. Unstable and undemocratic countries, such as North Korea, are usually controlled by individuals and cabals against whom military force ends up harming their own domestic victims more than the entrenched leadership. The wrath of the people is directed against the outsiders who slaughter their children and helps solidify the rule of their domestic despots.
Destroying the infrastructure of a nation to turn its people against their “leadership” fails—as in Iraq—resulting in the deaths of thousands of innocent children. Targeting “insurgents” using drones and violent nighttime home invasions fails—as in Afghanistan—resulting in “collateral” deaths and injuries to children and noncombatants. Imposition of economic sanctions fail—as in Iran—resulting in the destruction of the middle class and small businesses that are essential to a free society. Support of “rebels” against their government fails—as in Libya—when the new government is controlled by hostile and undemocratic forces. Direct military strikes fail to make a difference—as in Syria—for all of these reasons; and the threat of violent war—as in North Korea—is simply stupid against an immature dictator who has nuclear weapons and nothing to lose by using them.
The use of war as an instrument of foreign policy fails in all of these situations because it does not produce the desired change. It primarily injures the innocent victims of their unrepresentative governments and results in their hatred of the aggressors, rather than their oppressors.
In addition, the use of war by the United States also harms its own people through the wasteful diversion of scarce tax resources to the military-industrial complex, the compiling of massive and unsustainable public debt, a reduction of personal freedoms by the intelligence-security complex, and a loss of respect by other people and nations around the world.
Moreover, continued use of aggressive—yet undeclared—wars by the United States has resulted in an undemocratic shift of power from the legislative branch to the executive branch of government. The Constitution provides that “The Congress shall have power . . . To declare War . . . .” For the past 50 years, however, American presidents, rather than Congress, have repeatedly unleashed military force against far weaker nations and their people—who do not have the means or ability to fight back, except through acts of terror.
In addition to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, and Syria, the United States is also currently conducting military operations in Somalia and Yemen. Not only are these wars undeclared by Congress, their extent is largely concealed from the People. Moreover, in “fighting” these wars, the president, as Commander-in-Chief, claims the right to kill and detain “unlawful combatants,” including American citizens, anywhere in the world, without trial.
Americans no longer want to militarily intervene in other countries. A CBS/NYT poll found that 72 percent of Americans are opposed to removing dictators where it can, and a CNN poll found more than six in ten Americans desiring a more “non-interventionist” foreign policy. Part of President Trump’s electoral support resulted from his campaign promises to avoid military action in foreign nations. He said the United States. should “stay out of Syria and other countries that hate us.”
Yes, there is violence and repression in the world, some of which may threaten the security interests of the United States, and it would be naive to deny it. It is equally foolish, however, to believe that launching undeclared aggressive wars against nation states and their people can resolve each and every one of these threats. There has to be a better solution, one that is both legal and effective.
An Alternative to War
Let us, for a moment, think “outside the box” about an alternative public policy to deal with these dangerous geopolitical situations—one based on commonsense and the law.
Assuming that the Trump administration can make the case that Kim Jong-un and his regime pose a risk of danger to the People of the United States, shouldn’t President Trump present that evidence to Congress and allow it to decide what to do? Rather than an authorization to launch a violent military attack against North Korea—essentially a declaration of war—Congress could pass a resolution along these lines:
The Congress of the United States declares that Kim Jong-un and his administration of the government of North Korea pose a danger to the United States, and he is hereby declared to be an outlaw. Congress directs the President of the United States to file a legal proceeding against the government of North Korea in the International Court of Justice and to take all necessary and reasonable steps to compel the personal attendance of Kim Jong-un to defend his government and its conduct.
As a member of the United Nations, North Korea is automatically a party of the International Court; however, it must consent to jurisdiction in a specific case. The congressional resolution would, however, be directed against Kim, personally—as the dictator of North Korea—instead of the people of North Korea. It is narrowly designed to compel him to personally leave North Korea and to accept jurisdiction of the Court on its behalf. As a practical matter, once Kim leaves the country, the chances of his ever returning are very slim.
In many respects, the congressional resolution would act like an arrest warrant in a domestic criminal action. There, a judge finds probable cause for the arrest and directs the police to take the suspect into custody and deliver the defendant for trial. In doing so, the police are authorized to use all necessary and reasonable force to take custody of the accused.
The United Nations Human Rights Committee approved a resolution in 2014 calling for North Korea to be brought before another international tribunal, the International Criminal Court (ICC), on charges of human rights violations. During testimony before the UN Security Council in 2015, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights asked the Council to refer North Korea to the ICC. Following the recent assassination of Kim’s brother, Kim Jong-nam, the UN General Assembly again asked the Security Council to refer the North Korean leadership to the ICC While a congressional resolution directing President Trump to secure the presence of Kim Jong-un before these international tribunals would be coercive, it would be far less violent than the unleashing of bombs and cruise missiles on the poor North Korean people.
Although the use of reasonable force personally directed against the outlaw dictator to “arrest” him might result in his death, the use of force would not have political assassination as its purpose. To the contrary—much like hostage negotiations by professional police officers—every attempt should be made to obtain his voluntary surrender. Reasonable rewards and incentives might also be offered for his surrender by members of his own government.
The Kim dictatorship dominates the North Korean media and carefully controls the information received by the people. Radios and television sets are preset to North Korean frequencies and must be registered with the authorities. Although there is little access to the Internet, there is a widespread market for USB flash drives which feature South Korean music and movies. It is not difficult to image infiltrating and “bombing” the nation with bootleg flash drives and other forms of person-to-person communications reassuring the North Korean people that the United States was renouncing the making of war against them and their nation in favor of rewards and benefits for the arrest and delivery of their dictator. While ordinary North Koreans might not have the ready ability, those most close to the person of Kim Jong-un might be sufficiently encouraged to take action.
Sounding the Alarm
On becoming the Commander-in-Chief of the United States military, President Trump immediately abdicated his command responsibility by empowering the Secretary of Defense and the Central Command to authorize military actions they deem appropriate. Because of the numerous scandals and dysfunction associated with his political staff, Trump is relying on the military to distract the public from his presidential failures.
Within days of Trump’s inauguration, a botched military counterterrorism operation in Yemen resulted in the deaths of 30 civilians, including an eight-year-old American girl. Trump blamed the failure on his generals and the Obama administration, while claiming unfounded successes. Trump’s military aggression continued with a massive tomahawk cruise missile attack against a Syrian airbase—which risked war with Russia—and the dropping of the largest conventional bomb in history in Afghanistan. Trump claimed that all of these attacks were successful, but the primary result was to divert attention from his rapidly falling popularity ratings, which are the lowest of all newly-elected presidents.
As Trump is now threatening to go it “alone” on North Korea, his senior policy adviser Stephen Miller has declared “the powers of the president to protect our country are very substantial and will not be questioned.” Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is warning of “catastrophic consequences” of a failure to take action against North Korea and warns that the United States will use military force if necessary. The Chief of the U.S. Pacific Command refuses to rule out an invasion of North Korea, even for the “heck of it.”
Claiming “bone spurs” as a young man, Trump dodged military service. Now as America’s leading “chicken hawk,” he is like a little boy playing with matches as he risks reigniting the Korean War. Perhaps it matters not to him that millions of North and South Koreans may once again die in the resulting war, but he will also risk the lives of American service members and the economic health of the nation in an entirely avoidable war.
Near the end of World War II, as allied forces discovered the conditions in the German concentration camps, General Eisenhower ordered that local citizens be forced to look inside the camps at the atrocities committed by their Nazi leaders. Following the conviction and execution of these leaders at the Nuremberg trials, the United Nations established the principle that “All members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state . . . .”
The United States has not formally declared war on another nation since World War II; however, its presidents have repeatedly threatened to use, and have actually used, military force against other states. Truman and Eisenhower had the Korean War; Johnson and Nixon had Vietnam; Reagan invaded tiny Grenada; Bush Sr. invaded Panama and Iraq; Clinton bombed Sudan and Yugoslavia; and Bush Jr. invaded Iraq based on falsified evidence. Obama continued the “war against terrorism,” extended it worldwide, and institutionalized the presidential hit list.
President Trump repeatedly expresses his admiration for “strong,” yet repressive leaders, including Putin in Russia, Duarte in the Philippines, and Kim Jong-un—whom Trump calls “a pretty smart cookie.” Trump sees the world as a “vicious and brutal place” and imagines himself as the risk-taking, angry, tough, and authoritarian warrior who can win every game. In response to threats in the Middle East, Trump said, “I would bomb the s— out of them. . . . I’d blow up every single inch, there would be nothing left.” Conservative commentator George W. Will described Trump as having “an untrained mind bereft of information and married to stratospheric self-confidence.”
More than 53,000 mental health professionals have signed a petition sounding the alarm that Trump “manifests a serious mental illness that renders him psychologically incapable of competently discharging the duties of President of the United States.” The petition was started by Dr. John Gartner, who said “Worse than being just a liar or a narcissist” Trump is “paranoid, delusional and [engages in] grandiose thinking.”
With the most mentally unstable person ever to occupy the presidency having the most powerful military force in history at his unfettered disposal, Americans must ask themselves whether or not they approve of another war being launched in their name. If not, they must arrive at a solution to avoid their personal complicity with the consequences of their failure to act.
The American People are not powerless; however, they still have, restricted as it has become, the freedom to assemble and protest. They still have the power to contact their congressional representatives and implore them to take legislative action to avoid another war in Korea, and they still have the power to vote out of any office any representative who does not listen to their voice and respond to their demands. Their vote is the only real power left to the People; however, time is short. With an Army general now serving as the Secretary of Homeland Security, the United States is only one terrorist act away from the imposition of martial law by presidential order, in which all of these remaining rights may be forfeit.
William John Cox wrote the role of the police in America for President Nixon’s National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals in 1972. As a public interest lawyer, Cox filed a class-action lawsuit in the U.S. Supreme Court in 1979 against President Carter and the Congress alleging that the government no longer represented those who voted for it. In 1980, he ran a write-in campaign for president calling for a law enforcement alternative to making war against the innocent people of other nations. Cox continues to write about philosophy, politics, and public policy matters.His latest book is Transforming America: A Voters’ Bill of Rights.
Wednesday, May 3, 2017
RSN Juan Cole | Trump's Real Sin in DC Is Not Distinguishing Between "Good" and "Bad" Dictators
FOCUS: Juan Cole | Trump's Real Sin in DC Is Not Distinguishing Between "Good" and "Bad" Dictators
Juan Cole, Informed Comment
Cole writes: "Donald J. Trump's peculiar comments about and relationship with dictators and loonies among foreign leaders have upset a range of observers, from sincere human rights activists to cold-blooded Think Tank Rats."
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Juan Cole, Informed Comment
Cole writes: "Donald J. Trump's peculiar comments about and relationship with dictators and loonies among foreign leaders have upset a range of observers, from sincere human rights activists to cold-blooded Think Tank Rats."
READ MORE
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Friday, April 7, 2017
Why the Arabs Don’t Want Us in Syria By ROBERT F. KENNEDY, JR.
This is a MUST READ if you haven't already.
American Ignorance of US actions in the Middle East and around the Globe for that matter is shameful.
Wednesday, June 1, 2016
CounterCurrents: Israel’s Future Is Terrifying: Moshe Ya’alon And Israel’s Disconcerting ‘Morality’ , Is Obama’s Entire Foreign Policy Going Down In Flames?
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If you think the content of this news letter is critical for the dignified living and survival of humanity and other species on earth, please forward it to your friends and spread the word. It's time for humanity to come together as one family! You can subscribe to our news letter herehttp://www.countercurrents.org/subscribe.htm. You can also follow us on twitter,http://twitter.com/countercurrents and on Facebook, http://www.facebook.com/countercurrents
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Binu Mathew
Editor
www.countercurrents.org
The Boiling Pot
By Richard Heinberg
http://www.countercurrents.org/heinberg010616.htm
On the surface, things appear normal. The status quo of life in America circa 2016 isn’t to everyone’s liking, but at least the system is still working after a fashion. So far, 2016 is the hottest year in history. And not by just a smidgen: every single month so far has set a record. This handy little animation has been making the rounds of environmental websites in the last couple of weeks; it shows a climate system that is shooting off the rails. Slow, linear change is giving way to self-reinforcing feedbacks and non-linear lurches
US-Backed Offensive Against Fallujah Threatens “Human Catastrophe”
By Bill Van Auken
http://www.countercurrents.org/auken010616.htm
The besieged civilian population of Fallujah is confronting a “human catastrophe” as a US-backed offensive to retake the Iraqi city from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) intensifies, a human rights group warned Tuesday. While forces backing the Iraqi government, including troops of the elite Counter Terrorism Service, Iraqi Army soldiers, police and Shia militiamen of the Popular Mobilization Units, have moved to the outskirts of the city, stiff ISIS resistance Tuesday prevented them from advancing into its center. At least 50,000 civilians are believed to be trapped in Fallujah
Is Obama’s Entire Foreign Policy Going Down In Flames?
By Eric Zuesse
http://www.countercurrents.org/zuesse010616.htm
Is Obama’s entire foreign policy going down in flames? Or will the entire world? The NATO summit on July 8-9 this year will probably provide the best advance indication of which of those two will be the outcome from all this. To a large extent, the answer will depend upon which of those two outcomes will be preferred by Barack Obama. Much of the world has been following his lead for nearly eight years now. Perhaps he’ll reverse direction at that Summit; but, perhaps not; and, if the latter turns out to be the case, then the question will be whether or not the Western world will abandon his leadership at that time. It’s already clear that the top leadership of NATO intends to stay with the plan
Colluding In Lies: The Brexit Debate
By Dr. Binoy Kampmark
http://www.countercurrents.org/kampmark010616.htm
Rather than drawing constructive arguments from each side, the descent to a bottom in the maelstrom of illogical fear has been undertaken. Between the dogmatic Brexiteers and the warning stayers, there is much more nonsense to be had before the referendum
Israel’s Future Is Terrifying: Moshe Ya’alon And Israel’s Disconcerting ‘Morality’
By Ramzy Baroud
http://www.countercurrents.org/baroud010616.htm
When the likes of Ya’alon, a man with a blood-stained record becomes the face of morality in Israel, once can understand why the future of that country brings little hope, especially now that Lieberman has brought his Israel Our Home Party to Netanyahu’s terrifying nest of political parties
Islamophobia: Why Are So Many People So Frightened?
By Robert J. Burrowes
http://www.countercurrents.org/burrowes010616.htm
Islamophobia has become a significant factor driving politics in many western countries. Islamophobia – fear of Muslims – is now highly visible among European populations concerned about terrorist responses from Islamic groups claiming Jihadi links. However, it is also evident among those same populations in relation to the refugee flow from the Middle East. In addition, Islamophobia is highly evident among sectors of the US population during the presidential race. It is a significant issue in Australia. Outside the West, even the (Muslim) Rohingya in Burma are feared by Buddhist monks and others
Sri Lanka: A Comment On The Proposed Office Of Missing Persons
By Basil Fernando
http://www.countercurrents.org/fernando010616.htm
If the government wants to strengthen the CID, it could pass the law it promised to pass to criminalize enforced disappearances. Such a promise was made to the United Nation’s Human Rights Council by Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister in June 2015. Not even a draft of the law has been presented to the parliament or is available anywhere. Together with such a law, if a Special Unit (SU) of the CID is the given task of investigating into the alleged cases of enforced disappearances and given adequate personnel and resources, many mysteries hidden for many years will be resolved within a reasonable timeframe
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