Many Americans are shocked at Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s comments. Just as they are shocked if some other speaker should encroach upon the mythos of US exceptionalism – the belief in this country’s perpetual goodness that has been instilled since childhood. These incidents sadly display how deeply divorced American popular consciousness is from the reality of the nation’s actual history, at home and in foreign policy.
Here we go…. a round up of stuff you might have missed…. the US empire at work:
Summary (News):
- US backs eastern secession in Bolivia (video)
- United States maneuvers to carve up Bolivia with autonomy vote
- Spinning the News – The FARC-EP Files, Venezuela and Interpol
- Latin America has ‘created its own neighbourhood’
- More Doubts About Colombia’s “Magic Laptop” and its Allegations Against Hugo Chavez
- Kids in America(n Torture Camps): Why Does the Media Cover Up War Crimes?
- Where Is the Outrage?
Extra (info for reference)
- National Endowment for Democracy
- The School of the Americas
- September 11, 1973 in Chile
- 1954 in Guatemala
- 1961 in Brazil
- Venezuela in 2002
- William Blum’s Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II
- http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Blum/KillingHope_page.html
- http://www.killinghope.org
Bolivia
As has happened many times, particularly in the Western hemisphere, people have democratically voted for a leader and for reforms that run counter to US economic interests. The US response is typical – subvert the will of the people. Historically, US responses have ranged from funding political opposition (see: the National Endowment for Democracy for example) and spreading propaganda all the way up to training killers and torturers (see: The School of the Americas for example) and supporting coups to overthrow elected governments (see: September 11, 1973 in Chile , 1954 in Guatemala, 1964 in Brazil … Venezuela in 2002…. the list goes on. For many examples please see William Blum’s Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II) . (And all of this is not even counting the ways the World Bank, IMF and various trade deals are used to keep weaker countries in line).
Bolivia has nationalized its natural gas industry. There are plans to redistribute land and the wealth that comes from it. The region is being encouraged to separate from Bolivia has 97% of Bolivia’s natural gas reserves and the US is funding the campaign.
The Real News: US backs eastern secession in Bolivia with Forrest Hylton reporting
United States maneuvers to carve up Bolivia with autonomy vote by Roger Burbach
While the US embassy inLa Paz blandly declares its support for “unity and democracy” in Bolivia, the government’s Interior Minister Alfredo Raba states what is widely known, that the United States ”has an agenda more political than diplomatic in Bolivia, and this agenda is linked to opponents of the current government.” Evo Morales, the first indigenous president of the country, bluntly declares: “The imperialist project is to try to carve up Bolivia, and with that to carve up South America because it is the epicenter of great changes that are advancing on a world scale.”
Venezuela
The US (with the help of Colombia, its main ally in the region) continues to try to destabilize Venezuela and the American media continues to help spread the message. All three stories are lengthy but very informative.
Spinning the News – The FARC-EP Files, Venezuela and Interpol By Stephen Lendman
On March 1, the Colombian military (with US Special Forces help) illegally attacked a FARC-EP rebel camp inside Ecuador. US satellite telephone tracking located the site. Washington signed off on the mission. Over 20 people were killed, including 16 or more FARC-EP members while they slept. Key among them was Paul Reyes, the FARC-EP’s second-in-command, key peace negotiator and public voice, and lead figure in the Chavez-led hostage negotiations with Colombia.
The action was a clear act of aggression and premeditated murder. It’s not how the dominant media played it. Hostile verbal exchanges took place between Hugo Chavez and Ecuador’s Raphael Correa on the one hand and Colombia’s Alvaro Uribe and George Bush on the other. US presidential candidates, as expected, supported the White House and Bogota.
Latin America has ‘created its own neighbourhood’ by Federico Fuentes
According to (Eva) Golinger, the policy of Colombian government was never to promote a serious negotiation to release hostages and “give the FARC some kind of political platform in the country”. She argued it was always a manouevre aimed at working towards the goal of “eliminating the FARC”.
Demonstrating his position on the internal conflict, Uribe announced the extradiction of 14 warlords involved with right-wing Colombian paramilitaries that were facing charges in Colombia to the US. There, they will not face the charges of murder against them in Colombia, but merely drug trafficking.
“What was extradited was the truth”, Teresita Gaviria, a leader of the Mothers of La Candelaria that represents the families of more than 530 victims of the paramilitaries, told the Christian Science Monitor on May 15.
Aiming to put a halt to the humanitarian exchange process, which was a direct threat to the continuation of Plan Colombia — the US’s project of the militarisation of the region under the guise of fighting “narco-terrorists” — the Colombian government carried out its attack on Ecuadorian soil that killed Reyes, the main contact point not only for the Venezuelan but also the French government in its attempts to secure the release of hostages, specifically French-Colombian prisoner Ingrid Betancourt.
More Doubts About Colombia’s “Magic Laptop” and its Allegations Against Hugo Chavez by Daniel Denvir, NACLA (The North American Congress on Latin America).
Over the last two and a half months, the Colombian government has released–and leaked to the media–a series of documents and photos allegedly found on all the computer devices. The Colombian government has argued, with widespread media credulity, that the documents prove Venezuela and Ecuador’s ties to the FARC, as well as other things. The document leaks have been part of a broader media-driven campaign by the Colombian government to justify the attack and distract public attention away from the violation of Ecuador’s sovereignty.
Interpol’s report contains four central findings:
- The chief of Interpol said forensic experts discovered “no evidence of modification, alteration, addition or deletion in the user files of any” of the computer devices.
- A press release on the investigation noted, “The Colombian Judicial Police computer forensic experts followed internationally recognized principles in the handling of electronic evidence from the time they received the exhibits on 3 March 2008.”
- The same release states, however, that “between 1 and 3 of March, direct access to the seized computer exhibits by Colombia’s first responder anti-terrorist unit in order to view and download their contents did not follow internationally recognized principals in the handling of electronic evidence under ordinary circumstances.” But the release then adds, “This direct access and downloading had no effect on the content of any of the user files.
- Finally, Interpol found thousands of files with erroneous creation dates, some even dated 2009.
Contrary to most media reports, the scope of Interpol’s investigation was explicitly limited to determining whether the hard discs had been altered. Interpol did not investigate whether the laptops were actually recovered from the FARC camp, nor was the organization charged with determining the significance or authenticity of the documents found within. In fact, Interpol made a point of choosing non-Spanish-speaking experts to ensure the documents’ contents would not influence the investigation.
Torture
Kids in America(n Torture Camps): Why Does the Media Cover Up War Crimes? by Ted Rall
….the U.S. government admitted that it has more than 500 children in its torture and concentration camps. More than 2,500 children have gone through U.S. secret prisons since 2002, including at least eight at Guantánamo.
Where Is the Outrage? by Robert Sheer
….top-level meetings in 2002 in the White House Situation Room that signed off on the CIA treatment of prisoners — “whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called water boarding. …”
….the (DOJ) report offers examples of sexual and religious denigration of the mostly Muslim prisoners by female interrogators carrying out an official policy of “invasion of space by a female.” In one recorded instance observed by startled FBI agents, a female interrogator was seen with a prisoner “bending his thumbs back and grabbing his genitals … to cause him pain.” One of the agents testified that this was not “a case of a rogue interrogator acting on her own.” He said he witnessed a “pep rally” meeting conducted by a top Defense Department official “in which the interrogators were encouraged to get as close to the torture statute line as possible.”
….The New York Times reported, “One bureau memorandum spoke of ‘torture techniques’ used by military interrogators. Agents described seeing things like inmates handcuffed in a fetal position for up to 24 hours, left to defecate on themselves, intimidated by dogs, made to wear women’s underwear and subjected to strobe lights and extreme heat and cold.”
Killing Hope
If you’re still here, here is the table of contents for William Blum’s Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II - it gives a picture of the scope of US interventions
The Third World Traveler web site also has many of the chapters online: http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Blum/KillingHope_page.html
Table of Contents (from http://www.killinghope.org)
1. China – 1945 to 1960s: Was Mao Tse-tung just paranoid?
2. Italy – 1947-1948: Free elections, Hollywood style
3. Greece – 1947 to early 1950s: From cradle of democracy to client state
4. The Philippines – 1940s and 1950s: America’s oldest colony
5. Korea – 1945-1953: Was it all that it appeared to be?
6. Albania – 1949-1953: The proper English spy
7. Eastern Europe – 1948-1956: Operation Splinter Factor
8. Germany – 1950s: Everything from juvenile delinquency to terrorism
9. Iran – 1953: Making it safe for the King of Kings
10. Guatemala – 1953-1954: While the world watched
11. Costa Rica – Mid-1950s: Trying to topple an ally – Part 1
12. Syria – 1956-1957: Purchasing a new government
13. Middle East – 1957-1958: The Eisenhower Doctrine claims another backyard for America
14. Indonesia – 1957-1958: War and pornography
15. Western Europe – 1950s and 1960s: Fronts within fronts within fronts
16. British Guiana – 1953-1964: The CIA’s international labor mafia
17. Soviet Union – Late 1940s to 1960s: From spy planes to book publishing
18. Italy – 1950s to 1970s: Supporting the Cardinal’s orphans and techno-fascism
19. Vietnam – 1950-1973: The Hearts and Minds Circus
20. Cambodia – 1955-1973: Prince Sihanouk walks the high-wire of neutralism
21. Laos – 1957-1973: L’Armée Clandestine
22. Haiti – 1959-1963: The Marines land, again
23. Guatemala – 1960: One good coup deserves another
24. France/Algeria – 1960s: L’état, c’est la CIA
25. Ecuador – 1960-1963: A text book of dirty tricks
26. The Congo – 1960-1964: The assassination of Patrice Lumumba
27. Brazil – 1961-1964: Introducing the marvelous new world of death squads
28. Peru – 1960-1965: Fort Bragg moves to the jungle
29. Dominican Republic – 1960-1966: Saving democracy from communism by getting rid of democracy
30. Cuba – 1959 to 1980s: The unforgivable revolution
East Timor – 1975: And 200,000 more
32. Ghana – 1966: Kwame Nkrumah steps out of line
34. Chile – 1964-1973: A hammer and sickle stamped on your child’s forehead
35. Greece – 1964-1974: “Fuck your Parliament and your Constitution,” said the President of the United States
36. Bolivia – 1964-1975: Tracking down Che Guevara in the land of coup d’etat
37. Guatemala – 1962 to 1980s: A less publicized “final solution”
38. Costa Rica – 1970-1971: Trying to topple an ally — Part 2
39. Iraq – 1972-1975: Covert action should not be confused with missionary work
40. Australia – 1973-1975: Another free election bites the dust
41. Angola – 1975 to 1980s: The Great Powers Poker Game
42. Zaire – 1975-1978: Mobutu and the CIA, a marriage made in heaven
43. Jamaica – 1976-1980: Kissinger’s ultimatum
44. Seychelles – 1979-1981: Yet another area of great strategic importance
45. Grenada – 1979-1984: Lying — one of the few growth industries in Washington
46. Morocco – 1983: A video nasty
47. Suriname – 1982-1984: Once again, the Cuban bogeyman
48. Libya – 1981-1989: Ronald Reagan meets his match
49. Nicaragua – 1981-1990: Destabilization in slow motion
50. Panama – 1969-1991: Double-crossing our drug supplier
51. Bulgaria 1990/Albania 1991: Teaching communists what democracy is all about
52. Iraq – 1990-1991: Desert holocaust
53. Afghanistan – 1979-1992: America’s Jihad
54. El Salvador – 1980-1994: Human rights, Washington style
55. Haiti – 1986-1994: Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?
56. The American Empire – 1992 to present
Notes
Appendix I: This is How the Money Goes Round
Appendix II: Instances of Use of United States Armed Forces Abroad, 1798-1945
Appendix III: U. S. Government Assassination Plots
Index
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