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Author: Roger D. Harris

  • Year 2023 in review for Latin America and the Caribbean

    December 2nd marked the 200th  anniversary of the Monroe Doctrine, which proclaimed US dominion over Latin America and the Caribbean. Left-leaning governments in the hemisphere have had to contest a decadent but still dominant USA. Challenges in the past year include a world economic slowdown, a continuing drug plague, and a more aggressive hegemon reacting to a more volatile and disputed world order.

    The progressive regional current, the so-called Pink Tide, slackened in 2023 compared to the rising tide of 2022, which had been buoyed by big wins in Colombia and Brazil. Progressive alternatives had floated into state power on a backwash against failed neoliberal policies. Now they have had to govern under circumstances that they inherited but were not their own making. Most importantly for progressives once in power are whether they have sufficient popular support and a program commensurate with achieving significant economic and social goals.

     Ebb and flow of the Pink Tide – Peru, Guatemala, and Ecuador

    Peru. A case in point was the presidency of Pedro Castillo. From a nominally Marxist-Leninist party in Peru, he had neither a sufficient program nor the electoral mandate to resist the traditional oligarchy.  Castillo was imprisoned a year ago on December 7 via a complicated parliamentary maneuver. Dina Boluarte assumed the post to become Peru’s seventh president in eight years. Beloved by what Bloomberg calls the “business class,” she had a single-digit approval rating from the larger population as she spent this year presiding over a contracting economy in harsh recession.

    While Boluarte may be facing murder charges for the violent repression of continuing mass protests, former president Alberto Fujimori was just sprung from prison. Fujimori had not completed his sentence for crimes against humanity, but was given a humanitarian pardon, despite a request from the regional Inter-American Court of Human Rights to delay his release. Castillo is still in prison.

    Guatemala. In a surprise break from right-wing rule in Guatemala, political dark horse Bernardo Arévalo won the presidential runoff election in August. Ever since, the entrenched oligarchy has tried to disqualify the winner. Despite popular demonstrations in his support and even murmurings from the US State Department to maintain the rule of law, it remains to be seen if the president-elect will be allowed to be sworn into office on January 14.

    Ecuador. The corrupt right-wing president of Ecuador, Guillermo Lasso, faced popular protests, out of control narcotics-related violence, a dysfunctional economy, and a hostile parliament. He came within a hair’s breadth of being impeached on May 17. At the very last moment, Lasso invoked the uniquely Ecuadorian muerte cruzada (mutual death) constitutional provision.

    This allowed him to dissolve the National Assembly and rule by decree but with the subsequent requirement for snap elections to replace both the legislators and the executive. On October 15, the mandated presidential election brought in another rightist, Daniel Noboa, who will serve the remaining year and a half of the presidential term. Noboa’s father, the richest person in Ecuador, ran unsuccessfully for the presidency six times.

    Argentina takes a sharp right turn

     Argentina is a case study of how, when the left fails to take the initiative, the popular revolt against neoliberalism can take a sharp right turn. Javier Milei’s win was symptomatic of what Álvaro García Linera, former leftist vice president of Bolivia, observed as a shift to more extreme right-wingers (e.g., free market fundamentalists) and more timid progressives (e.g., social democrats).

    In a typically Argentine que se vayan todos (everyone leave) moment, harking back to 2001 when mass popular discontent precipitated five different governments in a short period of time, the self-described anarcho-capitalist Milei won the presidential runoff by a landslide on November 19.

    Sergio Massa, who ran against Milei, was the incumbent economic minister in the administration of Alberto Fernández, which had broken with the more leftist wing of the Peronist movement associated with Vice President Cristina Fernandez (no relation). With 143% inflation rate and 18 million in poverty, the Peronists were booted out by an alternative that promises to realign the second largest economy in South America with the US and Israel and away from its main trading partners Brazil and China.

    The left-centrist Peronists had in turn inherited a made-to-fail economy due to excessive debt obligations incurred by former right-wing president Mauricio Macri’s mega IMF loan. Ironically, the current Pink Tide wave is commonly thought to have begun with the defeat of Macri by the Fernandez’s in 2019. Now Macri has teamed up with the ultra-right Milei. Officials from Macri’s old administration, such as Patricia Bullrich and Luis Caputo, are in Milei’s new ministries.

    Venezuela resists

    Venezuela provides a counter example to Argentina. The possessor of the world’s largest oil reserves appeared to be on the ropes back in the dark days of 2019-2020. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo triumphantly predicted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s “days are numbered.” Over 50 countries had recognized the US puppet pretend-president Juan Guaidó including Venezuela’s powerful and (at the time) hostile neighbors, Colombia and Brazil. With the handwriting on the wall spelling imminent collapse, the Communist Party of Venezuela jumped ship from the government coalition.

    Against seemingly unsurmountable odds, President Maduro led a remarkable turnaround. By year end 2023, Venezuela had achieved nine quarters of consecutive economic growth across all economic sectors. The Orinoco Tribune reports inflation down from triple digits. Still the most vulnerable have least benefited from the recovery.

    Venezuelan special envoy Alex Saab, meanwhile, is in his third year behind bars, now languishing in a Miami prison. The imprisoned diplomat helped circumvent the illegal US blockade of Venezuela by obtaining humanitarian supplies of food, medicine, and fuel from Iran in legal international trade.

    Opposition-aligned Venezuelan economist Francisco Rodriguez now admits the US hybrid war against Venezuela has so far “failed,” although he still shamelessly calls Washington’s campaign to overthrow the democratically elected president an effort “to push Venezuela back toward democracy.”

    Given the successful resistance, the Biden administration has been compelled to modify its tactics, although not its ultimate goal of regime-change, by easing some of its sanctions against Venezuela. Because the relief is explicitly temporary, the implicit threat is that full sanctions would be reimposed if Maduro is reelected. This, in effect, is a form of election interference.

    Behind the temporary easing of sanctions is surging immigration to the US, posing a vulnerability for Biden’s 2024 reelection bid. Immigration from sanctioned Venezuela, along with Cuba and Nicaragua, is driven in large part by conditions created by the US sanctions. Even corporate media are increasingly making this connection with the coercive US policy. A letter to Biden from 18 House Democrats urged sanctions relief.

    Also with an eye to reelection, Biden is hoping to stimulate Venezuelan oil production lest the US-backed wars in Ukraine and Palestine cause fuel prices to rise. If the US does not walk back on the sanctions relaxation, Venezuela’s oil company could increase state revenues, which would be applied to social programs.

    Over a year ago, the Venezuelan government reached an agreement with opposition figures and Washington for releasing $3.2b of its own illegally seized assets. So far, nothing has been forthcoming. The best relief would come if the US simply released what lawfully belongs to Venezuela.

    Regional economic and climate prospects

    Last year’s post-Covid regional economic rebound had run its course by 2023. The World Bank currently projects a 2.3% regional growth rate for the year, described as “regressed to the low levels of pre-pandemic growth” due partly to lower global commodity prices and rising interest rates. Real wages have remained stagnant and declined for older adults.

    Since the pandemic, an estimated 1.5 years of learning have been lost, especially impacting the youngest and most vulnerable. In the context of declining economic conditions, the region is experiencing the worst migration crisis in its history with recent surges from Venezuela (4.5-7.5m) and Haiti (1.7m) adding to the more usual sources of Mexico and Central America.

    In addition, extreme weather events driven by climate change have displaced 17 million people. The World Bank warns that by 2030, 5.8 million could fall into extreme poverty, largely due to a lack of safe drinking water along with exposure to excessive heat and flooding. Foreshadowing future scenarios, drought in Argentina contributed to a crashing economy which was a factor in the far-right presidential win in November.

    2023 has been the hottest year in the millennium. The Mexican daily La Jornada reported that the much anticipated mid-December COP28 climate summit in Dubai concluded with at best “small achievements” and with the road to renewables proceeding at a “snail’s pace.”

    The other pandemic – illegal drugs

    Related to deteriorating economic conditions for the popular classes region-wide has been a continuing drug pandemic. The role of the US and its Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), active in most countries in the region, is problematic. Washington’s staunchest allies repeatedly turn out to be major drug pushers. Former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández is now in US federal prison on drug charges. However, former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe, the person credited for kick starting the Medellin Cartel, remains free.

    Mexico, Honduras, and Venezuela have all had to call in their militaries in major operations to wrest control of their prison systems and even parts of their national territories from narcotics cartels. According to the Amnesty International, El Salvador is experiencing the worst rights causes since the 1980-1992 civil war under President Nayib Bukele’s controversial crackdown on gangs.

    US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen visited Mexico in December in the midst of the fentanyl flood. The corporate press in the US continuously runs sensational reports about drug kingpins in Latin America but curiously none on our side of the border. Not simply under-reported, but unreported, is how the illegal substances get distributed in the US. How is it that the US is the biggest illicit drug consumer, but we don’t hear about cartels at home?

    US military projection

    Drug trafficking and popular unrest, both exacerbated by precarious economic conditions, have been capitalized by the US to further project its military presence in the region. Washington is by far the largest source of military aid, supplies, and training.

    US military strategy in the region has pivoted from fighting communism and “terrorism” to containing China and, to a lesser extent, Russia and Iran. China is now the leading trading partner with South America and the second largest with the region as a whole, after the US. Some 20 regional countries have joined China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

    China’s official policy on relations with the US is based on mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, and win-win cooperation, predicated on the understanding that “the common interests of the two countries far outweigh their differences.”  US official policy, on the other hand, is “full spectrum dominance.”

    Laura Richardson, head of the US Southern Command, met with Brazilian and Colombian military brass in May. Previously, she had visited Argentina, Chile, Guyana, and Surinam. When asked about her interest in the region, she unapologetically admitted that the US seeks hegemony over the region and possession of its rich resources.

    In May, Peru brought in US Marines and special forces. In October, the US got the UN Security Council to approve the military occupation of Haiti using proxy troops from Kenya, even though the operation would not be under its auspices. Moreover, history shows occupation is the root problem. Also in October, Ecuador approved deploying US troops there plus US funding for security programs.

    The annual CORE23 exercises, held in November by combined Brazilian and US forces, were designed to achieve military interoperability. Last year, joint Brazilian and US troops practiced war games against a “hypothetical” Latin American country (e.g., Venezuela) experiencing a humanitarian crisis. This month, Mexico and Peru joined the annual US naval Steel Knight exercises.

    By December, the disputed Essequibo territory between Venezuela and Guyana became an international flashpoint. The US Southern Command announced joint air operations with Guyana. What is in essence an oil company land grab by ExxonMobil is disrupting regional unity and is a Trojan horse for US military interference. US boots are already reportedly on the ground in Guyana. However, the leaders of Guyana and Venezuela met on December 14 and pledged to resolve the conflict peacefully.

    End note for the year 2023 – Sanctions Kill!

    While Washington may seek to accommodate social democracies such as Colombia and Brazil by cooption, nothing but regime ruination is slated for the states explicitly striving for socialism: Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua.

    Sanctions on Venezuela – started by Obama, intensified by Trump, and seamlessly continued by Biden – have taken its toll: over 100,00 death, 22% of the children under five stunted, 2.4 million food insecure, over 300,00 chronic disease patients without access to treatment, 31% of the population undernourished, 69% drop in goods and services imports, deteriorated infrastructure, and accelerated migration and brain drain.

    Despite the UN nearly unanimously condemning the US blockade of Cuba for its devastating effects on civilians and as a violation of the UN Charter, the ever-tightening economic warfare has left the island in crisis. Reuters reports that the production of staples pork, rice, and beans is down by more than 80%. Cuba has only been able to import 40% of the fuel requirement while industry is operating at 35% of capacity.

    The Trump/Biden “maximum pressure” campaign has produced its desired effect of a catastrophic situation in Cuba. Biden imposed additional sanctions in November and has continued his predecessor’s policy of keeping Cuba on the list of state sponsors of terrorism.

    While sanctioned by Washington, the current hybrid war on Nicaragua has been less intense and prolonged than that endured by Cuba and Venezuela. Nicaragua left the Washington-based Organization of American States (OAS) on November 19. Foreign Minister Denis Moncada said good riddance to what he called an “instrument of US imperialism.”

    Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua have achieved so much with so little. The World Economic Forum commended Nicaragua for being the country in Latin America that made notable progress in reducing the gender gap. The World Wildlife Fund certified Cuba as the only country in the world to have attained sustainable development. The Harvard Review of Latin America praised Venezuela for cutting poverty in half before the sanctions set in. Imagine what could be accomplished if the hegemon’s boot was removed from their necks.

    The post Year 2023 in review for Latin America and the Caribbean first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Latin America and the Caribbean stand with Palestine

    The countries of Latin America and the Caribbean, with a few notable exceptions, have been critical of Israel’s ongoing campaign of genocide in Gaza. Perhaps more than any other region, they have expressed their solidarity with Palestine. Most recognize that the partnership between US imperialism and Israeli Zionism applies not only to Palestine, but also to Israel’s role as attendant to US domination in this hemisphere.

    President Gabriel Boric of Chile condemned Israeli’s attacks on Palestinians in Gaza. The largest Palestinian population outside of the Middle East (more properly West Asia) resides in Chile. Belize and Peru, likewise, joined the denunciation of Israel. Bolivia, meanwhile, has severed diplomatic relations with Israel, while Honduras and Colombia recalled their ambassadors.

    Cuba had cut relations back in 1973 and Venezuela in 2009. Except for Panama, almost all of the region’s states recognize Palestine. Brazil, Colombia, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, and Venezuela all have sent aid to Gaza. Even Argentina, with the largest Jewish population in the region, censured Israel over its violations of international law when hostilities first flared up.

    Samuel Moncada, Venezuela’s ambassador to the United Nations, addressed the General Assembly on November 23: “It is repugnant to see how, despite the cruelty…the government of the United States of America and its satellites aim to justify the unjustifiable.”

    Cuba and Iran called for a global coalition to protect the rights of Palestinians on December 4, noting that the world community has failed to stop the US-backed genocide.

    A month before the October 7 offensive by Hamas, President Gustavo Petro of Colombia had presciently taken the occasion of the opening of the United Nations session to call for a united world effort at achieving peace in Israel-Palestine (along with Ukraine).

    Nayib Bukele, president of El Salvador and ironically of Palestinian heritage, stood out in his support of Israel among the regional heads of state. That is, until the militantly pro-Zionist Javier Milei assumed the presidency of Argentina two months after the most recent eruption of aggressions.

    Henchman for the hegemon

    The head of Colombia publicly criticizing Israel would have been unthinkable until Gustavo Petro won the presidency in 2022. The former M19 guerilla turned center-left politician was the first president from the portside in the entire history of Colombia. Pre-Petro, Colombia was known as Washington’s closest client in the region, the largest recipient of US military aid, and the only NATO global partner in Latin America.

    Back in 2013, then Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos reflected on his country’s status as the regional equivalent to the US’s proxy state in the Middle East. He proclaimed that he was proud that Colombia is considered the “Israel of Latin America.” Indeed, Israel had an extensive role as henchman for the US hegemon in Colombia. The right-wing linked Colombian military and paramilitaries had long been closely intermeshed with the Zionist state.

    The United Self-Defenses of Colombia (AUC in its Spanish initials), a drug trafficking cartel with a reputed 10,000-20,000 combatants at its peak, was one of the largest paramilitary groups in South America. The AUC was used by the US-allied official Colombian military to do its dirty work against left campesino and worker organizations. AUC militaries were trained by Israeli operatives. Some fifty of its most promising cadre received “scholarships” to Israel. Operating out of Guatemala, the Israeli arms supplier GIRSA sold Kalashnikov rifles and ammunition to the AUC paramilitaries in Colombia.

    Another Latin American country with a closely intertwined relationship with Israel was Nicaragua before the Sandinista revolution. During the long US-backed Somoza dictatorship, Israel maintained a “special relationship” with this dynasty of ruthless autocrats. In the last days of the dictatorship, the US cut off arms supplies in response to public revulsion over atrocities committed by Somoza’s forces. Undaunted, Israel continued to supply them with military equipment. Then, when the US instigated the counterinsurgency after the successful Sandinista-led national liberation, Israel again served as supplier of the contras. Paralleling the Somoza-Israel bond were the Sandinista-Palestine ties, which continue to this day.

    Israel’s partnership with US imperialism in the region

    For the 31st time in November, the UN nearly unanimously condemned the US blockade of Cuba for its devastating effects on civilians and as a violation of the UN Charter. The vote would have been unanimous except for “no” votes cast by the US and Israel along with an abstention from Ukraine. The latter, which is now essentially a US dependency, is a newcomer. But Tel Aviv, on the other hand, has consistently stood with Washington in support of its coercive and illegal economic measures that have created a dire crisis in Cuba.

     In fact, Israel has served as Washington’s partner in training reactionary death squads and supplying repressive militaries throughout the region for decades. Al Jazeera reported that Israel has trained, supplied, and advised militaries in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, and Venezuela in addition to Colombia and Nicaragua.

    Not only was Israel entangled with the Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua, but it had a similar relationship to the 29-year Duvalier dynasty in Haiti, selling arms for the dictators’ repressive forces. Ditto for the 35-year dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner in Paraguay, the 17-year Pinochet dictatorship in Chile, and the military dictatorships in Argentina and Brazil. Likewise, Israel was the supplier of arms and trainer of death squads in the “dirty” wars in Guatemala and El Salvador. In all these grisly ventures, Tel Aviv was joined at the hip with Washington.

    The Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP) explains that many right-leaning Latin American countries see a “close military relationship with Israel as a political asset in restoring or maintaining military and political ties with Washington.”

    When reactionary regimes in the region need coercive muscle for hire, Israel is a prime choice. After right-winger David Noboa won the Ecuadorian presidency last month, he called in Israel to help restore government control of its prison system, which had been taken over by criminal gangs. Israel is also being tapped to design maximum security prisons in Ecuador.

    According to Israeli psychologist Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi’s The Israeli Connection, “Israel is generally admired in Latin American military circles for its macho image of firmness, ruthlessness, and efficiency…Latin American military establishment is where most of Israel’s friends are found and where Israel continues to cultivate support.”

    Case in point is the far-right Javier Milei, who assumed the presidency of Argentina on December 10. He campaigned on the promise to realign the second largest economy in South America with the US and Israel and away from its largest trading partners Brazil and China. On his first trip abroad after his election victory, Milei went to the US where he made what was described as a pilgrimage to the grave of an ultra-orthodox Jewish rabbi and announced his intention to convert from Catholicism to Judaism. The self-described anarcho-capitalist had accused the Argentina-born pope of being a communist and a false prophet.

    Palestine’s friends and foes

    Support of Israeli Zionism is a unifying issue for the fractious far right in the region, where virulent antisemites buddy up with Jewish nationalists, wrapping themselves – literally as in the case of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro – in the Israeli flag.

    When the now disgraced and exiled Juan Guaidó first got the nod from the US to self-declare himself “interim president” of Venezuela in 2019, he staged the announcement on a street corner in Caracas with an Israeli flag flying behind him. Just as the red flag has been adopted as the banner for the left, the pennant of Israeli has become the insignia of the right. That blue and white banner can be seen at right-wing political rallies and at market stands owned by evangelicals throughout the region.

    A growing evangelical Christian movement views Israel as a crucial part of their theology of the “end times” and is becoming an influential political force in the electorates of Guatemala (42%), Costa Rica (26%), Brazil (25%), Venezuela (22%), and elsewhere. The evangelicals have yet to exert a significant pro-Zionist political influence in the region. But that potential should not be discounted as events unfold.

    On December 12, the United Nations General Assembly voted on a ceasefire in Gaza. Only Guatemala and Paraguay in Latin America voted “nay,” joining the US and Israel, while Uruguay, Argentina, and Panama abstained. The rest of the region united with the world supermajority of 153 nations supporting the resolution.

    For now, Latin America and the Caribbean remain a bastion of support for Palestinian freedom. Palestine’s cause is popular with countries striving for independence from the US. Factors contributing to that stance are large Arab diasporas in the region, small pro-Zionist Jewish populations, and no powerful lobbies like AIPAC. For many, the struggle to assert national self-determination under US hegemony finds a kindred affinity with the cause of Palestine.

    The post Latin America and the Caribbean stand with Palestine first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Marching with the Multitudes Protesting the Siege on Gaza

    Tens of thousands rallied in San Francisco on October 28 to call for a ceasefire in Gaza and then marched to disrupt traffic on the freeway to get the attention of an otherwise inattentive press. That demonstration joined multitudes globally protesting the on-going genocide.

    Signs read, “You can’t hide genocide.” “Genocide Joe” placards connected the dots to the White House’s complicity with the collective punishment of civilians.


    “Free Palestine!” signs proliferated. Another sign said, “America’s 9/11 is Palestine’s 24/7.”

    “We are all Palestinians” signs voiced a message of solidarity and common humanity.

    “US Jews say ceasefire now!” signs were prominent. A clear distinction was drawn between cultural Judaism and political Zionism. The latter weaponizes religion in service of settler colonialism and is an adjunct of US imperialism. The slogan “never again,” a reaction to the original genocide committed against the Jews, has taken on new meaning to anti-Zionist Jews protesting the current holocaust being perpetrated in their name.

    Chants declared, “Free, free, free Palestine!” The streets echoed with “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”

    A lone hand-drawn sign captured the collective consciousness: “I thought a world would not allow a genocide – I was naïve.” Today, no illusions remain. The joined-at-the-hip US imperial/Zionist project is a scourge on humanity.

    Signs of our times: “Stand with Palestine – End the Occupation NOW!”

    Photographs and captions are by Roger D. Harris who is with the human rights group, Task Force on the Americas, founded in 1985.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Zionism: An Ideology for the Self-Loathing

    When I told my grandmother that I was going to visit Europe for the first time, she exploded, “Oy vey!” Raising her voice, she exclaimed: “There’s nothing there! NOTHING! Just poverty and filth.” Collecting herself, she added: “You like foreign food? There’s better in New York.”

    For her generation of Jews, there was little nostalgia for the old country…and for good reason. She had been an involuntary participant in pogroms, violent riots massacring Jews. Fast forward to the present, the perpetrators are being rehabilitated. Volodymyr Zelenskyy, disregarding his religious heritage, honors the murderous Stepan Bandera as one of his “indisputable heroes.”

    My dear grandmother, like so many other immigrants from eastern Europe, had endured the oppression of the shtetl. She then came to these shores and became a Fancy American Lady. Her friends came to call her Fanny, a sophisticated name rather than her given one of Felicia. There was no going back for them.

    Of the diverse mélange of ethnic groups that comprise the so-called American melting pot, the Jews – to the extent that one can generalize about anyone – are unique in having no affection for whence they came. The old folks would say in their more cynical moments that they “came from hunger” rather than a particular country.

    In the case of my family, I don’t even know from where specifically they came. As a child, I intuitively learned that there were some subjects that were out of bounds. Our family’s past was an implicitly verboten topic. Now they are gone, and I wish that I had asked about their early life.

    Although my relatives had no intention of returning to Europe, they still retained the culture they brought with them.

    The old folks did not have a particular interest in Zionism. However, for many of my co-religionists today, the tradition of European Jewish culture is being replaced by the Disneyesque synthetic of political Zionism. The shame and pain of the past is buried in the Zionist conceit.

    The ideal of the Jewish scholar has been discarded for the veneration of the warrior. No longer identifying as the “people of the book,” the Zionist is proud to be the gun bearer. Grace and mercy have made way for a vengeance of biblical proportions.  The Zionist state is unapologetically nuclear armed and a leading world purveyor of cluster bombs, surveillance equipment, and policing technology.

    Our warm Yiddish language with its the rich literature, theatre, and song has been cast off. Also tellingly vanishing is its humor and humanity; its sometimes self-deprecating humility. In its place is a former liturgical language, Hebrew. Unearthed from the cold catacombs, the new tongue is a deliberate part of a break from tradition in a project to build a new national identity that escapes from its past.

    Zionism rests on a mythos of a supreme being who chose a particular people to establish a nation on the eastern Mediterranean coast. More political than religious, Zionism posits a basic antagonism between Jews and others, necessitating an exclusive state to defend the former against the rest.

    Long one of many currents in the Jewish diaspora, even before World War II, Zionism got legs in the aftermath of the Holocaust. Though still disputed in some circles, it is today the dominant ideology of the diaspora and the Israeli state.

    “Making aliyah” is to return to what is described as our motherland, the land of our origins per the Zionists. Aliyah is one of the most basic tenets of Zionism.

    What do you take me for, a schlemiel? Genetic evidence shows that the European Jews never occupied the occupied territories. We can’t “go back” to a place that was never ours. The European settlers, who immigrated as part of the Zionist project to the territory now claimed by Israel, were not descended from the Jewish people depicted in the Bible. Rather, they were in all likelihood the descendants of converts to Judaism.

    Chaim Weizmann, president of the World Zionist Congress, explained back in 1914: “There is a country which happens to be called Palestine, a country without a people, and, on the other hand, there exists the Jewish people, and it has no country. What else is necessary, then, than to fit the gem into the ring, to unite this people with this country?”

    Of course there was the inconvenient existence of the indigenous people who lived there and had done so for millennia. But to the settler colonialists that now head the Zionist state, these indigenous are literally “animals.” As I write this, those untermenschen are being cleansed out.

    The narrow nationalist and xenophobic tribalism of Zionism contrasts with the universal humanism of “welcoming the stranger” at the Passover table. In traditional Jewish culture, a seat was added to the family table for a stranger on the religious feast day. This beautiful ritual was explicitly designed to engender empathy for others.

    The Torah reminds those who have not renounced their past: “You shall not oppress the stranger, for you know the feelings of the stranger, having yourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt (Exodus 23:9).” That is why many anti-Zionist Jews in today’s political context resonate with the slogan, “we are ALL Palestinians.”

    Over time, the Zionists have achieved a horrific conversion of an oppressed people becoming the oppressor. But they could not have done that transformation alone. The political ideology of Zionism had to be inseparably joined in a seamless union with US imperialism. As US President Biden emphasized, “making sure Israel and Ukraine succeed is vital for America’s national security.”

    Endless war is the prescription for the US imperial/Zionist joint project. A ceasefire let alone a peace with justice is off the table. Perversely, political Zionism has instrumentalized Jewish identity into a tool of empire

    Paradoxically the biggest fans of modern Zionism outside of the Jewish community are anti-Semitic autocrats. They love the self-proclaimed Apartheid state because of its institutionalized racism, not in spite of it. Name an international bully and you can bet they’re bullish about the so-called Promised Land.

    Yet growing numbers of us still embrace our ancestral identity and, especially in light of current events, wholly renounce its self-loathing antithesis of Zionism. What the Nazis failed to achieve – the obliteration of European Jewish culture – the Zionists are carrying forward. We have a word for that in Yiddish. It’s a shanda, a scandalous embarrassment and shame.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • No Business as Usual at Rally in Solidarity with Gaza

    As people got off work on Thursday evening, October 19, the street in front of the Federal Building in San Francisco swelled with a spirited crowd chanting, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” An ocean of demonstrators had stopped traffic as Homeland Security police looked on and a helicopter hovered overhead.

    solidarity 2

    With less than 24 hours’ notice, the “All Out for Gaza” emergency protest amassed two to three thousand demanding an end to the siege on Gaza and an immediate cessation of US aid to Israel. Organizers included Al-Awada, Arab Resource and Organizing Center, Jewish Voice for Peace, Party for Socialism and Liberation, Palestinian Youth Movement, and Workers World Party.

    Two local Lowell High School students, Palestinians, had led a national student strike. They spoke eloquently and movingly to the enthusiastic assemblage.

    solidarity 3

    Activists had chained themselves, blocking the entrances to the Federal Building. From the podium, it was announced that the building had been shut down to the cheers of the growing crowd.

    Flags and handmade signs proliferated, some proclaiming “You Can’t Hide Genocide.” The main hospital in Gaza, Al-Ahli, had just been bombed by the occupation forces.

    solidarity 4 solidarity 5

    More flags and protesters arrived as the rally in solidarity with Palestine grew. A young man wearing a kippah (yarmulke) freely mingled in the diverse throng. Far from being anti-Semitic, a clear distinction was drawn between cultural and religious Judaism and the explicitly Apartheid political ideology of Zionism.

    A speaker, who was introduced as a Jew who opposes Zionism and was born before the State of Israel was established, was especially warmly received by the overwhelmingly youthful protesters.

    Some of the speakers from Palestine told how on a daily basis they have had family martyred in Gaza since October 7. How their grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles were subject to collective punishment, trapped in the open air prison that is Gaza with no escape.

    But, as speaker after speaker declared, their determination to see Palestine free in their lifetime was more resolute than ever.

    solidarity 7

    Egyptian, African American, Filipina, South African, and Native American speakers all affirmed their common humanity. “We are all Palestinians,” they proclaimed. And to a person, they identified the common menace to humanity as US imperialism, joined at the hip with its junior partner Zionism.

    Joe Biden had given unconditional approval to the genocide that was unfolding in real time. Mention of his name evoked repeated “shame, shame, shame” chants. Likewise for US Rep. Nancy Pelosi and for California Governor Gavin Newsome, who had scurried to the crime scene where he too obsequiously gave his unlimited endorsement for what were described as crimes against humanity.

    A man clutched an olive branch in hopes of a better world.

    A sign held high read: “free Palestine, free the people, free the land.”

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Cornel West Runs for President: You Can’t Be a Spoiler if the System Is Already Rotten

    Under the less than inspiring implicit slogan of “You’re Stuck with Biden,” the Democratic Party has foregone presidential primary debates this election season. Not even bothering with the pretense of democratic people’s choice, naked bourgeois rule is offered to their captured constituencies.

    Joe Biden’s approval rating has sunk to a dismal 40.5%. USA Today asks: “How can Donald Trump – a twice-impeached, four-times indicted former president… – be tied, or even leading, Joe Biden in the 2024 election?”

    Progressive Democrats – an oxymoron – are alarmed. Pramila Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, unconditionally endorsed a Biden rerun even before Joe announced; a raw demonstration that there is not even a glimmer of a progressive agenda in the Democratic Party.

    Fellow putative progressive Jim McGovern explained that offering the voters a progressive alternative was verboten because “the stakes are too high this year.”

    Call out the attack dogs

    If you can’t practice internal democracy or offer an appealing candidate who speaks to the issues concerning the electorate, the course of action for the party faithful is a no-brainer – call out the attack dogs! Target anyone with the temerity to even raise the possibility of an alternative to the two-parties’ shared agenda of austerity for working people, ever more aggressive imperialism, and planetary global warming.

    Washington bureau chief for the once progressive Mother Jones, David Corn, got the memo. He smeared independent candidate Dr. Cornel West for not being a Democratic Party sycophant.

    Corn reports that West “hobnobs” with people who are not vitriolically opposed to China and instead espouse international peace. Otherwise, the article in MoJo (as the cool people at the publication call themselves) has nothing but bad things to say about West.

    Actually, failing to be a Sinophobe is itself a major demerit for Corn. As an equal opportunity xenophobe against official enemies of the US state, Corn has made a professional career peddling the Russiagate conspiracy. Much to his embarrassment, Corn was a major promoter of the discredited Steele dossier, for which even the Washington Post ridiculed Corn’s journalistic malpractice.

    Guilt by association

    Corn’s hatchet job criticizes West, but he can’t find much to disparage about the esteemed academic and activist. So the ace reporter resorts to guilt by association. West, he argues, must be “judged by those who share the platform” with him.

    West appeared on an October 3 forum with the likes of Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Code Pink. The feminist grassroots organization works to end US wars and militarism. Corn hastens to add that her organization was “the subject of a recent New York Times investigation,” which uncovered the unamazing scoop that some on the left have benefactors.

    Worse yet, the forum also featured comedian and “far-left” podcaster Lee Camp who harbors resentment for the US “war machine.”

    But that was not the end of it. West dared to share the stage with Eugene Puryear, a member of the Party of Socialism and Liberation which favors the “revolutionary overthrow of capitalism.” The accusation is repeated a second time in the short piece just in case you weren’t horrified the first time.

    Premature Peacenik

    Besides the indiscretion of hobnobbing with undesirables, the transgression that most rankled Corn was Dr. West’s recognition that the war in Ukraine was provoked by the US and its allies before the head of NATO made a similar observation.

    The “hail Ukraine” crowd, led by Mr. Biden, are now telling us the Ukraine War was a brilliant strategy to weaken Russia on the cheap, and that it is a bargain to shovel billions more of tax payer dollars to prolong the carnage. But somehow Corn takes umbrage when West suggests the US had some hand in precipitating the debacle.

    We are living in times when Rep. Margorie Taylor Greene, a person considered far right by liberals, poses for selfies with peaceniks who Corn now scorns. MTG tweeted: “Today, I met brave @codepink activists who protested for peace…We don’t agree on most things, but we do agree Congress should STOP fueling the war in Ukraine!”

    When liberal Democrats find themselves to the right of the likes of Henry Kissinger on matters of war and peace, one needs a score card to know which half of the two-party duopoly is the lesser evil. Liberals who opposed the border wall, deportations of immigrants, aggressive militarism, continuing student debt, promoting oil drilling, and escalating defense budgets when these were Trump policies are happily sucking up when Biden continued and even upped the same measures. West is trying to provide a counterpoint.

    West goes independent

    Corn sloppily claimed that West is the “Green Party presidential candidate.” West had announced he would run for the Green Party nomination along with a number of other contenders. But the Green Party selection will not be made until 2024.

    In any case, West has since announced that he will be running as an independent. As such, West will not enjoy the Green’s advantage of ballot status in around 18 states. West hopes to get on the ballot on 35 to 40 states, rejecting the argument that leaving the Greens would make him less challenging to the Democrats.

    West’s departure is unfortunate for the Greens. Had he captured the nomination and run as a Green, his celebrity could have bolstered the party by attracting more registrations. Increasing voter dissatisfaction with the two major capitalist parties has not translated into resurgent third parties at a time when alternatives are ever more needed.

    As an independent, West will no longer have the stabilizing bookends of an established party to provide feedback and policy guidance. Vanity and individualism are harder to correct when a candidate is accountable to himself only.

    Finally, an independent West will not have to contend with the bureaucracy and internal politics of the Greens. More difficult, however, will be fighting for ballot status against major party-controlled electoral authorities. As Ralph Nader discovered, Democrats were willing to go to unprincipled lengths to keep him off the ballot, cheating and even going to jail.

    Cornel West’s platform

    The Democrats are marching lock-step on a “Biden’s not Trump” platform, so shut up.

    West’s platform is arguably one that is closer to the sentiments of the voters. Some 65% Democrats, 40% independents, and even 10% Republicans support socialism in some form. Agreeing with West, 55% of the electorate oppose additional funding for Ukraine. In contrast, an unprecedented unanimity of House and Senate Democrats support war funding.

    Most US voters identify as independents. If ours were truly a democracy, the West platform would qualify as mainstream and West would look like a centrist. But the US political center has shifted decisively to the right.

    The two-party neocons have highjacked the US ship of state. Endless war and nuclear confrontation are not middle political postures. Cities of homeless and billionaires joyriding in outer space do not reflect a popular economy.

    West’s rebuttal of the spoiler critique

    The liberal mantra is to support the Dems despite their politics – not because of their politics – to avoid an even greater evil. Their solution, however, is to reward bad behavior by pledging to swallow whatever the Democrats cough up.

    West advises the Democrats to stop obsessing about independents and concentrate on mobilizing their base because they have more registered voters than the Republicans. In the long run, replace the Electoral College with a direct popular vote.

    Further, the best way for the Democrats to avoid losing votes to a progressive is to preempt their issues for combatting global warming, reducing income inequality, dismantling the national security state, and ending militarism.

    A left alternative in the electoral arena, such as the one West poses, challenges the Democrats to be progressive. Otherwise they have little incentive to raise crucial issues. Removing a progressive challenge from the left is tantamount to encouraging the Democrats to shift further to the right with the assurance that their progressive-leaning captured constituencies, such as ethnic minorities and labor, have nowhere else to go.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Humor in the Headlines over China in Latin America

    As China arrives with a splash in Honduras, the US wrings its hands.

    — Washington Post, October 2, 2023

    In a break from its hysterical coverage of the existential threat posed by Donald Trump, the Washington Post – house organ of the Democratic National Committee – cautions us of the other menace, China. “When the leader of this impoverished Central American country visited Beijing in June,” we are warned, “China laid out the warmest of welcomes.”

    Apparently in a grave threat to US national security, the president of Honduras attended a state banquet and actually ate Chinse food. What next for the country the Post affectionately describes as “long among the most docile of US regional partners”?

    Honduras changes its China policy

    In a classic example of do-as-I-say-and-not-as-I-do diplomacy, the US was miffed when Honduras recognized the People’s Republic of China as the sole representative of China in March. Curiously, the US implemented its one-China policy 44 years ago.

    Today, a mere baker’s dozen of the world’s countries still recognize Taiwan as sovereign. Among them, Guatemala will switch Chinas if president-elect Bernardo Arévalo is allowed to assume office in January. Another holdout, Haiti, literally does not have an elected government of its own but may soon be receiving a US-sponsored occupying army.

    China has emerged as South America’s leading and the wider Latin American region’s second largest trading partner, with over twenty states joining Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative. This provides a substitute to monopolar dependence on commerce with Uncle Sam. Russia, too, has been pushing under the greenback curtain. The BRICS+ alliance with China and Russia also includes Brazil and Argentina among others.

    “US aid and investments throughout the region are historically seen as slow in coming,” the Post explains as the cause for the trade and diplomatic shifts seen in the region and reflected in Honduras.

    The Post hastens to add with a straight face that US investments come with “significant stipulations on human rights and democracy.” Supporting this ridiculous claim, the Post notes: “Honduras, long known for violence and corruption, has been subject to particular US scrutiny.”

    The Post, it should be noted, proudly runs the tagline “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” So they should know what form the “particular” US scrutiny took.

    Tellingly omitted from the Post’s story is mention of the 2009 US-backed coup that deposed the democratically elected president of Honduras, Manual Zelaya. In her memoires, then US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took credit for preventing Zelaya’s return to his elected post. That was in the original hardcover version of the vanity book. The subsequent paperback expunged the boast.

    Xiomara Castro, who first rose to prominence after the coup that overthrew her husband Manual Zelaya, became the first female president of Honduras in January 2022.

    Her predecessor, Juan Orlando Hernández (JOH), was immediately extradited to the US for drug trafficking proving beyond doubt that hers was a victory over a nacro-dictatorship. JOH was the last of a line of corrupt golpistas (coup mongers) that the US had propped up for the last dozen years. So much for the Post’s vaunting of US support for human rights and democracy.

    And then, almost as an afterthought, the Post acknowledges that indeed US aid and investments have other strings attached to them; namely, “a preference for the private sector and nongovernmental organizations.”  Concluding: “In contrast, China’s offers of trade and investment, with few strings attached, have increasingly outweighed traditional ties or ideology in the region.”

    Peru – Chinese on the 20-yard line in our homeland

    There’s cause for concern down in Peru too. Pedro Castillo, the elected president from a left-wing party, was imprisoned last December in a parliamentary coup backed by the military and the US. The de facto government imposed a state of emergency when demonstrations were mounted. Castillo was seen by the poor and indigenous as one of their own in a society with deep fissures of class and race

    Disproportionate use of force against the protests, including firing live ammunition, has resulted in some 80 people killed. The US immediately voiced support for the coup regime and later deployed troops to Peru to bolster the unpopular government. (In neighboring Ecuador, the US recently struck a deal to send troops there in support of another faltering right-wing regime.) Peru’s economy is in recession and local communities are resisting major foreign mining projects.

    So what’s the problem? According to an article in the Financial Times, based on the word of an “anonymous” US official and bolstered by the testimony of a nameless “source” close to the Peruvian government, there is a weighty peril. But it is not any of the above.

    Apparently the Peruvian government is “not sufficiently focused” on the threats to their country posed by Chinese investment in infrastructure.

    A possible reason for the insufficient focus by Peru’s president is she is being charged with committing crimes of genocide, aggravated homicide, and abuse of authority by Peru’s attorney general’s office.

    Had she been paying attention, she would have noted that in April the Italian energy firm Enel announced it would sell its Peruvian electricity business to a Chinese company. Previously, another Chinese firm invested in the Lima’s electricity supply and some hydroelectric dams.

    The danger doesn’t stop there. Cosco, a Chinese state-owned company, has a 60% stake in proposed deepwater port in Peru with construction slated for late next year. As the Financial Times warns, while the port is designed for cargo ships, it is “large enough to be used by Beijing’s navy to resupply warships.”

    If a few hundred more deals like this were transacted and subsequently somehow weaponized, the Chinese could remotely in the distant future be on their way to create the equivalent of what BCC calls the complete arc of US military bases that presently surround China.

    With such infrastructure projects and their 5G mobile networks, according to the head of the US Southern Command, the Chinese are already “on the 20-yard line to our homeland.”

    What’s next for America’s backyard – upgraded to “front yard” by Mr. Biden – in this the 200th year of the Monroe Doctrine? China may soon export fortune cookies with subversive messages or, more threatening yet, launch another weather balloon over the Pacific. It is reassuring that the US seventh fleet, including its “ghost” drone warships, still patrols the coast of China with its message of peace.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Nicaragua Celebrates its Revolution While the US Plans New Sanctions Against It

    “We are fighting against the Yankee enemy of humanity,” explained Nicaraguan Vice President Rosario Murillo, setting the tone of the 44th anniversary celebration of their revolution.

    Later, her husband Daniel Ortega, the country’s president, elaborated in his hour and a half address: “When we use the term Yankee we mean those who have a racist, imperialist attitude, which is not the case with the US people…Indisputably, given the weight of the capitalist system, the weight of the military-industrial complex will bend any president, who despite many promises he makes then comes to occupy the presidency of the US.”

    Demonstration of the trust of the president with the people

    I was among the few hundred invited “internationals” along with thousands of Nicaraguans, including a large and spirited youth contingent, who had boarded buses to the Roberto Clemente baseball stadium for the anniversary celebration on July 19.

    Security was less than at your average convenience store in the States. There were no metal detectors, no checking of IDs, or even searches of backpacks when we arrived. We were seated literally within a stone’s throw of where the political leadership of Nicaragua would sit when they arrived an hour later.

    In a demonstration of the trust of the president with the people, at the end of the ceremonies Ortega simply waded out into what amounted to a mosh pit of well-wishers to press the flesh and take selfies (see here at 4:25:59ff).

    Then Daniel, as he is affectionately called, left the way he had come, driving his own car. The rest of the people lingered to socialize and celebrate as they had in the days immediately leading to the anniversary. If Nicaragua is a police state, as reported in the US corporate press, it was hardly apparent at this important national event.

    Biden visits my neighborhood

    In contrast to the popular celebration in Nicaragua, the president of my own country stealthily slipped in and out of my sleepy bedroom community north of San Francisco just a month before. In the days immediately before his visitation, low-flying NORAD fighter jets loudly asserted full spectrum dominance over the hot tubs and manicured lawns of Marin County. Shielded from the public, my president came and went in a massive Osprey military helicopter.

    In a quintessentially US-style exercise of democracy, colloquially known as a “fund-raiser” – not to be confused with the crude corruption of so-called banana republics – Joe Biden privately met with a select short list of obscenely wealthy people at an undisclosed location. There they had the opportunity to directly buy influence with the government to perpetuate their privileged positions.

    Biden had secured his election in 2020 with a record high $14.4 billion campaign cost, an amount equivalent to Nicaragua’s entire GDP. That money bought 51% of the electorate with a turnout of 67%.

    Yet, Biden calls Nicaragua a dictatorship. However, a landslide 76% of the Nicaraguan electorate chose Ortega in their 2021 national election with six freely competing parties and a comparable turnout of 65%, despite US calls for an electoral boycott.

    The most recent July poll data for Biden and Ortega reflect their popularity with their respective constituents: 39% approval rating for the US president and 79% for his Nicaraguan counterpart.

    Reliving the revolutionary tradition through song

    For most of the young Nicaraguan population with a median age of 24 years, the 1979 victory by the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) over the US-backed Somoza dictatorship was an event of the distant past. The FSLN name commemorates the even older Nicaraguan resistance to the US occupation, led by Augusto César Sandino in the 1930s. But theirs is a popular and ongoing revolution.

    As Vice President Rosario Murillo clarified after almost an hour of music, “We have reached this 44/19 [anniversary date] with so much song in our hearts… we are…the original heroes, the warriors who live within us all, the eternal fighters.”

    For a good part of the celebration on the 19th, both youth and their 77-year-old former guerilla leader were on their feet reliving the revolutionary tradition by singing the “songs of life and hope” that organically came out of that struggle. President Ortega described how, through music, the singing of the youth forges revolutionary consciousness.

    Especially now that the country is recovering from the 2018 failed US-backed coup attempt, the revolutionary tradition is being invigorated with new popular songs as the nation rebuilds and repairs the public hospitals, schools, and municipal facilities that had been attacked.

    Ortega’s speech

    President Ortega recalled the long history of US intervention and opposition to democracy in Nicaragua. “Reagan stood up,” he recollected, “and even said ‘I am a Contra.’ Nothing strange, logically, that Reagan was a Contra. The strange thing would have been if Reagan had not been a Contra.” The Contras were the US-backed counter-revolutionary terrorists recruited from the remnants of Somoza’s national guard.

    Ortega paid tribute to the martyred presidents of Burkina Faso and Libya, Thomas Sankara and Muammar Gaddafi, both of whom had stood in solidarity with the Sandinista cause. The current prime minister of Burkina Faso was the honored international speaker at the celebration.

    The stories were retold, and tribute paid to the national heroes and heroines of Nicaragua, starting with the first Indigenous resistance to “Spanish imperialism.” The president further paid tribute to the youth, calling them the “fruit of the Sandinista Revolution” and a “divine treasure.”

    Ortega invited two young people from Puerto Rico to the podium. They had earlier given him a baseball with “21” on it, the number that Roberto Clemente wore. Clemente is considered a national hero in Nicaragua. The Puerto Rican baseball player died in a plane crash bringing aid to Nicaragua after a devastating earthquake during the Somoza dictatorship. Ortega also took the opportunity to affirm Puerto Rico’s fight to be free and independent.

    Ortega commented on the recent joint meeting of the European Union (EU) with the 33 nations of Latin America and the Caribbean, comprising the regional CELAC organization. He celebrated CELAC’s resistance to the retrograde initiatives of the EU.

    The EU failed to get a censure of Russia in the Ukraine conflict. Also, the “Nazi president,” in Ortega’s words, of Ukraine was excluded from the meeting, much to the chagrin of the EU. However, the EU succeeded in vetoing a resolution condemning the US for sending cluster bombs to Ukraine, even though the EU supposedly has banned them.

    Ortega concluded: “the solidarity of the peoples is firmly maintained even in the most difficult moments, and we see and feel it every day.”

    US considering new sanctions to destabilize Nicaragua

    Meanwhile, a bi-partisan bill, co-sponsored by Republican Marco Rubio and Hillary Clinton’s vice presidential running mate Tim Kaine, calls for a new salvo of economic sanctions and psychological warfare to achieve regime-change in Nicaragua.

    The Trump administration first sanctioned Nicaragua in 2018. The subsequent US administration has not only renewed, but has extended and intensified the unilateral coercive measures. Once in office, Biden banned importing Nicaraguan gold and sugar, their two largest export commodities.

    The new legislation would further stifle trade by Nicaragua with the US, cutting off beef and coffee exports. Likewise, restrictions on access to international financing for development projects, which were already severely limited by the 2021 RENACER Act, would be tightened to try to asphyxiate the economy.

    The bill also calls for Nicaragua to repeal its own 2020 foreign agents law, which was patterned after similar US legislation and is designed to protect this small nation from outside interference into its internal affairs.

    Most egregiously, Washington claims that Nicaragua poses an extraordinary security threat to the US, when in reality the opposite is the case. Yet in the face of sanctions designed to crush it, Nicaragua defiantly celebrates and continues its revolution.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Passing of Peace Activist and Whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg

    Daniel Ellsberg marches in the San Francisco Pride Parade to free whistleblower Chelsea Manning, June 29, 2014 (Photo by R.D. Harris)

    Daniel Ellsberg died on June 16, fighting to the end to warn of the existential threat of nuclear war. The 92-year-old whistleblower left a legacy of peace activism dating to his courageous release of the Pentagon Papers in 1971. Given the advancing security state and the atrophying peace movement, could his accomplishments be repeated today in this time of war in Ukraine?

    From “defense intellectual” to peace activist

    Daniel Ellsberg started his career as a brilliant “defense intellectual” working for the military and quasi-state think tanks. He helped plan, among other things, nuclear first strikes against the Soviet Union with China as a secondary target. However, with access to top secret information, he came to understand that the Vietnam War was unwinnable and the government – surprise, surprise – was lying to the US public that it could and would prevail.

    Ellsberg’s geopolitical posture underwent a sea change from being a master of war to a warrior for peace. This was in the 1960s, and the transformation did not happen in isolation.

    Ellsberg reportedly attended his first peace demomonstration in 1965, while still working for the RAND Corporation. He was especially inspired by the example of Randy Kehler, a draft resister willing to go to prison for his beliefs. By May 1971, the to-be whistleblower participated in a mass demonstration against the Vietnam War in an “affinity group” with known radicals Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky.

    Could an analyst with access to top secret information also associate with nationally prominent dissidents, attend rallies against the military, yet go undetected and undeterred by today’s surveillance state apparatus? Not likely.

    Also not likely, regrettably, is the revival of a political milieux like that of the sixties. This year, the Rage Against the War Machine demonstration, organized principally by the Libertarian and People’s parties, managed to attract only a few thousand to Washington on February 19. A few weeks later, another coalition led by ANSWER, UNAC, and others staged an anti-war rally on March 18 with similarly low turnout. Since then, there has not even been an attempt to mount a national demonstration against the ever escalating war in Ukraine.

    Pentagon Papers purloined and published

    Back in 1969, besides attending anti-war demos on his time off, Ellsberg was busy at work photocopying what were to become known as the Pentagon Papers, revealing the truth of the US imperial effort. To be sure, such a 7,000-page duplication feat could not be accomplished undetected under present security arrangements.

    By 1970, Ellsberg was contacting sympathetic Democratic Party senators such as J. William Fulbright, chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, and George McGovern. They could release the papers on the floor of the Senate and still enjoy immunity from prosecution. They refused, but kept the liaison confidential.

    After entrusting the Pentagon Papers with New York Times reporter Neil Sheehan, the Times began publishing excerpts on June 31, 1971, without Ellsberg’s prior consent. Ellsberg also provided the Washington Post and other outlets with the papers, which published excerpts.

    While the Times and the Post have long practiced follow-the-flag journalism, the fourth estate was still not yet quite the stenographers for the State Department and mouthpieces for the security agencies that they are now.

    And today, unlike Fulbright and especially McGovern who were questioning the Vietnam War effort, not a single Democrat in either house opposes a war in Ukraine that is heading toward a nuclear exchange. Oddly, the contemporary politicians that could most nearly pass for peaceniks on Capitol Hill are far-right Republicans.

    Fugitive Ellsberg

    Once the Pentagon Papers went public, Ellsberg went on the lamb, precipitating the largest FBI “manhunt” since the Lindbergh kidnapping of 1932. But the feds never caught him. After thirteen days, Ellsberg simply turned himself in.

    Such a hide-and-seek scenario would be impossible these days with our every move recorded on ubiquitous surveillance cameras. Eluding the 21st century police state is no longer an option.

    Case dismissed due to government misconduct

    Ellsberg went to trial on January 3, 1973, charged with theft and conspiracy under the 1917 Espionage Act. He faced 115 years in prison.

    His defense was that the documents were illegally classified to keep them from the American public, not from a foreign enemy. That defense was disallowed.

    The government was meanwhile busy collecting evidence against him. Operatives from the Nixon White House illegally broke into his psychiatrist’s house. The perpetrators included G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt, who weren’t caught then. But a year later the “plumbers,” which were initiated to get Ellsberg, got their comeuppance when they were implicated in the Watergate scandal. The FBI also illegally wiretapped Ellsberg’s phone and then claimed the recordings had been lost.

    In light of such government misconduct, the Nixon-appointed judge on the case, William Byrne, was compelled to dismiss the case on May 13, 1973. The back story is that while the trial was in progress, the judge was offered the directorship of the FBI, which he wanted but had to wait until the trial was concluded before accepting.

    Ellsberg went free and went on to be a leading voice for peace. Byrne never got the FBI appointment.

    Shifting partisan views on the security state and war

    Today, with modern surveillance techniques and the NSA collecting every citizen’s electronic communications, the FBI would have no need to wiretap as they did with Ellsberg. And federal court judges no longer impartially dismiss cases of whistleblowers who dare to defy the state, as with Obama prosecuting more whistleblowers under the Espionage Act than all previous presidents combined.

    According to polls over the last decade, partisan views on the growing surveillance state have flipflopped. The majority of Republicans now oppose the security state while most Democrats embrace it. Likewise, the Democrats are the new party of war.

    The Armageddon-loving crazies in the Pentagon now serve as a calming counterpoint to the White House and the neo-con warriors in the State Department. Compared to Antony Blinken, Jake Sullivan, and Victoria Nuland, the baddie generals of the past look like pacifists.

    Nixon and Kissinger conspired to split the socialist bloc, pitting People’s China against the Soviets. In contrast, the current somnambulist in the Oval Office is working overtime to forge a union of these two supposed enemy states, while preparing for nuclear war against them both.

    And no one in official circles seems the least bit concerned that the juggernaut to planetary annihilation has a fatal design flaw; no brakes to stop it.

    We are living in times when the likes of far-right Republican Tucker Carlson are the ones making reasonable critiques of the unfettered security state and of the continual provocations against Russia.

    Barbara Lee and the whole lot of once peace-promoting Democrats have learned to love war, voting nearly unanimously for every military appropriation to the proxy conflict on Russia’s border. Unfortunately, the fear of fascism by putative liberals does not extend to actual Nazis in Ukraine.

    Progressive Democrats

    How about the strategy of progressives working within the Democratic Party to move it to the left? In practice, Bernie Sanders and the Squad have worked tirelessly from one celebrity ball to next to prove that the term “progressive Democrat” is an oxymoron. Yes, the senator from the Green Mountain State is still a cut above Mitch McConnell. But that is not a very high bar.

    That same Vermont career politician is now a significant cut below the maverick crusader who had in more auspicious times run for the presidency in 2016 and 2020 on the platform that the whole system was rigged including the Democratic Party. In so doing, he proved the DNC was indeed rigged. And then he proceeded to unreservedly join the Democrats, sheep-dogging Our Revolution into the party.

    When the Democrats held a trifecta of the executive, House, and Senate, Mr. Sanders’ $200 billion healthcare package was off the table. Yet when the House went Republican, Bernie revived the initiative knowing that it would be defeated.

    To be fair, blame for the demise of liberalism must be shared with its constituents who have become so deranged by the specter of Donald Trump that they will swallow anything the Democrats feed them. Even formerly liberal publications like The Nation run hit pieces against RFK Jr., terrified that the pro forma presidential primaries might include someone questioning party orthodoxy.

    Meanwhile, they remain clueless that working class Americans are not wildly enthusiastic about another four years of Kamala Harris and her running mate. The Democrat’s frontrunner currently has a dismal 40% approval rating.

    The Vietnam and Ukraine wars

    The release of the Pentagon Papers revealed that the state was cognizant of the futility of the Vietnam venture and was maliciously willing to continue at a horrific cost to US troops and a still greater toll of Vietnamese lives. The paper’s publication was credited with contributing to a growing domestic disenchantment with imperial war.

    Saigon “fell” two years after Ellsberg’s case was dismissed. On April 30, 1975, the Vietnamese successfully repelled the aggressor on the battlefield. With the anti-war movement mounting and the troops resisting, Washington was forced to accept defeat.

    Now the US is embroiled in yet another horrific war, but a war of a different kind. The Ukraine War is a proxy war without a major commitment of US troops. However, similar to the exposés of the Pentagon Papers, it is now known that:

    – The war in Ukraine was deliberately provoked by the US.

    – The Minsk accords were a cynical ploy to buy time to arm Ukraine.

    – US boots are being deployed on the ground.

    – The US intends to eschew any negotiated peace.

    – The war is unwinnable.

    – The carnage is about maintaining empire, not preserving democracy.

    Why haven’t those revelations mobilized the peace movement? One contributing factor is its connections to the Democrats who have wholesale converted into a party of war.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • The Havana Syndrome Case Cracked

    Even before the attack on the homeland of the weather balloons,
    the Havana Syndrome tested America’s mettle.

    The Havana Syndrome was first reported in Cuba in 2016. The mysterious malady initially afflicted US embassy staff in Havana, especially those attached to intelligence missions. It then spread to Canadian embassy officials. The sudden headaches, debilitating dizziness, and hearing excruciatingly painful sounds struck both at work and at home. Oddly, the Cubans themselves appeared immune to the pathology.

    Soon other cases of what the US Defense Department called “anomalous health incidents” (AHIs) were reported in Russia, China, Colombia, Uzbekistan, and then even in the US. This mass psychogenic illness was experienced mostly by US government spies, diplomats, and military personnel all over the world, according to Wikipedia. A “government-wide response” was precipitated with “support groups” established.

    The US State Department announced that it considered attention to the Havana Syndrome “an absolute priority.” Secretary of State Antony Blinken believed “there’s nothing we take more seriously.”

    The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) concluded in a December 2020 report that the most likely probable cause of the AHIs was pulsed microwave energy.

    Inferring blame to Cuba and Russia for the “sonic attacks”

    White House chief of staff John Kelly commented: “We believe that the Cuban government could stop the attacks on our diplomats.” In September 2017, non-emergency US embassy personnel and family members were evacuated from Cuba.

    President Trump blamed the Cubans and in retaliation for the alleged attacks expelled most of their embassy staff from Washington. His Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the expulsions were “made due to Cuba’s failure to take appropriate steps to protect our diplomats.”

    The Cubans, who had no incentive to provoke their powerful neighbor, denied any culpability. They offered to fully cooperate with US authorities in their investigation of the syndrome.

    The Cubans deployed 2,000 scientists and law enforcement officials in their investigation, which was hampered by the refusal by the US government to share medical information on those supposedly afflicted by the Havana Syndrome. Access to residences in Cuba that were purportedly targeted by the “sonic attacks” was also blocked.

    But the Yankees had bigger fish to fry. Could the evil foreign adversary beaming the invisible energy waves be none other than the one blamed for stealing Hillary Clinton’s election victory? The so-called “free press,” exemplified by this message from CNN, incessantly reminded us regarding the Havana Syndrome: “The list of known, and suspected, aggressions Russia has carried out against US democracy and American personnel is vast.”

    In May 2021, Politico breathlessly reported that unnamed US government officials believe “a notorious Russian spy agency [GRU] may be behind alleged attacks.” “It looks, smells and feels like” the Russians, according to an anonymous “former national security official involved in the investigation.” What more conclusive evidence could one possibly want?

    The New Yorker, meanwhile, warned that the Havana Syndrome had spread to the White House. “Top officials in both the Trump and the Biden Administrations,” they reported, “privately suspect that Russia is responsible for the Havana Syndrome.”

    CIA chief William Burns called the incidents “attacks.” When the bipartisan HAVANA (Helping American Victims Afflicted by Neurological Attacks) ACT of 2021 unanimously passed, the incidents were officially designated as “attacks.”

    CNN reported on the act: “Its signing comes as cases continue to rise worldwide,” floating the theory that “Russia is behind” these attacks. In September 2021, the CIA even recalled one of its station chiefs for expressing “skepticism” about the veracity of the “attacks.”

    Mysterious sounds associated with the Havana Syndrome

    Top State and CIA officials who had gone to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and the National Institutes of Health with the Havana Syndrome complained that the doctors treated them as if they were “crazy.”

    Recordings of sounds associated with the Havana Syndrome were publicly released after the noise analysis by the US Navy could not “significantly advance US knowledge about what is harming diplomats.”

    Former MIT researcher and sound expert Joe Pompei told NBC News that the reported sound waves could not cause the alleged symptoms.  “Unless they had transducers in the bathtub and had the diplomats submerge their heads for a long time, it’s just not possible.”

    Biologists Alexander Stubbs at UC Berkeley and Fernando Montealegre-Z at the University of Lincoln scientifically analyzed the recordings, which they identified as the song of a cricket (Anurogryllus celerinictus). Even the New York Times, reporting on the scientific findings, admitted “the sounds linked to the initial complaints may have been a red herring.”

    An earlier panel of Cuban scientists similarly concluded that stressful conditions, not a “sonic weapon,” sickened the Yankees. They too identified crickets as a possible source of the mysterious noises.

    Case cracked: cognitive impairment is an occupational hazard for US cold warriors

    A little over a year ago in January 2022, an interim assessment by the CIA suggested that the Havana Syndrome was NOT a product of “a sustained global campaign by a hostile power.” Stress, environmental conditions, and cognitive impairment were the more likely culprits in the 1000 cases investigated with “analytic rigor, sound tradecraft, and compassion,” in the words of CIA Director William Burns.

    However, the interim investigation continued. Finally this month, all seven US intelligence agencies found “available intelligence consistently points against the involvement of US adversaries in causing the reported incidents.”

    Still, anti-Cuba zealots did not accept this explanation for the selective pandemic. Senator Marco Rubio rejected the intelligence community’s assessment,  tweeting, “it’s hard to accept…it didn’t happen.”

    US’s Cuba policy

    Cuba may have been exonerated for the Havana Syndrome, but the socialist country is still targeted by the empire for regime-change. The 61-year-old asphyxiating US blockade continues, which puts Washington at odds with the 185 countries that voted in the UN against the unilateral coercive measures with only Uncle Sam and apartheid Israel voting in favor.

    In a parting gesture of ill will, Trump re-designated Cuba as a “State Sponsor of Terrorism” eight days before he left the presidency. Obama had rescinded the designation in 2015, originally imposed in 1982 by Reagan.

    In 2021, Biden renewed Trump’s designation, ironically citing Cuba’s efforts to broker a peace in Colombia between the government and a guerilla insurgency. Biden backtracked on his campaign promises to reverse Trump’s harsh sanctions against Cuba and return to a process of normalization of relations.

    Inclusion on the terrorist list bars Cuba from access to most international finance. “The real purpose of slandering Cuba as ‘terrorist’ is to justify the criminal blockade on Cuba,” according to the National Network on Cuba (NNOC).

    Among the grassroots organizations working to get Cuba off the terrorist list are ACER and the NNOC. The latter observes: “Despite the devastating impacts of the US economic blockade, Cuba still has a longer life expectancy, lower infant and maternal mortality rates, better health outcomes, higher literacy, more education, and less violence than in the US.”

    The Havana Syndrome, used to falsely accuse Cuba of attacking US personnel, exemplifies how distorted US policy is. Like drug peddlers hooked on their own supply, the spooks and cooks who populate the US governmental apparatus suffered literal physical damage believing the paranoic false propaganda that they push on the populace to justify the empire’s forever wars and brutal regime-change intrigues.

    The post The Havana Syndrome Case Cracked first appeared on Dissident Voice.

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  • Nuclear War Is No Exit for the Ukraine Crisis

    Sixty years ago, a crowd of us young people anxiously massed around a black-and-white TV in my college student union building. The US and the USSR were in an existential standoff. The US had deployed ballistic nuclear missiles in Turkey. When the Soviets responded by placing missiles in Cuba, the US demanded their removal or face dire consequences.

    We all breathed an enormous collective sigh of relief when Nikita Khruschev publicly agreed to withdraw the Soviet missiles from Cuba. John F. Kennedy secretly reciprocated by removing US missiles from Turkey aimed at the Soviet Union. The whole world rejoiced. A close encounter with a war, which could have threatened civilization, had been avoided.

    In the aftermath, a robust international peace movement demanded and achieved some successes including the Anti-Ballistic Missile and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaties. Those halcyon days are now over. The US is largely responsible for scrapping those disarmament treaties. The last remaining Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) expires in February 2026 and has faint prospects of being renewed.

    Back in 1962, in the midst of the Cold War, it would have been unfathomable to think that we were living in hopeful times of relative security. But such was the case, compared to the current situation. The US and the USSR were both willing to step back from the brink of nuclear conflict in 1962. Both sides sought accommodation; neither sought victory. Now the US and its allies seek a mortal defeat of Russia.

    No Exit Strategy

    History has shown wars either end in a negotiated peace or in victory for one side.

    The world was fortunate that the Cuban Missile Crisis ended with both sides willing to seek accommodation rather than victory. In contrast, the currently raging and indeed escalating Ukraine War could be the prelude to World War III because neither side appears to have an exit strategy; one by choice, the other because its back is to the wall.

    The US’s intent is victory by “overextending and unbalancing” Russia in the words of the 2019 position paper by the semi-governmental Rand Corporation. As analyst Rick Sterling pointed out, this was the playbook for the US to provoke Russia into the current conflict. Bombers have been repositioned within striking range of key Russian strategic targets, additional tactical nuclear weapons deployed, and US/NATO war exercises have been held on Russia’s borders.

    German ex-Chancellor Angela Merkel recently revealed that the western powers never intended to make peace with Russia. That admission explicitly articulated what had been long enshrined in US foreign policy. Sooner or later the mounting provocations by the US and its allies deliberately threatening its existence would have had to be addressed by Russia.

    Expansion of NATO

    NATO was founded in 1949 at the onset of the Cold War against the then Soviet Union and later against Russia. NATO was from the beginning not so much an “alliance” as it was a military extension of the US empire where all members had to be integrated with and under US military command.

    From its initial 12 members, NATO had expanded east toward the USSR with the addition of Greece, Turkey, and West Germany, by the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis. After that crisis and despite assurances to the Soviets and then the Russian Federation, NATO has expanded to the very borders of what is today Russia with a full membership of 28 hostile states.

    Nuclear proliferation

    The horrendous bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 marked the dawn of the nuclear era with the US holding a monopoly of this ultimate weapon of mass destruction. The Soviet Union defensively developed its own capacity by 1949, followed by the UK in 1953. Since 1962, the nuclear club expanded to France, China, Israel, rivals India and Pakistan, and finally North Korea.

    Currently, the US has 1644 deployed strategic nuclear warheads compared to 1588 by Russia. The only other powers with strategic warheads deployed on intercontinental missiles or bombers are France and the UK.

    All of today’s nuclear powers, according to the Federation of American Scientists, “continue to modernize their remaining nuclear forces at a significant pace, several are adding new types and/or increasing the role they serve in national strategy and public statements, and all appear committed to retaining nuclear weapons for the indefinite future.” The danger of nuclear war is ever greater, exacerbated by potential unintentional or accidental triggers.

    US hegemony threatened

    Especially with the rise of China as a world economic power, US hegemony is being challenged. Washington has not adjusted to an emerging multilateral world graciously.

    The one third of humanity that has failed to be sufficiently subservient to what President Biden calls his “rules-based order” have been placed under asphyxiating unilateral economic sanctions. Western Europe, a would-be natural trade partner with their neighbor to the east, has been pressured to sever their economic ties with Moscow. And if there is a hint of hesitancy, the US simply uses force as it did to end the export of Russian gas to Germany via the Nord Stream pipelines.

    However, the US has found that it cannot always prevail. Pentagon Plan B, accordingly, is a plague of chaos as has been the fate for Afghanistan, Libya, Haiti, Syria, Iraq, Palestine, etc. For the hegemon, a failed state is better than an independent one. Given the alternative of chaos, one that would make the fire-sale Yeltsin period look like a picnic (and one in which Putin was complicit), Russia sees no alternative but to try to prevail at whatever cost.

    Normalization of nuclear war

    Adding to the present danger is the normalization of war. When I was in elementary school, the US government’s policy was to bring home the fear of nuclear war in order to justify the post-WWII expansion of the empire’s military. So, us children were terrorized with “duck-and-cover” drills. Families were to sequester in their own private bomb shelters.

    Now the prevailing propaganda from Washington is that nuclear war can be “won.” Dr. Strangelove is no longer satire. This planning to fight a nuclear war as if it were not an existential threat is institutionalized insanity. Symptomatic is the Smithsonian Magazine’s reassurance: “Today we live in a vastly different world…the threat of global thermonuclear war has mostly faded.”

    However, Robert Kagan, spouse of the US Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, asks: “Can America learn to use its power?” The neo-con then argues in favor of a vigorous nuclear confrontation with Russia on the grounds that Putin will most likely back down.

    As if in response, the inimitable Caitlin Johnstone retorts: “It’s as rational as believing Russian roulette is safe because the man handing you the pistol didn’t blow his head off when he pulled the trigger.”

    A pathway to a negotiated peace settlement is lacking

    The Rand Corporation recently floated the perspective that: “The costs and risks of a long war in Ukraine are significant and outweigh the possible benefits of such a trajectory for the US.” Rand not only reflects, but also leads ruling class opinion. So, this analysis is significant because it backs off from advocating complete victory in Ukraine against Russia.

    Unfortunately, not only does the Biden administration have no exist strategy to its wars without end, but it also faces little domestic opposition to this policy compared to former times.

    While a handful of Republicans – mainly for narrow partisan reasons – have questioned the ever-expanding US war efforts, there is absolute war unanimity among Democrats. The Democrats have become the full-throated party of war. United with the neoconservatives, the “pimps of war” are charting the course of our future. Even some putative leftists in the US are beating the war drums to “support Ukraine’s victory against the Russian invasion.”

    How I long for those days gone by when the choice of “better red than dead” was an option.

    The post Nuclear War Is No Exit for the Ukraine Crisis first appeared on Dissident Voice.

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  • Venezuelan Political Prisoner on Trial in Miami Refuses to “Sing”

    Starting December 12, an evidentiary hearing before the US Southern District Court of Florida is considering a case of historic importance. Is the US above international law? Can international conventions on diplomatic immunity be violated by US courts and prosecutors? The fate of Alex Saab, a special envoy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela is being contested, but larger questions that could affect the lives of diplomats around the world will be decided.

    Most prisoners with a get-out-of-jail-free card would have played it, but not Alex Saab. The Venezuelan diplomat has been incarcerated for two and a half years.

    On June 12, 2020, Alex Saab was on a mission from Caracas to Tehran to procure supplies of food, fuel, and medicine denied the Venezuelans by sanctions imposed by the US. His plane was diverted to the island archipelago nation of Cabo Verde. When it landed on the tarmac, he was seized at Washington’s behest and has been imprisoned since.

    Under pressure from the US, Cabo Verde defied findings by the regional ECOWAS Court of Justice and the United Nations Human Right Committee to free Alex Saab. As a special envoy of the Venezuelan government, he was supposed to be immune from arrest and detention under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.

    Then on October 16, 2022, Saab was “extradited” – really “kidnapped” because the US does not have an extradition treaty with Cabo Verde – and imprisoned in Miami.

    Washington’s embarrassingly feeble excuse for the forcible extraction of a foreign national to the US was that the special envoy was guilty of bilking the Venezuelan people.  Yet, as soon as Saab had been thrown into the federal penitentiary, the Department of Justice dropped their seven charges of money laundering.

    The remaining charge of “conspiracy” to money launder is a prosecutor’s gift because the accused can’t use the fact that they did not commit the alleged crime as proof of innocence.

    In fact, what the imperial power had perpetrated was an example of extra-territorial judicial overreach. Someone who is a foreigner and not in the US is being persecuted for an alleged crime committed in a foreign country. Only an entity that had arrogated to itself to be the world’s cop could pull off such an egregious action.

    Surely, if Mr. Saab was indeed undermining the government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, the US would have been delighted. Such subversive activity would have been consonant with US’s own policy of regime-change to be achieved by applying sanctions. Yet it was Saab who was, by Washington’s own admission, instrumental in helping Venezuela circumvent these unilateral coercive measures by bringing humanitarian supplies from Iran in legal international trade.

    Contrary to Washington’s colonialist pretext that Saab was wronging the Venezuelan people, the Caracas government has treated him as a national hero.

    But perhaps the strongest argument for Saab’s sincerity is that the US government has admitted that the diplomat was targeted because he had information that Washington wanted. No lesser an authority than former US Defense Secretary Mark Esper wrote: “It was important to get custody of him. This could provide a real roadmap for the US government to unravel the Venezuelan government’s illicit [sic] plans.”

    Yet under torture in Cabo Verde and further incarceration in the US, Alex Saab has refused to “sing” and has maintained his allegiance to the democratically elected government of Venezuela. Instead of being reunited with his family, Alex Saab in still arguing for his right to diplomatic immunity and against his illegal detention.

    If the US refuses to recognize special envoy Saab’s diplomatic immunity, the precedent will endanger the inviolability of diplomats worldwide.

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  • The Volatility of US Hegemony in Latin America (Part III)

    A surging Pink Tide has brought left electoral victories in Latin America and the Caribbean protesting the neoliberal model imposed by the US and its collaborators. Neoliberalism has failed to meet the needs of the peoples of the region and is losing its legitimacy as a prototype for development.

    However, the countries of the region must of necessity engage in a world financial order dominated by the US, which limits the possibilities of developing their economies successfully.

    Troubled waters

    US and other western central banks – what Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega calls the “gang of assassins who control the global economy” – maintained low interest rates for much of the last decade which encouraged countries in Latin America and the Caribbean to take out large loans.

    Starting around 2021, interest rates were slowly raised. Coincident, the pandemic hit and developing countries were forced to go further into debt to fund Covid measures and cushion the effects of the economic dislocation. In these volatile times, the value of the US dollar has increased on international markets.

    For developing nations, this has meant higher interest payments coupled with capital flight to US financial markets in particular. Inflation, fueled by US and allied sanctions on Russia, have disrupted international supply chains, making goods less available and more expensive. In addition, large corporations have extracted excess profits.

    The Pink Tide meets a right-wing counter current

    Paradoxically those very problems which the left-leaning governments protested about, now have become theirs to solve once in power and at a time of growing economic distress. What Reuters calls the now “orphaned right” in Latin America and the Caribbean may be down but not dead.

    Mexico. In Mexico, AMLO is termed-out for the 2024 presidential race. The popular president is currently advocating contentious electoral reforms and expanded welfare. Economic growth is stagnating, and the country continues to be plagued with horrific drug cartel violence. The US is heavily pressuring Mexico to accept GMO crops, energy sector privatization, and measures to prevent immigrants for crossing the border into the “land of the free.”

    Argentina. Argentina, a major global supplier of grains and soybeans, is in the third year of a draught. The economy is in shambles with inflation running at nearly 100%, wages stagnant, and an enormous debt incurred by the former rightist administration.

    Current vice president and former president (2003-2007) Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (CFK) is the likely left candidate in the upcoming presidential race in October. She may be pitted against former right-wing president Mauricio Macri in what would be a polarizing contest. CFK, who narrowly escaped death when the assassin’s gun jammed, is facing major legal “lawfare” challenges for corruption. Presently, the right is favored to win in the polls.

    Bolivia. President Arce faced a month-long coup attempt in the Santa Cruz department of Bolivia. Right-wing forces set up blockades and violently attacked unionists and campesinos, causing considerable damage to the national economy before an agreement was reached. The timing of the next national census was the ostensible point of contention, but the larger and continuing purpose was to destabilize the leftist administration.

    Peru. The ever-mercurial Peru has had five presidents in three years. After winning by a razor thin margin, the majority right-wing legislature has so hounded President Castillo that he has literally been unable to govern. They have even blocked his ability to leave the country while he is being investigated on multiple corruption charges. Castillo is hanging in there by his fingernails, having survived two impeachment attempts (and another in progress) and some five cabinet reorganizations.

    Honduras. After over 12 years of US-aligned governments in Honduras, President Castro has inherited a strongly entrenched rightist judiciary, military, and police and a weak economy. A state of emergency was imposed at the end of November to address widespread extortion by gangs.

    The new president has proceeded cautiously given her constrained options. The legislature passed her repeal of the ZEDE free trade zones. But the US ambassador has interfered in Honduran affairs, opposing the repeal.

    Chile. Gabriel Boric has tried to position himself as the “good” non-authoritarian left. On the campaign trail and in office, he criticized Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, creating disunity among the left-leaning Latin American states. Maduro of Venezuela returned the compliment by labelling him the “cowardly left”; Ortega of Nicaragua called him a White House “lapdog.”

    While he may ingratiate himself to the US, President Boric’s popularity ratings have plummeted. He surfed into office on the popular wave for a new constitution to replace the Pinochet-era one, but which went down in a referendum on September 4 with only 38% approval. The economy is in decline and the indigenous Mapuche people are in revolt.

    Colombia. The new progressive president has to carefully triangulate with the entrenched right and the colossus of the north. Colombia is the only NATO “global partner” in Latin America, and President Petro has proposed bringing NATO into the Amazon. The congenitally anti-communist, neoliberal Soros foundation is also working closely with the new government.

    Despite these constraints, President Petro has reopened relations with Venezuela, reversing Colombia’s previous role as the US surrogate to attack its neighbor. Petro has forged ahead with his Total Peace initiative with the ELN and other armed guerillas, based on the 2016 Peace Agreement. Further, the new administration seeks to negotiate peaceful settlements with right paramilitaries and drug cartels. Meanwhile, illicit cocaine production in Colombia, the world’s largest supplier, is on a record increase.

    Petro has also been successful in getting his tax reform enacted to fund his ambitious social programs. Nevertheless, his energy policies present problematic choices between extraction for profit and retrenchment for the environment.

    Brazil. Lula beat Bolsonaro by 1.5%. Given the unexpected closeness of the vote and Bolsonaro’s extreme right-wing positions, not to mention his bungling of the Covid crisis and general mismanagement, some analysts considered the election more of a rejection of Bolsonaro than an affirmation of Lula. A significant proportion of the electorate believe, without evidence, that Lula is a corrupt criminal who stole the election.

    For over three weeks after Bolsonaro lost, right-wing truckers blocked Brazil’s highways in protest, and evangelicals preyed outside military bases calling for the army to overturn the vote. Bolsonaro neither conceded, nor commented, nor even appeared in public. His Vice President Hamilton Mourão offered the excuse that his chief had a skin disease preventing him from wearing pants!

    Finally, Bolsonaro called for annulling over half the votes because of a supposed bug in the electronic system, which would allow him to remain president of Brazil. The independent election authority reaffirmed Lula’s legitimate victory.

    Lula’s Workers’ Party lost some of the major cities and states and lacks an effective majority in the national legislature, immediately forcing Lula to moderate his economic agenda after his initial proposal set financial markets plunging. Lula’s running mate and now VP Geraldo Alckmin is a center-right politician, who was included on the ticket to attract that constituency. Lula will take office on January 1.

    Prognosis for the Pink Tide

    The recent left successes of the Pink Tide have been considerable, but may be transient, subject to the ebb and flow of the electoral arena. Further, this Pink Tide is limited by social democratic politics ideologically tied to accommodating their own bourgeoisies, which inhibits how far social change can be achieved.

    Significantly, no new revolutions accompanied this current wave of left electoral victories. Nor are any new revolutions currently on the horizon. The existing socialist countries of Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua have been engaged in defensive struggles against the regime-change campaigns of the US. Their futures are more constrained than they were a decade ago. And their continued survival is by no means guaranteed.

    Overarching the hemisphere is the continued presence of US. Globally, Washington has become more aggressive in asserting its dominance and more unified in its imperialist mission now that the Democrats have become the leading party of war.

    Meanwhile, recessionary clouds are gathering over the world economy which will impede the left-leaning administrations’ social programs. Unlike the previous Pink Tide of 2008, this one won’t be buoyed by a comparable commodities boom.

    Nevertheless, looking into the new year, Venezuelan President Maduro observed at a meeting of the São Palo Forum of regional left parties: “We are facing a favorable wave for the peoples, for the anti-neoliberal model, for the advanced pro-independence model.”

    See Part I here; Part II here

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  • The Volatility of US Hegemony in Latin America (Part II)

    The US has long considered Latin America and the Caribbean to be its “backyard” under the anachronist 1823 Monroe Doctrine. And even though current US President Biden mistakenly thinks that upgrading the region to the “front yard” makes any difference, Yankee hemispheric hegemony is becoming increasingly volatile. A “Pink Tide” of left electoral victories since 2018 have swept Mexico, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Honduras, Chile, Columbia, and Brazil. At the same time, China has emerged as an economic presence while tumultuously inflationary winds blow in the world economy.

    In this larger context, the socialist triad of Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua are addressed below along with the importance of Haiti.

    Henry Kissinger once quipped: “To be an enemy of the US is dangerous, but to be a friend is fatal.” He presciently encapsulated the perilously precarious situations in the “enemy” states targeted for regime change by the imperial power – Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua – as well as the critical consequences for Haiti of being “friended.”

    Out-migration from Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua

    While accommodation and cooption by Washington may be in order for social democracies such as the new administrations in Colombia and Brazil, nothing but regime ruination is slated for the explicitly socialist states. Looking pretty in pink is begrudgingly tolerable for Washington but not red.

    The Democratic Party speech writers may lack the rhetorical flourish of John Bolton’s “Troika of Tyranny,” but President Biden has continued his predecessor’s “maximum pressure” campaign against Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. The result has been unprecedented out migration from the three states striving for socialism, although the majority of migrants entering the US are still from either the Northern Triangle (consisting of Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras) or Mexico.

    US immigration policy is cynically designed to exacerbate the situation. The Biden administration has dangled inconsistent political amnesties jerking Venezuelan and Nicaraguan immigrants around. The Cuban Adjustment Act, dating back to 1966, perversely encourages irregular immigration.

    With Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, the pull of economic opportunities drives people to leave in the face of sanctions-fueled deteriorating conditions at home. These migrants differ from those from the Northern Triangle, who are also fleeing from the push of gang violence, extortion, femicide, and the ambiance of general criminal impunity.

    Socialist states red-lined

    US sanctions, which have literally red-lined Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, are more lethal than ever. The electronic technology for enforcing the coercive measures has far advanced since the days over six decades ago when JFK first visited what is called the “blockade” on Cuba. Further, the effect over time of sanctions is to corrode socialist solidarity and cooperation. And in recent times, cyber warfare using social media is effectively wielded by the imperialists.

    Natural disasters have a synergistic effect aggravating and amplifying the pain of sanctions. An August lightning strike destroyed 40% of Cuba’s fuel reserves. Then Hurricane Ian hit both Cuba and Nicaragua in October, while Venezuela experienced unprecedented heavy rainfall, all with lethal consequences.

    The Covid pandemic stressed these already sanctions-battered economies, presenting the unenviable choice of locking down or working and eating. Cuba was forced to suspend tourism, which was a major source of foreign income. Venezuela chose an innovative system of alternating periods of lockdown. Nicaragua, where three-quarters of the population work in small businesses and farms or the informal sector, implemented relatively successful public health measures while keeping the economy open.

    Venezuela has made remarkable progress turning around a complete economic collapse deliberately caused by the US sanctions, but it still has a long, long way to recovery. For example, poor people are getting fat in Venezuela, not because there is too much food, but because there is not enough. Consequently, they are forced to subsist on high caloric arepas made of fried corn flour and cannot afford more nutritious vegetables and meats.

    Nicaragua is bracing for more US sanctions, while the situation in Cuba is more desperate than ever. But with international support and solidarity, the explicitly socialist states have continued to successfully resist the onslaughts of imperialism.

    Haiti made poor by imperialism

    Compared to Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, Haiti is suffering even more. It is the poorest country in the hemisphere, made so by imperialism. Few countries in the hemisphere have had as intimate a relationship with the hegemon to the north as Haiti…unfortunately. Presently civil society has risen up in revolt and for good reason.

    Haiti achieved independence in 1804 in the world’s first successful slave revolt and the first successful anti-colonial revolution in Latin America and the Caribbean. For those Afro-descendants, the price of freedom has been stiff. The former colonial power, France, along with the US have been bleeding Haiti dry ever since. Over $20 billion has been extracted for “reparations” under the force of arms for the cost of the slaves and repayment of the consequent “debt.”

    Under US President Bill Clinton – he has since apologized after the damage was done – peasant agriculture was destroyed with an IMF deal. Since then, Haiti has gone from being a net exporter of rice to an importer from the US. The consequent population shift from the land to the cities conforms to the designs for Haiti to be a low-wage manufacturing center for foreign capital.

    The treatment of Haitian immigrants and would-be immigrants on the US southern border by the overtly racist and anti-immigrant Donald Trump has been even worse by his supposedly “woke” Democratic successor. Tellingly, Biden’s special envoy quit in protest because he found the administration’s policy, in  his words, “inhumane.”

    Haiti has been without an elected president. Ariel Henry, the current officeholder, was simply installed by the Core Group of the US, Canada, and other outside powers after his also unelected predecessor, Jovenel Moïse, was assassinated in July 2021. The Haitian parliament doesn’t meet, most government services are non-functional, rival armed groups control major swarths of the national territory, and cholera has again broken out.

    The US has proposed a return of a multi-national military force like the previous disastrous MINUSTAH effort by the UN, which left the country in the state it is now. Little wonder that the peoples of the hemisphere aspire to alternatives to the US aiding their development.

    Chinese tsunami and the Russian rip tide

    China has emerged as an alternative and challenger to US dollar dominance of the hemisphere. China has provided vital life support for the socialist states targeted by US for regime change. During the Covid pandemic, China supplied the region with medical equipment and vaccines, literally saving lives.

    The Chinese economic presence has been like a tsunami wave from the east building up as it approached the American landmass. In 2000, China accounted for a mere 2% of the region’s trade. Economic exchanges began to swell when China joined the World Trade Association in December 2001. Today, China is the number one trading partner with South America and second only to the US for the region as a whole.

    China has expanded its political, cultural, and even military ties with the region, while Taiwan’s fortunes have receded. Over twenty Latin American and Caribbean countries have joined the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), offering more diverse commercial and financial options.

    Russia, too, has been a salvation as when Cuba was caught in the pandemic peak with the Delta strain and their oxygen plant broke down. Russia airlifted life-saving oxygen and later brought vital fuel after the fires at Matanzas crippled the Cuban energy grid.

    To be continued…

    • The inflationary blowback from western sanctions on some one third of humanity present an increasingly volatile global context.

    • Part III concludes with the challenges ahead for countries striving for independence from US dominance.

    • See Part 1 here;

    The post The Volatility of US Hegemony in Latin America (Part II) first appeared on Dissident Voice.

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  • The Volatility of US Hegemony in Latin America (Part 1)

    Latin America and the Caribbean have again began to take on a becoming pink complexion, all the more so with June’s historic electoral victory in Colombia over the country’s long-dominant US-backed right-wing and a similar reverse in Brazil in October. These electoral rejections of the right-wing followed left victories last year in Peru, Honduras, and Chile. And those, in turn, came after similar routs in Bolivia in 2020, Argentina in 2019, and Mexico in 2018.

    This electoral wave, according to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, speaking at the Climate Summit in November, “open[s] a new geopolitical age to Latin America.” This “Pink Tide” challenges US hemispheric hegemony, whose pedigree dates back to the 1823 Monroe Doctrine.

    The tidal surge

    The metaphor of the “Pink Tide” aptly describes the ebb and flow of the ongoing class conflict between the minions of imperialism and the region’s popular forces. Back in 1977, the region was dominated by the “rule of the generals.” The infamous US Operation Condor supported explicit military dictatorships in all of South America, except for Colombia and Venezuela, and in much of Central America.

    Then the tide began to turn with the election of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela in 1998. By 2008, almost the entire region was in the pink with the notable exceptions of Colombia, Mexico, and a few others. A decade later, a conservative backlash left Uruguay, Ecuador, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Cuba, and a lonely handful of other states on the progressive side. But that was to change by mid-year 2018.

    Mexico

    The first blush of pink to the current wave dates back to July 1, 2018, with Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s landslide victory in Mexico. Many believe his two previous runs at the presidency were stolen from him. Affectionately known by the acronym AMLO, his broad coalition under the newly formed MORENA party swept national, state, and municipal offices and ended 36 years of neoliberal rule.

    Mexico’s list to the left was significant. It is the second largest economy in the region and the thirteenth in the world. Mexico is the second largest US trading partner after Canada and before China.

    AMLO has made important foreign policy initiatives independent, in fact, defiant, of the US. He conspicuously invited Venezuelan President Maduro as a guest of honor to a major Mexican holiday celebration. When Biden called a “democracy summit” for the hemisphere last June but did not invite Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, AMLO boldly led a boycott, which largely sabotaged the affair. And AMLO has been a strong proponent of regional integration promoting CELAC and other multi-national institutions.

    Argentina

    A year after AMLO’s ascendency, the rightist Mauricio Macri was replaced by the left Peronist Alberto Fernández on October 27, 2019. The flip from right to left was a repudiation of Macri’s subservience to the IMF and austerity economic policies, which had generated mass opposition.

    Bolivia

    Two weeks after the election in Argentina, the left suffered a major body blow on November 10, 2019, when a coup overthrew leftist President Evo Morales in Bolivia. The coup was backed by the US with the complicity of the Organization of American States (OAS) under the leadership of Luis Almagro, a sycophant to the Yankees.

    Evo, as he is popularly called, was the first indigenous president in the majority indigenous country. He barely escaped the coup violence when a plane supplied by AMLO whisked him to safety in Mexico.

    Evo’s vindication came a year later on October 18, 2020, when his fellow Movement to Socialism (MAS) Party member Luis Arce won back the presidency by a landslide. Evo then returned from exile and has since played an international role as a spokesperson on climate change, regional integration, indigenous rights, and other left issues.

    Peru

    Then seven months later, a person from a Marxist-Leninist party took the presidency in Peru on June 6, 2021. When the rural schoolteacher and strike leader Pedro Castillo emerged as one of the two contenders in the first presidential election round, he was virtually unknown. The international press even struggled to find a photo of the future president.

    Castillo won the final election round against the hard right Keiko Fujimori. Castillo’s victory spelled the end of the Lima Group, a coalition of anti-Venezuela countries. Strategically, the Pacific rim of South America, which had previously been entirely populated by right-wing US allies, now had a leftist in its midst.

    Nicaragua

    The left trend was further consolidated five months after the success in Peru when the ruling Sandinista Party (FSLN) in Nicaragua swept the national elections on November 7, 2021. A year later on November 6, 2022, the Sandinistas were further affirmed with a sweep of the municipal elections.

    Nicaragua had been recovering from a violent unsuccessful coup attempt in 2018 involving the Catholic Church and other right-wing elements. Having failed to achieve regime change by helping to instigate and back the coup, the US has since tightened the economic screws on the third poorest state in the hemisphere ratcheting up unilateral coercive measures.

    Despite the illegal US sanctions designed to punish its people, the socialist government has done so much with so little. Nicaragua’s 8.3% economic growth during the pandemic is among the highest in the region and indeed the world.

    Nicaragua is the safest in the entire region and among the safest internationally. Education and healthcare are free. With the best roads in Central America, the previously neglected and isolated Caribbean coast is now more fully integrated with the rest of the country. And an unsurpassed 30% of the national territory is in autonomous zones for indigenous and Afro-descendent peoples. Contrary to US propaganda, polls show President Daniel Ortega is popular with his constituents.

    Venezuela

    Then two weeks after the left electoral affirmation in Nicaragua, the same was repeated in Venezuela. The ruling Socialist Party (PSUV) swept the regional and legislative elections on November 21, 2021.

    Although the US and a handful of its most sycophantic allies still recognize the Trump-anointed Juan Guaidó as “interim president” of Venezuela, the vast majority of states accept Nicolás Maduro as the lawful president. The hapless Mr. Guaidó has the highest disapproval ratings among potential opposition candidates for the 2024 presidential election. While polls show that if a snap election were called, Maduro would win.

    Meanwhile, Biden, under pressure to ease fuel shortages of its own making, is ever so slightly easing Trump’s draconian sanctions. Chevron is resuming limited operations in Venezuela and some of Venezuela’s $20 billion of “kidnapped” assets in foreign banks are being released for humanitarian projects.

    Honduras

    Just a week after the Venezuela election, the sweetest left triumph was achieved. Xiomara Castro became the first woman elected to the presidency in the history of Honduras on December 1, 2021. Her husband, Manuel Zelaya, had been overthrown in a coup on June 28, 2009, that was orchestrated by US President Barack Obama and his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

    Castro replaced over twelve years of “nacro dictatorship,” a well-deserved opprobrium that is confirmed by the US government itself. Back in 2009, the facts were so clear that even the accomplice Obama had to admit Zelaya was ousted in a “coup,” though he weaseled that wasn’t a “military” coup.

    The US then backed a succession of illegitimate presidents, including the most recent past President Juan Orlando Hernández, with generous military, financial, and political support. Even the OAS, which is essentially an arm of the US masquerading as a multi-national body, questioned the validity of his election. Then once Castro won, “JOH” was quickly extradited to the US and thrown into prison for importing vast quantities of cocaine to the US.

    Formerly known as the “USS Honduras” for its role as the US surrogate in Central America, the new Castro presidency will be charting a new course for Honduras.

    Chile

    Less than two weeks after the defeat of the right in Honduras, Gabriel Boric won the Chilean presidency on December 19, 2021, campaigning under the slogan “neoliberalism was born in Chile and here it will die.” He replaced the rightist Sebastián Piñera who, incidentally, was the richest person in Chile.

    A former student leader turned politician, the 36-year-old Boric came out of the mass anti-neoliberal protests of 2019 and 2021, which mobilized a significant portion of Chile’s population. Boric had beaten the Communist Party candidate in the progressive Apruebo Dignidad coalition primary and went on the defeat José Antonio Kast in the presidential election.

    To call Kast a far rightist would be an understatement. Sometimes leftist rhetoric too loosely accuses opponents of being fascists. In the case of Kast and his politically active brothers, however, the term is perfectly apt. Their father came from Germany and was an actual member of the Nazi Party.

    Colombia

    What happened next was truly historical. Former leftist guerilla (since moderated toward the center-left) Gustavo Petro and his VP Francia Márquez, an Afro-descendent environmentalist, were the first progressives to ever win in Colombia on June 19th of this year. Their Pacto Histórico coalition had come out of the immense popular protests of 2019 and 2020, which featured indigenous and Afro-descendent participation.

    Colombia, formerly known as the “Israel of Latin America,” had long been the leading US regional client state and the largest recipient of US military aid in the hemisphere. This election promises to upset that role and break with the influential right-wing former President Álvaro Uribe and his successors.

    Outgoing rightist President Iván Duque also made history as Colombia’s least popular president. He immediately joined the rightist Wilson Center in Washington, changing job titles but not, in effect, employers.

    Brazil

    Colombia was a huge splash in the region, but what ensued in Brazil was a crashing tidal wave of global proportions.

    Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, known colloquially simply as Lula, was first elected in 2003 and left the presidency in 2010 with soaring popularity ratings. He was succeeded by fellow Workers’ Party member Dilma Rousseff, who was reelected in 2014. Two years later, the right-dominated legislature used “lawfare” to oust her from office.

    Lula was then a victim of lawfare himself. Although the most popular would-be presidential candidate, he spent April 2018 to November 2019 in prison. This allowed Jair “Trump of the Tropics” Bolsonaro to assume the presidency. Then in a spectacular comeback, Lula beat Bolsonaro in the next presidential contest on October 31, 2022.

    Sea change in Latin America and the Caribbean

    The progressive electoral victories decisively tip the regional geopolitical balance to the portside. The rank order by size of the largest regional economies is Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Chile, and Peru – all of which are now on the left side of the ledger. Brazil’s is the eighth largest economy in the world.

    Brazil’s inclusion in the BRICS transcontinental alliance foreshadows an emerging international multipolar independence from the west. Originally including Russia, India, China, and South Africa, BRICS+ may expand to include Argentina, Iran, Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, and others.

    Lula campaigned on creating a regional currency, the SUR. Maduro, too, has called for a regional currency, which would challenge US dollar dominance.

    Lula, Maduro, and their fellow travelers promise to be spokespersons for the poor at home, for regional integration (reviving UNASUR and reinforcing MERCOSUR), and internationally for multilateralism (addressing climate change and possibly even helping to broker a peace in Ukraine).

    To be continued…

    • Part II addresses the explicitly socialist countries (Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua), the lessons of Haiti, and the emerging role of China.

    The post The Volatility of US Hegemony in Latin America (Part 1) first appeared on Dissident Voice.

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  • “No More American Thanksgivings” and Other Essays

    Of the traditional US holidays, Thanksgiving was by far my favorite. I can do without the excessive commercialization of Xmas with its cheesy music that broadcasts for weeks on end. Cancel the forced festiveness of New Year’s and the sloppy drunks it generates; ditto for the militarism of July 4th.  So, what’s not good about coming together with friends and family and sharing a home cooked feast?

    I don’t want to ruin the party, but before you carve up the turkey, read the opening essay in Glen Ford’s The Black Agenda. His critique of the holiday is that the mythology surrounding Thanksgiving serves as a justification for our nation’s founding genocide of its native peoples and a validation of white supremacy.

    “The Thanksgiving story,” Ford explains, “is an absolution of the Pilgrims, whose brutal quest for absolute power in the New World is made to seem both religiously motivated and eminently human.” According to the mythos, the Pilgrims are depicted as victims of harsh weather and naïveté rather than the Christian fascists that they were.

    Glen Ford and the making of a black-oriented journalism

    The Black Agenda book was published posthumously after Ford died on July 28, 2021, at age 71. The New York Times described Ford as a “constant scourge of the liberal establishment.”

    African American theologian Cornell West elaborated: “Glen Ford was the most brilliant, courageous, and consistent writer and journalist in the black radical and independent tradition of his generation.”

    A “red diaper baby,” Ford’s career traced back to reading the news live on the radio at the age of eleven. His surname was shortened from Rutherford to Ford at the insistence of the “Godfather of Soul” James Brown when Ford took a job as a reporter at his radio station in 1970. Later, Ford created the Black World Report, a nationally syndicated weekly news magazine on radio.

    Ford went on to television, print, and online media. He reported for the Communist Party USA’s national newspaper and collaborated with the Black Panther Party in Jersey City. In 1977, he launched, produced, and hosted the first nationally syndicated black news interview program on commercial television called America’s Black Forum.

    After the Black Commentator, which he co-founded in 2002, Ford founded the website Black Agenda Report in 2006 with current editor Margaret Kimberly and the late Bruce Dixon. The book, The Black Agenda, is a collection of Ford’s essays, published by OR Books, which describes itself as “the go-to source for titles that challenge the status quo.”

    In a talk at the People’s Forum in 2019, Ford explained the role of a left, black-oriented journalism and its relationship to the mass movement: “Although political journals can’t jump start political movements on their own, they can tie the residue of previous mass movements like our own of the ‘60s and ‘70s together with people who never experienced a mass movement.”

    Engaged journalists like Ford, according to Margaret Kimberly in the forward to the book, “speak for the marginalized, who can’t speak for themselves, and they expose the privileged.”

    Black misleadership class

    Glen Ford was one of the foremost critics of “black faces in high places,” who sell out the interests of their constituents for petty fame and privileges. These are the folks who have “historically been far more ashamed over mass black incarceration than outraged.” A case in point is US Senator Corey Booker, whose career has been dogged by Ford from Booker’s first run for mayor of Newark, NJ. Ford called such individuals “the black misleadership class.”

    Ford does not pull any punches in his criticism. He described the time of the Obama presidency as the “lonely days.” When much of liberal America were all gaga about a black man in a white house, Ford was a courageous voice asking us to look beyond skin color to politics. Given the current cheerlessness of the national mood after the Trump and now the Biden presidencies, it is hard to envision a period when excessive hope was a problem. Ford, however, was the anecdote to the hope-maniacs back in those heady days after Mr. Obama moved into the White House.

    Essays in the book include “First black presidency has driven many African Americans insane” and “To hell with Obama and his Van Joneses.”  In “Why Barack Obama is the more effective evil,” Ford explains that Obama “has been more effective in evil-doing than Bush in terms of protecting the citadels of corporate power and advancing the imperial agenda. He has put both Wall Street and US imperial power on new and more aggressive tracks – just as he hired himself out to do.”

    “The bulk of black voters,” Ford lamented, “have aligned themselves with the right wing of the Democratic Party,” which he accuses of being the “road to black ruin.” Moreover, “both major US parties are plagues on humanity.”

    In a what would have been an apt description of the recent 2022 US midterm elections, Ford commented: “Election seasons are reality-creation festivals, during which the two corporate parties pretend to put forward different visions of the national and global destiny. When, in fact, they answer to the same master and must pursue the same general strategy.”

    Ukraine War

    Although it did not get into the book, Ford wrote a prescient article on Ukraine in 2014, after the US-engineered coup there. His perceptive essay on the geopolitics of the Ukraine War was titled “US prepares to gas Russia into submission.”

    Ford exposed the core imperial issues animating the conflict: US energy interests and economic power. He wrote: “Washington’s strategy is to permanently ratchet up tensions to ‘new cold war’ levels to justify sanctions against Russian energy exports while exploiting America’s own natural gas ‘surplus’ as an enhanced weapon of global hegemony.”

    Ford foresaw the imposition of a proxy war in Ukraine, designed to sever Europe from the Russian supply of cheap natural gas in favor of a more costly US product from across the Atlantic. But even Ford did not anticipate the ever more aggressive nature of US imperialism, which some analysts believe literally blew up the main gas lines from Russia to western Europe.

    The US intent in provoking this “new cold war,” Ford explained, is “to crush, or at least seriously disrupt, Russia.” Over eight years later, US Secretary of “Defense” Lloyd Austin said “we want to see Russia weakened.”

    Anticipating the movement for multilateralism and international independence from Washington, Ford described an emerging geopolitical dynamic with “an assertive Russia, increasingly coordinated with China.”

    The current US-dominated world order is predicated on military super spending and economic and financial control. In the same article, Ford predicted that the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) bloc “is the most likely venue for hatching alternatives to dollar hegemony.” Fast forward to 2022 and Lula da Silva is on the campaign trail in his ultimately successful bid to become the next president of Brazil and proposes the SUR, a new Latin American currency to end US dollar dependency.

    May Glen Ford rest in power

    “Glen Ford is irreplaceable,” his fellow journalist and comrade Margaret Kimberly eulogized in the book’s forward, “not just because his writing was so sharp and so clear, but also because his politics were so clearly of the left…He was a Marxist, and he brought that ideology to all that he did.”

    The post “No More American Thanksgivings” and Other Essays first appeared on Dissident Voice.

  • US again Isolated on UN Vote against its Cuba Blockade

    For the 30th consecutive United Nations vote, the US again lost. A landslide margin of 185 to 2 condemned its blockade of Cuba on November 3. Only the apartheid state of Israel voted with the US, while Brazil and Ukraine abstained.

    Since 1960, the bipartisan policy of the US has been to overthrow the Cuban Revolution by fomenting “disenchantment and disaffection based on economic dissatisfaction and hardship.” According to the US State Department, punitive economic measures are imposed to deny “money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation, and the overthrow of [the] government.”

    The US blockade daily costs Cuba $15 million; $6.3 billion since Biden took office. Cuba’s income for the first quarter of 2022 exceeded $493 million, but imports of goods amounted to more than $2 billion. A report from Cuba admonishes: “It is a dilemma for Cubans to make ends meet. Wages are not enough to face the very high prices that the lack of offers, real inflation, and speculation bequeath to us.”

    Most recently on September 26, Hurricane Ian battered Cuba temporarily shorting electricity island-wide. In August, a lightening fire incinerated 40% of the island’s fuel reserves, exacerbating an existing energy crisis. Covid had already impacted domestic commerce and international tourism. For Cuba these were natural disasters; for the imperial hegemon these were opportunities as Biden continued Trump’s maximum pressure regime-change campaign.

    Given advances in technology, Joe Biden’s ability to tighten the screws makes sanctions much more effective and lethal than they were when John Kennedy first imposed an “embargo on all trade with Cuba” over sixty years ago. Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez commented that the current US administration “has escalated the siege around our country, taking it to an even crueler and more inhumane dimension, with the purpose of deliberately inflicting the biggest possible damage on Cuban families.”

    Incredible Lightness of the Liberal’s Lament

    Onetime trenchant critic of US imperialism, the social-democratic NACLA (North American Congress on Latin America) has been “reporting on the Americas since 1967.” Though in recent years, it has increasingly degenerated into cheerleading for US-instigated regime change in Nicaragua and other countries striving to socialism.

    NACLA commented on the US blockade just before the UN vote in an article by academic Louis A. Pérez. He made 22 references to “sanctions,” but never once acknowledged that these unilateral coercive measures were illegal or, because secondary measures target third parties, that they constituted a “blockade.”

    Along with NACLA, author Pérez is a longtime and sincere critic of the US blockade. His article has good information, recognizing that US humanitarian aid is intended to “relieve the very conditions to which sanctions have been dedicated to creating.” But with morally bankrupt ivory-tower equanimity, he criticizes both US imperialism and the Cuban Revolution for not achieving some liberal democratic ideal.

    Pérez comments: “To recognize the baneful consequences of US sanctions is not to disregard or otherwise dismiss the failures of the Cuban government [emphasis added].” He continues: “But much of what is not well in Cuba can also be attributed to official policies and practices…with ill-conceived economic policies that fail to remedy want and need.” That is, the victim bears responsibility for the economic effects of the blockade.

    According to Pérez, the fundamental failure of US policy is that the Cuban people are so consumed with the daily struggle for survival that they don’t have the time (that the more enlightened souls in academia have) to address “political freedom.” He quotes the angst of a Cuban colleague: “First necessities, later democracy.”  For such elevated minds, the tragedy of US imperialist domination is that the higher pursuits for democracy are sacrificed on the altar of banal survival.

    This recalls the counsel of the African revolutionary Amílcar Cabral: “Always remember that the people are not fighting for ideas, nor for what is in men’s minds. The people fight and accept the sacrifices demanded by the struggle in order to gain material advantages, to live better and in peace, to benefit from progress, and for the better future of their children.”

    The “irony” of Cuban migration

    Pérez repeatedly laments the “tragically ironic” US blockade; irony being a favorite word of the intelligentsia. He explains, the “irony” of the current record surge of Cuban migration is “not lost on informed observers,” such as himself: “Those sectors of the population most likely to constitute themselves as a political opposition [emphasis added] are often the very people most inclined to emigrate.”

    Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel provides context: “…we are the only country in the world for which a law was written, called the Cuban Adjustment Act, which guarantees the automatic entry into the US anyone who declares himself politically persecuted; this psychologically conditions an attitude of denial of the real causes for emigration, fundamentally economic and conditioned by the iron blockade of the same country that forces the emigrant to declare himself persecuted.”

    Pérez continues: “Ironic too…US policy serves to add to the woes of a people for whom emigration to the US offers the most immediate remedy to hardship.” However, the US policy of encouraging illegal immigration and preventing legal is not just ironic, it is deadly.

    “Land of the free” compared to Cuba

    For Pérez, the “most egregious failure of sanctions” is that they “encumber…legitimate political change” to some imagined liberal Shangri-La.

    So, what state in this hemisphere meets his lofty liberal litmus test? Could it be that “exceptional” land of the free where he resides? There’s no free lunch in the land of free where nearly one in four households experience food insecurity. Unlike Cuba, besieged by the blockade creating genuine shortages, the US has obscene wastage of massive food surpluses; an estimated 30-40 percent of the entire US food supply.

    Nor is there free higher education or medical care in the land of the free, which experienced an estimated 500,000 excess deaths during Biden’s first year in office. Despite the blockade, Cuba has not only provided these social benefits gratis, but has sent 42 medical brigades to 35 countries since the start of the pandemic. Meanwhile The Wall Street Journal carps: “Most poor countries put all hands on deck in this crisis. Havana exports its doctors.” The Cuban view of internationalism is that “we share what we have and not just what we have leftover.”

    Nor are politicians free in the land of the free, where every candidate comes with a price tag and running for office necessitates vast sums of money. Here, buying political influence is constitutionally protected as free speech and corporations are legally considered “people.” In contrast, Cuba stands out for its experiments to eliminate access to wealth as the determining success factor in running for political office.

    With its board chaired by the program director of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, NACLA has a different ideological bias on what constitutes political democracy than Cuba, where housing, health care, and education are constitutionally considered human rights.

    Not a time for complacency

    After over six decades of imperialist siege against Cuba, only the elderly know life without sanctions. The agonizing material deprivation caused by the blockade, the endless shortages, the interminable standing in line for basic necessities of life, all have a corrosive effect on the moral fiber of the Cuban people subverting the spirit of socialist solidarity.

    Leftists worry about cascading effects to the entire region of the precarious situation in Cuba.

    Cuba solidarity activist W. T. Whitney warns: “Thanks to the US blockade, Cuba’s economic situation is more desperate than ever.” TeleSUR reports, “The Cuban economy continues to be gripped by rising tensions amid the tightened US embargo.”

    Political unrest is undeniably mounting as conditions deteriorate. For the first time, Cuba is facing social media penetration from the US, which has managed to mobilize certain sectors of the Cuban population against the revolution.

    As the US Peace Council cautioned: “No matter how heroic a people may be, socialism must provide for their material needs. The US blockade of Cuba is designed precisely to thwart that and to discredit socialism in Cuba and anywhere else where oppressed people try to better their lot…. Cuba is being attacked precisely because that small island nation promises a humane alternative to the decaying neoliberal order of present-day capitalism and its pending crisis of legitimacy. If a critical spotlight is needed, it is not on how the Cubans with so little should have done better, but on how the imperialists with so much must be defeated.”

    That Cuba has successfully not only persisted but has been an international model for the accomplishments of socialism does not mean that it will always be so. Cuba is a small resource poor island, defending socialism against a very powerful foe. The Cubans can resist, but socialist internationalist solidarity must support Cuba and compel the US to end the siege. This is not a time for complacency.

    The post US again Isolated on UN Vote against its Cuba Blockade first appeared on Dissident Voice.

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  • NATO in the Amazon: Petro Plays with Fire

    US Army Gen. Laura Richardson, the commander of U.S. Southern Command, met with President Petro on a visit to Colombia, September 5-9, 2022.

    NATO recently expanded to Sweden and Finland, has been de facto incorporated in Ukraine, and may extend to Georgia. Now, NATO’s entry into the Amazon is in the works under the aegis of newly elected President Gustavo Petro of Colombia.

    NATO is a primary instrument of US imperial dominion. It is Washington’s praetorian guard projected on a global scale.

    Earlier this month, President Petro invited US and NATO military forces into the Amazon on the pretext that the imperial war machine could be repurposed as “police” aimed at protecting the environment instead of the old ruse of the war on drugs. He proposed deployment of US Black Hawk helicopters to put out fires. Previous to the environmental alibi, the pretext for militarization of the jungle was narcotics interdiction.

    Petro described his “conversation with NATO” as “strange,” but hastened to add “that’s where we are.” He legitimized the US military occupation of Colombia –a reported nine bases – as “more of a police unit than a military unit.” Incredulously, he claimed that the continued occupation was a “complete change in what US military aid has always been.”

    NATO in Colombia

    Colombia has been the poster child for the Monroe Doctrine – an assertion of US hegemony over the hemisphere dating back to 1823 – and the leading client state of the US in the Americas. The South American nation was touted by both Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden in their US presidential campaigns as a model for the rest of Latin America.

    In 2017, Colombia became one of NATO’s Global Partners and its first in Latin American. In February, Colombia conducted a provocative joint naval drill with NATO near Venezuela, which included a nuclear submarine.

    Then on March 10, Colombia became a “Major Non-NATO Ally” of the US, giving Colombia special access to military programs. Biden explained: “This is a recognition of the unique and close relationship between our countries.”

    From August 26 to September 11, US and Colombian militaries conducted joint NATO exercises. During this period, US Army General Laura Richardson, commander of the US Southern Command, made a five-day visit to meet with the newly elected president. The general gushed about “our number one security partner in the region,” describing Colombia as the “linchpin to the whole southern hemisphere.”

    The South-Com commander also met with Colombian Vice President Francia Márquez to discuss implementation of the hemispheric “Women, Peace, and Security” initiative. Richardson concluded that the “Western Hemisphere is largely free and secure because of Colombia’s stabilizing efforts.”

    When Petro first came into office, he differed from the US/NATO stance on the US proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, advocating a neutral negotiated peace on September 21. Two weeks later he switched, joining the US-led resolution in the Organization of American States strongly condemning Russia’s “unprovoked invasion” and unilaterally demanding Russian withdrawal.

    Green-washing of NATO in the Amazon

    Legitimizing foreign military intervention into the Amazon region under the guise of environmentalism is not a new idea. Little concerned about the niceties of national sovereignty, Al Gore told the US Senate in 1989: “The Amazon is not their property. It belongs to all of us.”

    More recently in 2019 and in response to fires in the Brazilian Amazon, French President Emmanuel Macron imperiously urged the G7 nations to intervene: “It is an international crisis.” UN Secretary General António Guterres echoed Macron’s sentiment, as did political leaders of other former colonial powers such as Germany.

    Quora rhetorically asked: “Why doesn’t NATO invade Brazil in order to save the Amazon?” Touting “foreign action,” the NATO Association of Canada argued: “Environmental security threats such as the fires in the Amazon rainforest affect the global environment, and therefore require a system of collective security to address them.”

    Combatting forest fires and other climate-driven disasters have been incorporated into NATO’s ever expanding scope. The militarists are not so much concerned about the environment as they are about perturbances that can upset the existing world order.

    Because NATO is an accessory of the US empire, these new ecological tasks are best understood not as non-military functions but as the militarization of environmentalism. Their environmentally “woke” missions operate under such cover as the NATO Science for Peace and Security Programme and even the UN Environmental Programme, which cooperates with NATO.

    Accordingly, Foreign Policy favorably considered the “militarization of the Amazon” on environmental grounds. A subsequent FP article on who will invade the Amazon predicted: “It’s only a matter of time until major powers try to stop climate change by any means necessary.”

    Colombia – no longer an automatic US proxy

    Notwithstanding his opening the door for US/NATO into the Amazon, Colombian President Petro has other non-military climate-change solutions in mind. In his UN address, Petro warned, “wars have served as an excuse for not ending the climate crisis.”

    While oil producing nations such as the US, UK, and Norway are increasing extraction, Petro is going in the opposite direction. His proposed oil and coal tax to reduce production and fund social projects, ban on fracking, and especially the politically provocative unwinding of fuel subsidies could, however, cause further devaluation of the peso and public discontent.

    Petro asked a recent US congressional delegation to Colombia to intervene with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to forgive some of Colombia’s debt in exchange for investment in decarbonized economies. That would compensate, he explained, for the disruption of the world economy caused with US unilateral coercive measures (i.e., sanctions). Petro elaborated in a recent speech: “The US is practically ruining all the economies of the world.”

    Petro also requested that the US congressional delegation consider footing the bill for deeding three million hectares of land to campesinos as part of his administration’s land-reform effort. The alternative, Petro adroitly suggested, would be to engage the US’s geopolitical rival China more fully in his energy transition initiatives.

    Bloomberg reports that China has already concluded a number of significant renewable energy infra-structure deals with Colombia. Indicative of the shifting balance of trade, Colombia imported $14.8 billion from China compared to $14.1 billion from the US in 2021.

    Former Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos had boasted in 2013 in reference to Colombia’s regional role as a US client state: “If somebody called my country the Israel of Latin America, I would be very proud. I admire the Israelis, and I would consider that as a compliment.” A decidedly new message is coming from President Petro, who is on record saying the US “does not love us.”

    Indeed, Petro has made international headlines criticizing the US war-on-drugs policy, noting that while Colombia may have historically been the supplier of illicit narcotics, the US bears responsibility for being the biggest consumer. Further, from being Washington’s stand-in for destabilizing Venezuela, Colombia has flipped to making amends with its immediate neighbor and reestablishing amiable diplomatic relations.

    Petro’s problematic association with George Soros

    The right-wing accuses Petro of being a protégé of and financed by billionaire George Soros, whose Open Society Foundation has long been active in Colombia. Petro is portrayed by those elements “as manifesting that ideological trajectory of which George Soros is often seen as the patriarch.” Although reviled by the right, the obsessively anti-communist “puppet master of humanitarian imperialism” is no friend of left.

    Even though Petro tried to distance himself from Soros in a tweet calling him a “speculative capitalist,” the new president met with Soros’s son and vice president of the foundation shortly after assuming the presidency to discuss joint ventures in the Amazon.

    Petro’s predicament – a small country in the shadow of the US hegemon

    Now that the right-wing associated with former President Álvaro Uribe has been discredited and electorally defeated, US imperialism needs a new face in Colombia. Petro’s ambiguous positions are best understood in historical context. For the first time in two centuries, putative leftists have run and lived to assume the presidency of Colombia, a country which has not only been a client state of the US but its lead proxy.

    Their win is an essential step in the long struggle to free their troubled country from its erstwhile subjugation to the colossus to the north. But it must be emphasized that it is naïve to believe that Washington is about to allow such a seismic shift to the left to endure uncontested.

    Given the domination of Colombia by its US-backed military, Petro was concerned not only about winning the election but surviving afterward. Both Petro and his running mate Márquez survived assassination attempts on the campaign trail. Even the Voice of America warned about the “specter of assassination.”

    The new president of Colombia is a former leftist guerilla, who has shifted toward the center politically. But in comparison to the far-right rule of Uribe and his successors in Colombia, the election of Petro and his vice president Márquez constitutes a sea change in the progressive direction.

    The regional movement towards integration and independence poses a challenge to the US drive to impose its hegemony in the Americas. The change in the executive of Colombia further advances this movement. But Petro has inherited major institutional constraints and is subject to enormous pressures.

    Paradoxically, the very conditions that Petro campaigned against, which swept him into office, have now become his puzzles to solve. Strong inflationary winds are buffeting society, generated by global economies with which small countries like Colombia must integrate but over which they have minimal control. As the cost of living goes up, Petro’s popular support at home suffers erosion.

    Petro’s predicament is being caught between the popular demand for progressive change and the legacy of US imperial domination. Colombia will need to find the means to resist the further projection of US military command in the form of NATO.  The Amazon doesn’t need arsonists to put out its fires.

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  • Why the US Imprisoned Venezuelan Diplomat Alex Saab

    A year ago, October 16, the long arm of US extra-territorial judicial overreach abducted Alex Saab and threw him into prison in Miami, where the Venezuelan diplomat has languished ever since.

    The official narrative is that Saab had bilked the Venezuelans in a “vast corruption network” and the US as the world’s self-appointed cop was simply enforcing good business practices. However, commentary by Washington insiders corroborates that Saab’s “crime” was trying to obtain humanitarian supplies in legal international trade but in circumvention of the illegal US sanctions on Venezuela.

    Cabo Verde captivity

    Back on June 12, 2021, Mr. Saab was on a humanitarian mission to procure needed food, fuel, and medicine for the people of Venezuela who had been suffering from an unconscionable blockade of their country. The US had imposed unilateral coercive measures – a form of collective punishment and illegal under international law – on Venezuela explicitly to make conditions so unbearable that the people would turn against their democratically elected government, which had fallen into disfavor with Washington.

    Alex Saab’s flight from Caracas to Tehran was diverted to Cabo Verde off the coast of west Africa for a fuel stop. He was seized and has been imprisoned ever since.

    Not only had the US-initiated Interpol “red alert” warrant been issued a day after the arrest, but as a credentialed special envoy and deputy ambassador to the African Union, Mr. Saab had protection from apprehension. Under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, he was immune from arrest and detention, even in the time of war. The US is a party to the Vienna Convention.

    Alex Saab was imprisoned under squalid conditions, including torture. Cabo Verde, under pressure from the US, twice disregarded orders from the regional Economic Community of West African States Court of Justice to free the diplomat, even though it was supposedly bound by the court’s jurisdiction. Likewise, appeals from the United Nations Committee on Human Rights to free him were ignored.

    US charges against Alex Saab

    Then a year ago, the diplomat was again kidnapped from where he was held captive and flown to Miami, without notifying his legal team or family.

    Cabo Verde did not have an extradition treaty with the US and Alex Saab had not exhausted his legal appeals to the country’s courts. The timing of his forcible removal was telling, because the next day the opposition party in Cabo Verde won the national elections on a platform that included Saab’s release.

    While the US initially charged Mr. Saab with seven counts of money laundering, these were dropped. Switzerland, where the crime was allegedly perpetrated, found no evidence of wrongdoing after an exhaustive three-year investigation. The nebulous and hard to disprove “conspiracy” to money launder is the one remaining charge.

    Washington insiders reveal the back story on the US prosecution of Saab

    Speakers at a forum held six months before Saab was abducted to the US revealed why the diplomat was such a high value target. Michael Nadler, a former US federal prosecutor with the Department of Justice who had signed the July 2019 indictment in the Saab case, told the forum: “I would tell you at the beginning, we didn’t have any idea just how big Alex Saab was going to become and has become.”

    In a clear admission that the US was behind Saab’s detention in Cabo Verde, Nadler recalled: “Alex Saab’s flight to Iran was a last-minute discovery. And a lot of pieces fell into place perfectly to be able to stop him and have him arrested.”

    Ryan Berg, the other main speaker at the forum, is a specialist on Latin America with the right-wing American Enterprise Institute. He explained why the US targeted Alex Saab: “The strong US interest in his extradition from Cape Verde to the US is that he knows a lot.” Berg elaborated: “He’s involved in a lot of these transactions to skirt US sanctions and US sanctions architecture. And therefore, the US has a strong interest in him because of everything that he knows.”

    Role of sanctions in the US hybrid war against Venezuela

    In short, Saab facilitated the “Maduro regime’s attempts to circumvent US sanctions,” according to no more authoritative source than former US Treasury Secretary Mnuchin. Further, Saab had close working relations with Russia, Iran, and China, which are states, Nadler acknowledged, that “… remain critical in their support for the [Venezuela] regime as well as their ability to skirt US sanctions.”

    The sanctions are a form of hybrid warfare. Nadler explained how this warfare is conducted:

    Most banks have correspondent relationships because they do deal in dollars and then they send money throughout the world. Even if you have a local bank in Columbia, what they will essentially do if you become a designated or sanctioned individual is they will cut you a check for the full amount in your bank account, but you’ll never be able to cash that check because almost now every bank or financial institution in the world is connected to the US financial institution. And nobody wants to risk being sanctioned because the sanctions can be significant based on each and every dollar transaction or each and every financial transaction that’s conducted.

    Nadler continued on the impact of US sanctions:

    Many actors in the region consider and quite frankly fear, the unilateral or asymmetric ability of the US government to sanction them…something that’s seriously circumscribes their ability to maneuver. And so, it is something that…a country like Venezuela fear[s].

    He concluded that sanctions are “…the main tool of the US government in bringing pressure against the Maduro regime,” which is why Saab has been so central.” Sanctions, he spelled out, are “the primary driver or the primary tool of the US government to limit the room for operations from the Venezuelan regime.”

    Alex Saab – the jewel of negotiations with the US

    The US is now negotiating with Venezuela through backdoor channels over the related issues of prisoner exchanges and easing oil sanctions. According to the opposition aligned El Diario de las Americas: “Alex Saab is the jewel of negotiations with the US.”

    Former US Defense Secretary Mark Esper wrote that Saab is a key asset: “It was important to get custody of him. This could provide a real roadmap for the US government to unravel the Venezuelan government’s illicit plans and bring them to justice.”

    Prisoner-exchange negotiations between the US and Venezuela have been taking place behind the scenes. On October 1, five dual national US-Venezuelan citizens, two native-born Americans, and a lawful permanent US resident were released from Venezuela in return for two Venezuelans imprisoned in the US. Although freeing political prisoner Alex Saab is a national priority for Venezuela and a key point in its negotiations with the US, he was not included in this exchange.

    As his wife Camila Fabri Saab explains: “The kidnapping of Alex Saab is part of an attack against Venezuela and seeks to teach a lesson against anyone who has the courage to defend their country’s sovereignty.”

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  • High-Value US Asset “Fat Leonard” Arrested in Venezuela: Possible Prisoner Swap

    The principal perpetrator, in what AP News called “one of the most extensive bribery scandals in US military history,” popped up in Venezuela of all places. Leonard Glenn Francis bilked the US Navy out of at least $35 million.

    The culprit goes by the moniker “Fat Leonard.” He tips the scales at 350 pounds, according to the US Marshals wanted poster.

    ABC News reports that Navy commanders “passed him classified information and steered their ships, mostly from the Navy’s 7th Fleet to ports he controlled” in exchange for “Kobe beef, expensive cigars, concert tickets and wild sex parties at luxury hotels.”

    Francis is credited with commanding a mercenary army: “He became part of the Navy, even using his own warship, the Braveheart, to join classified missions against Al Qaeda. He enjoyed diplomatic cover.”

    Cakewalking to Caracas

    Arrested in 2013 on bribery charges, Francis pled guilty in 2015. But his sentencing was problematically delayed seven years.

    Eighteen days before his scheduled sentencing on September 22, he evaded the supposed 24-7 security of his house arrest, cut off his GPS monitoring ankle bracelet, and slipped across the Mexican border from San Diego. A $40,000 reward was put on his head by the US Marshals.

    According to numerous reports in touch with the US Marshals, he flew from Mexico to Cuba and then on to Venezuela. Just hours before his would-be sentencing in the US, he was caught by Venezuelan authorities. Acting on an Interpol Red Alert, he was apprehended at the Caracas airport supposedly on his way to Russia.

    Francis is now seeking asylum in Venezuela. The South America nation, by law, must consider his request. Neither US nor Venezuelan official sources have commented on the asylum request.

    Made for TV

    While under house arrest, Francis voluntarily engaged in podcasts with video journalist Tom Wright. Francis bragged on camera about running a prostitution ring inside the US Navy, crowing: “Everyone was in my pocket. I had them in my palm.” Peter Chiarelli, co-writer of the blockbuster film Crazy Rich Asians, made a deal to adapt the podcasts for television.

    Juicier than the discredited Steele dossier on Donald Trump, Francis boasted in the podcasts: “What really worried the United States the most was these officers being corrupted by me, that they would be corruptible by the foreign powers.”

    Among those caught in the corruption was Rear Admiral Robert Gilbeau, the first active-duty admiral ever convicted of a felony. US District Judge Janis Lynn Sammartino sentenced the high-ranking officer to a mere 18 months in prison. Gilbeau will still be pocketing a $10,000 per month pension, courtesy of the US tax payers.

    A Bush the Elder appointee to the federal bench, Judge Sammartino allowed Francis to be transferred from prison to supposed “strict house arrest.” There Francis lived the life of excessive luxury, according to Stars and Stripes, an official publication of the US Defense Department.

    Judge Sammartino’s compassion for the filthy rich and military brass apparently did not extend down to the sailors on the USS Reagan in their case over radioactive exposure after the Fukushima meltdown. The judge rejected their appeal.

    Friends in high places

    “Fat Leonard” had friends in high places. By 2017, 60 admirals were among the 440 people who have come under US judicial scrutiny. According to the official US Naval Institute’s USNI News, the initial co-conspirators derisively labeled themselves “the cool kids” and “the wolf pack.”

    Commander Mike Mickiewicz, an officer who was later convicted, told Defense News, Francis “was a crook, but he was our crook.”

    Federal criminal charges were filed against 34 individuals in the corruption scandal and all but one have been convicted. Twenty-two pleaded guilty, including Francis and his four top aides.

    Others included 17 Navy officials: at least ten commissioned officers, two petty officers, one former NCIS special agent, and two civilian Navy contracting officials. More are awaiting trial. Separately, five Navy officers were charged with crimes under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, subject to court-martial proceedings.

    Another admiral, the Navy’s chief intelligence officer, was only stripped of access to classified information. One of the factors that makes Francis such a high value asset was precisely his illicit privileged access to military intelligence.

    Problematics of extradition

    US District Court Judge Sammartino set a December 14 status hearing for Francis. However, Washington first has to get this high-value asset back to the US.

    The US and Venezuela have an extradition treaty, but the devil is truly in the details of how this transfer might be accomplished. For one thing, the corruption charges against Francis may not be technically covered in the extradition treaty. More to the point, though, are the political issues.

    Juan Guaidó, the puppet that the US claims is president of Venezuela, would surely send Francis packing in a heartbeat if Washington ordered him to do so. But pretend presidents don’t have any real power. So, the US will have to deal with the actual government of Venezuela’s democratically elected President Nicolás Maduro.

    As ABC News comments:  “The US government could face an uphill challenge returning the fugitive [Francis] to American soil. The Biden administration doesn’t officially recognize President Nicolás Maduro’s socialist government, has no embassy in Venezuela, and has imposed crushing sanctions on the country that have further embittered relations.”

    The San Diego Tribune speculates: “‘Fat Leonard,’ once a power broker, could become pawn in US-Venezuela diplomacy.”

    David Smilde agrees: “I have no doubt the Venezuelans will make hay of [Francis’ arrest], especially because they have felt the effects of the long arm of the US justice system.” Smilde, a longtime cheerleader for crippling US sanctions on the people of Venezuela, is with the inside-the-beltway think tank Washington Office on Latin America.

    Among Venezuela’s options, says Brian Fonseca of the Florida Worldwide College, would be to allow Francis to continue on to Russia to “poke a finger within the eye of America.” Not likely, but speculation is running wild.

    Prisoner exchange

    Coincidentally the trial of Venezuelan political prisoner Alex Saab opens in Judge Robert Scola’s US District Court in Miami just two days before Judge Sammartino’s hearing for “Fat Leonard” Francis in another US District Court. Ambassador Saab is contesting his illegal kidnapping – the US prettifies it as an extradition – to the US to face a charge of conspiracy to money launder. As a diplomat, he should have enjoyed absolute immunity from detention under the Vienna Convention, to which the US is a party.

    Both the US and Venezuela agree that special envoy Alex Saab was a key figure engaged in the trade of fuel, food, and medicine in circumvention of the asphyxiating sanctions by the US on Venezuela. They differ mainly on whether such humanitarian efforts should be rewarded or punished.

    Alex Saab has not seen his wife and children going on three years. A Saab-Francis swap would serve the interests of both nations as well as achieve justice twice over. The Maduro government in Venezuela initiated and the FreeAlexSaab campaign supports freeing the diplomat.

    Prisoner-exchange negotiations between the US and Venezuela continue behind the scenes. As recently as September 1, nine prisoners were exchanged by their respective countries at an airport in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. Two were Venezuelans, who are relatives of the Venezuelan president’s wife and were convicted by the US of trafficking narcotics. Venezuela maintains they “were set up.”

    Five others in the exchange are dual national US-Venezuelan citizens, except for Jose Pereira who is a lawful permanent US resident. The five were convicted of embezzlement when they were executives at the Venezuela subsidiary CITGO. The US maintains they were “wrongfully detained.” The remaining two are also US citizens. Ex-Marine and former US military contractor Matthew Heath was convicted on terrorism charges in Venezuela. Osman Khan entered Venezuela illegally from the conflict zone on the closed Colombian border.

    While largely silent about freeing their two nationals imprisoned on drug charges, Caracas has made freeing Ambassador Saab a national priority and a key point in its negotiations with the US.

     https://twitter.com/MichelCaballero/status/1573397045402107911

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  • Biden’s Battle for the Soul of the Nation

    The midterm congressional elections will soon be upon us. We are again told, as we are every two years, that the most important election of our lifetimes is impending. However, this year the stakes appear to be even higher.

    President Biden instructs us, we are “in a battle for the soul of this nation…the breath, the life, and the essence of who we are.” He intones: “There is nothing more important, nothing more sacred, nothing more American.  That’s our soul.”

    Campaign rally from the gates of hell

    Full of fire and brimstone, Biden’s “Battle for the Soul of the Nation” lecture on September 1 was made against a demonic background illuminated by a fiery red glow. “Burning inside each of us…[t]hat sacred flame still burns.”

    He was dressed in an impeccably tailored midnight blue suit with the obligatory imperial flag pin in the lapel as is appropriate for the CEO of the capitalist world.

    Behind the silhouetted leader stood a guard of two imperial stormtroopers. These are the brethren who visited the Halls of Montezuma and came back with over half of the sovereign territory of our neighbor to the south. These are the boys who occupied Nicaragua from 1912 to 1933 and only left after they installed the murderous Somoza dictatorship to do their duty work.

    These optics are not the image of what democracy looks like, I fear, but could be the foreshadowing of a far more authoritarian future.

    Demonizing the opposition

    Trump and those who voted for him, roughly half of the US electorate, are demonized. We are warned that these undesirables “…promote authoritarian leaders, and they fan the flames of political violence that are a threat to our personal rights, to the pursuit of justice, to the rule of law, to the very soul of this country.”

    The speaker, Joe Biden, allows that while some Republicans are “destroying American democracy,” not all “represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.” He gushes that he has been “able to work with these mainstream Republicans.”

    In fact, on most matters of US imperialism and the surveillance state, there is little daylight between one side of the aisle. Both wings of the two-party duopoly connive and conspire against working people.

    So why the demonization? The reason is that other than flaunting that he is not Trump, Mr. Biden has precious little to offer as his administration reaches its midpoint.

    Living and dying with COVID

    Despite having a trifecta (control of both houses of congress and the presidency) the Democrat’s campaign finds that it has to fall back twelve long years ago to crow about Obamacare. Glossed over is the scandal that even in the time of COVID, the richest nation in the world could not enact universal health care.

    Speaking of which, Biden had the audacity to say: “But today, COVID no longer controls our lives.” Yes, under Biden, we have learned to live – or more accurately die – with COVID. Over a million Americas have perished from the disease compared to 15,000 in China. And the US death rate continues at about 400 per day.

    As Jim Naureckas points out in FAIR, “life expectancy in the US has now dropped below that of China – 76.1 vs. 77.1 years” in part due to COVID mortalities. Yet despite the lockdowns in China, “China is expected to be 13.8% richer at the beginning of 2023 than it was when the pandemic began – whereas the US will be just 3.4% better off.”

    Abortion rights

    The last time that the Democrats enjoyed a trifecta was when Biden was first swept into the White House as Obama’s VP. Back then, the Democrats campaigned to pass the Freedom of Choice Act to prevent judicial obliteration of reproductive freedom.

    Despite their promise to “codify Roe” the first thing in office, it never happened. It turns out that abortion rights was just too good an issue for the Democrats to make it safe. People who supported abortion rights were a captured constituency with nowhere else to go, so they could be betrayed.

    As Jim Kavanagh explains in Counterpunch:

    The Democratic Party knows exactly what it’s doing when it repeatedly supports and promotes anti-abortion-rights candidates against abortion-rights supporters – like Tim Kaine in 2016, Henry Cuellar this year, and its current leader, Joe Biden, who for years said that Roe ‘went too far’ and supported a constitutional amendment to overturn it, because he did not ‘think that a woman has the sole right to say what should happen to her body.’

    Democrats herald “Roe-vember” to rally the faithful, but abortion-rights advocates will be best served by relying on building the mass movement for reproductive choice.

    Incredulous claims

    Biden’s democracy lecture incredulously claimed: “This is a nation that respects free and fair elections.” He should have added the caveat that the people have to vote the right way.

    As former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger said: “I don’t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves.” Today, the US does not recognize the democratically elected governments of Venezuela and Nicaragua precisely because the people irresponsibly elected socialists.

    Biden sermonized: “We honor the will of the people. We do not deny it.” In practice, however, both Republicans and Democrats work from their respective partisan sinecures to suppress the vote.

    Biden’s jibe against Trump’s allegation that the 2020 election was stolen should be put into the context of the everyday bickering of the two major parties. As the ultra-conservative Federalist reported, based on poll data: “More Democrats denied that former President Donald Trump won the 2016 election than the people who claimed President Joe Biden wasn’t legitimately elected in 2020.” See this video for ten minutes to Hillary Clinton and her co-partisans questioning the legitimacy of the US electoral process when their side loses.

    Equally incredulous is the claim: “And this is a nation that rejects violence as a political tool.” This from the chief of state of the world’s largest military power with war expenditures greater than the next nine competitors. And from the only nation to have deployed nuclear weapons, not to mention from the party within that nation to have unapologetically perpetrated that abomination.

    A follow-upper on the incredulity spectrum is: “We can’t allow violence to be normalized in this country.” How about the daily murders by police? Or the existence of institutions such as the NSA, FBI, and CIA?

    Rivaling that claim is Biden’s boast about climate action: “And I believed we could… save the planet, so we passed the most important climate initiative ever, ever, ever.” While US greenhouse gas emissions dropped under climate-skeptic Trump, they increased under Biden. With inflating fuel costs and especially since the heating up of the war in Ukraine, Biden has aggressively promoted boosting oil production domestically and abroad.

    But the claim that really takes the cake is: “We’re going to end cancer as we know it.”

    Prospects for change within the two-party system

    Biden ended his lecture from the ironically named City of Brotherly Love: “I believe America is at an inflection point – one of those moments that determine the shape of everything that’s to come after.”

    But in reality, if past history is any guidance, the US body politic will experience no such inflection soon.

    The Democrats will likely lose their congressional majorities but will gain the convenient excuse that they cannot meet their campaign promises such as ending cancer as we know it, because their “hands are tied” by the Republicans. The theatre of two-party politics will continue as both wings of the duopoly acrimoniously contend on social and lifestyle issues and enthusiastically collude on maintaining elite rule.

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  • Possible Prisoner Exchange in US Hybrid War against Venezuela

    US special presidential envoy for hostage affairs Roger Carstens is on a case which could lead to freeing Venezuelan diplomat Alex Saab. Pressure is building on the Biden administration to swap Saab for some American citizens currently incarcerated in Venezuela.

    Alex Saab targeted in the US economic war against Venezuela

    Alex Saab, who has been confined for over two years, is a victim of the US economic war calculated to achieve regime-change in Venezuela. He has been targeted because of his role in helping circumvent the sanctions imposed on Venezuela by the US. These measures, really collective punishment, are intended to make conditions so onerous there that the people would renounce their elected government. Such unilateral coercive measures are illegal under international law.

    Saab was on a humanitarian mission from Caracas to Tehran to procure food, fuel, and medicine in legal international trade but in contravention of the illegal US sanctions. When his plane made a fuel stop in Cabo Verde on June 12, 2020, he was seized and imprisoned on Washington’s behest. Although the regional ECOWAS Court and the UN Human Rights Committee ordered his release, Saab was held captive. Then in October 2021, the US extradited Saab and has imprisoned him ever since in Miami.

    As Venezuela’s special envoy and a deputy ambassador to the African Union, Saab had diplomatic immunity from arrest and detention under the Vienna Convention. Although a signatory to the convention, the US has flouted this international law.

    Saab will be fighting against his illegal detention at a hearing before the 8th District Court on October 29. An international campaign has been mounted to #FreeAlexSaab.

    Hybrid war against Venezuela heats up

    Starting in 2015 with US President Obama’s sanctions against Venezuela and ratcheted up by subsequent US presidents, the US has intensified its hybrid war against the socialist government of that South American country. One of the spoils of that war was CITGO. This US-based oil refiner and retailer was initially a subsidiary of the Venezuelan oil company Petróleos de Venezuela (PdVSA).

    In July 2018, the US expelled the then CITGO president Asdrúbal Chávez. Then in January 2019, in a major blow against Venezuela, CITGO revenues were cut off.

    US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced that the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) had seized CITGO to hold “accountable those responsible for Venezuela’s tragic decline.” In fact, it was the US sanctions that were explicitly designed to cause the decline he hypocritically lamented.

    In an incredible inversion of logic, Mnuchin claimed that the seizure was to “support” an opposition deputy in Venezuela’s National Assembly named Juan Guaidó “to restore their [Venezuela’s] democracy.” Mr. Guaidó had declared himself president of Venezuela on a street corner in Caracaras and was immediately recognized as legitimate by US President Trump. The 35-year-old US security asset had never even run for national office. His self-proclamation was unlawful and unconstitutional.

    Besides handing control over CITGO to Guaidó, the US declared in March 2020 that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was a “narco-terrorist.” A $15 million bounty was put on his head. Adding to the farce, the Drug Enforcement Agency put up a wanted poster on its website.

    More recently in May 2022, a US judge approved of the auctioning of the $8-billion-worth CITGO. However, the auction is contingent on the approval of the US Treasury’s OFAC, which currently opposes the auction because it is “inconsistent with US foreign policy goals” now that the asset is controlled by Guaidó. However, Guaidó has been complicit in mismanaging and giving away Venezuelan assets that the US has seized and handed over to him.

    The purpose of the auction would be to pay claims by the Canadian mining company Crystallex and the US oil company ConocoPhillips against Caracas for nationalizing their properties in Venezuela. However, in another ironic twist, the US sanctions against Venezuela explicitly prevent the servicing of its debt.

    The convoluted case of the CITGO Six

    The case of the CITGO Six is playing out against this backdrop of hybrid warfare and international finance. The six – Tomeu Vadell, Gustavo Cardenas, Jorge Toledo, Alirio Jose Zambrano, Jose Luis Zambrano, and Jose Angel Pereira – are Venezuelan citizens and were executives at CITGO. All but one also hold dual US citizenship.

    The head of PdVSA called the CITGO executives to Caracas in November 2017, where they were arrested for embezzlement in a $4 billion refinancing scheme. The group was granted house arrest in December 2019. But they were imprisoned again in February 2020 after President Trump received Juan Guaidó at the White House and House Speaker Pelosi also honored the pretend president.

    After New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson made a visit to Caracaras in July 2020, two of the six – Cárdenas and Toledo – were released to humanitarian house arrest. The releases by Caracas were a goodwill gesture following US President Trump’s comment in June 2020 of possibly directly meeting with Venezuelan President Maduro. Later, Trump walked back on the opening, reiterating the US regime-change policy: “I would only meet with Maduro to discuss one thing: a peaceful exit from power!”

    The remaining executives were again granted house arrest, only to be transferred back to prison in October 2021 after Alex Saab was extradited to the US.

    Other US citizens imprisoned in Venezuela – US mercenaries or innocents abroad

    The US maintains that the CITGO Six are wrongfully imprisoned, although noting that “PdVSA has long been a vehicle for corruption.”

    An even harder case for asserting innocence is that of two former Green Berets arrested in May 2020 in connection with a plan to kidnap President Maduro. Luke Denman and Airan Berry were leaders of Operation Gideón. Derisively dubbed the “Bay of Piglets,” their amphibious assault failed.

    Then in September 2020, ex-Marine Matthew Heath was apprehended near an oil refinery and accused of terrorism and spying. At the time of Heath’s capture, he possessed a grenade launcher, a sub-machine gun, C4 explosives, and a satellite phone along with bricks of $20 bills. Not your typical tourist, even the Washington Post suggested Heath was tied to the CIA.

    The case of Eyvin Hernandez is perhaps the least known. The former Los Angeles public defender was detained earlier this year when he was caught illegally crossing the border from Colombia into Venezuela without proper papers.

    US-Venezuela prisoner swap negotiations

    Last February, family members of the imprisoned CITGO Six met with Department of Justice officials and urged them to accept a prisoner exchange to free their relatives. The Associated Press reported the families “vented” against the extradition of Alex Saab by the US. The Venezuelan government’s goodwill gesture of moving their loved ones from prison to house arrest had been reversed after Washington perversely reciprocated by extraditing Saab.

    The Biden administration was also pressured by Representative Michael McCaul, the ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. He complained: “These Americans deserve a whole of government effort to getting them home, and Congress equally shares the responsibility and desire to get this mission accomplished.”

    While a prisoner swap may be considered, the US also claims the authority to conduct military operations and impose sanctions against states holding illegally detained Americans. But, then again, Washington routinely takes such actions with even weaker excuses.

    Swap rumors circulated in March 2022. Without advance publicity and veiled in secrecy, an unprecedented high-level US delegation visited Venezuelan President Maduro. The delegation was led by National Security Council senior director for the Western Hemisphere Juan Gonzalez and was accompanied by hostage affairs envoy Roger Carstens. Carstens had previously traveled to Caracas in December of last year to meet with the CITGO Six, Matthew Heath, and the two former Green Berets.

    Afterward, Venezuela released former CITGO executive Gustavo Cardenas and Cuban-US naturalized citizen Jorge Fernandez. The latter had been arrested on terrorism charges for flying a drone on the Colombian border with Venezuela.

    Venezuela’s latest goodwill gesture has not been reciprocated by the US, although it is widely believed that the two countries are continuing prisoner swap negotiations through confidential back channels.

    Precedent of the Cuban Five’s release

    The US is reluctant to engage in prisoner swaps on the grounds that such magnanimity encourages hostage taking. Nevertheless, that reluctance can be overcome as it was in the case of the Cuban Five.

    The Cuban government, cooperating with their US counterparts in the “war on terrorism,” supplied Washington with information on terrorists plotting against Cuba from the US. Instead of arresting the terrorists in September 1998, the US imprisoned five Cuban undercover intelligence officers who had infiltrated US-based terrorist organizations to protect their homeland.

    Two of the five Cuban heroes, as they were known back home, were released after basically serving their sentences. The remaining three were released in December 2014 in a prisoner swap, ostensibly for US spy Rolando Trujillo, but really for alleged US agent Alan Gross.

    Gross’s well-connected family had launched an aggressive drive for his release. More significantly, a massive international solidarity campaign to free the Cuban Five proved to have been decisive. Cuban President Fidel Castro promised that the five would be freed, and he kept his promise. Venezuelan President Maduro, meanwhile, is demanding Alex Saab’s repatriation.

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  • The Politics of Anti-Trumpism

    Chris Butters warns: “A specter is haunting America, the specter of middle-class leftists turning to the right.” Writing on the official website of the Communist Party USA, he attacks certain social media personalities for not being sufficiently fearful of the “Trumpist Republican power grab” and by implication for their failure to embrace the succor of the Democratic Party.

    My intention is not to defend the people that Butters regards as “disembodied spirits” or to criticize the CPUSA. Rather, Butters is used to illustrate a broader phenomenon in the left-of-center blogosphere. Specifically, his narrow focus on the binary choice (“lesser evilism”) of Republican versus Democrat obscures the larger functioning of the two-party system beyond the merits of the individual parties.

    Further, while I agree that a reactionary nationalist tendency with fascistic undertones is haunting not only the “land of the free” but is also threatening contemporary Brazil, some former Soviet republics, India, South Africa, and elsewhere, I differ on both the causes and potential remedies.

    The failure of neoliberalism

     Butters is scandalized that a “fringe” of the Bernie Sanders movement failed to vote for Biden; some even choosing Trump. While Bernie’s “Our Revolution” ended up herding the hopeful into the Democratic Party by giving that party a false patina of progressivism, the initial movement led by Sanders was broader than just liberal Democrats.

    The Sanders movement reflected a mass disenchantment with the neoliberal model. Indeed, Trump’s parallel insurgency cynically seized on that same failure of neoliberalism to meet people’s basic needs via a dishonest faux-populist campaign that portrayed Trump as some kind of man of the people. That failure of neoliberalism partly explains why “make America great again” resonated with some 70 million US voters.

    While the super-rich take recreational flights into outer space, neoliberalism – the contemporary form of capitalism – is not meeting working people’s needs. And the two parties of capital collude to shovel tax-payers’ dollars into endless foreign wars…enough, it should be noted, to alleviate hunger and homelessness at home.

    Granted, the Trump phenomena is symptomatic of a mounting right-wing faux populism, but it wouldn’t be popular without the disease of a declining standard of living for the working class.

    “The struggle against racism, sexism, and gender equality” is equated by Butters with “the broader fight for democracy.” Omitted in his article are class-based economic issues.

    While flailing at the symptoms, the Democrats feed the disease. They enthusiastically join their supposed sworn enemies on the other side of the aisle engorging the military and security apparatus of the state with more funds than the White House even requests. In practice, both parties agree that anything like Medicare for All is to be deferred.

    It is indicative that, despite Butters’ criticism of the “middle-class leftists,” only twice does the term “working class” appear in his article. That is as often as the litany of “multiculturalism, gender equality, LGBTQ+ rights, environmentalism, anti-colonialism, anti-racism” is cited.

    Although I believe that these cultural, identity, and life-style issues are important, they cannot be substituted for providing an adequate material basis for daily life for the working class.

    The Democrats’ abandonment of the material interests of their traditional constituency makes them complicitous in the rise of a popular rightist blowback. Resentment by the dispossessed of the use of identify politics as a cover for the neoliberal agenda fuels – but in no way justifies – a white supremist, anti-immigrant, and sexist reaction, delivering them into the open arms of Trump.

    With little else to offer, Trump is the Democrat’s greatest asset

    WikiLeaks revealed that the Hillary Clinton campaign and the DNC were leading promoters of the dark-horse Trump candidacy in the crowded 17-contender Republican 2016 presidential primary race. The Democrats got what they wished for…and more, as it turned out.

    The Democrats no longer pretend to have a social welfare agenda. Forget about Joe Biden being the new incarnation of FDR. The former party of the New Deal and now of neoliberalism only offers its faithful the cold comfort that Trump is not their standard bearer.

    After the debacle of January 6, 2021, the disgraced 45th president of the US retreated to a golf course in Florida. He was vilified by the preponderance of corporate media – itself overwhelmingly neoliberal and imperialist – and abandoned by major figures in his own party.

    Rather than allowing Trump to fade into the shadows, the Democrats have continued to fan the flames of fear of fascism for their partisan advantage with their liberal constituency. By the same token, though, their publicity helps to mobilize the very right populism that they oppose.

    Hence, over a year and a half since the original incident on 1/6/21, the House select investigative committee continued to keep the media spotlight on the former chief executive. And with a professional TV producer for the primetime extravaganza.

    Defending “our democracy”

    What has happened since that infamous day? The angry Republican mob took some selfies in the Capitol and went home. They never returned.

    Meanwhile the Democrats had hundreds of the perpetrators pursued, causing some to be imprisoned. Under Democratic leadership, the US Army – not the civilian police – occupied the streets of the national capital. And new legislation was passed extending police powers to limit protests.

    In the name of preserving “our democracy” and fighting fascism, measures that are in fact fascistic were enacted. What ensued under Democratic aegis is not what democracy looks like.

    Butters, in another article, calls for a “mass anti-fascist front” against the Republican Party’s assault on voting rights in New York State. He fails to mention the Democrat’s own record of restricting voter choice through their initiative to greatly increase the votes needed for third parties to stay on the ballot in that state. The measure, in effect, denies ballot status to the Green Party.

     The main danger

    The Democrats’ championing of de-platforming dissenting voices from social media is for Butters counterposed by the cancel culture of the right. Butters argues that the “main danger” is “the increasingly fascistic power grab by Trump and the Republican Party” in contrast to what he characterizes as the concern with the “deep state.”

    Butters dismisses the love affair of Democrats with the FBI and CIA. However, the “deep state” is the coercive apparatus of fascism.

    With its uncomely embrace of foreign policy neo-conservatives (e.g., Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Under Secretary Victoria Nuland, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines), the Democrats have eclipsed the Republicans as the leading party of war. Now even accused war criminal Henry Kissinger stands to the left of the Democrats.

    While 57 Republicans demurred, the Democrats – including the Squad – unanimously voted to appropriate tens of billions of dollars for the Ukraine War. Such hyper-aggressive nationalist partisans make untrustworthy bulwarks against fascism.

    Prospects for fascism

    A right populist insurgency could provide the shock troops for a future fascism. But it would be the ruling class or major elements of it that would opt to no longer maintain their class rule by liberal bourgeois democratic means.

    If ruling elements imposed fascist rule, they would have to forego the convenient façade of legitimacy afforded by the current electoral regime, one where corporations are considered persons and buying politicians is an exercise of free speech. As long as popular discontent can be contained within the Republican-Democrat duopoly, the ruling powers are mollified to have fascistic measures already on the books, such as the Patriot and Espionage acts, used sparingly.

    For now, then, the cabal of the two parties of capital is content with their theatre of bitter contention on cultural issues and fundamental collusion on matters of state. All the while, the system is lurching in an ever more authoritarian direction. Regardless of which party prevails electorally, the same class is in power.

    The post The Politics of Anti-Trumpism first appeared on Dissident Voice.

  • The Pink Tide Surges in Latin America

    While the political balance between progressive and reactionary states south of the Rio Grande continues to tip to the left, even the corporate press pronounced Biden’s June Summit of the Americas meeting in Los Angeles a flop. Most recently, Colombia elected its first left-leaning president, following similar victories in Chile, Peru, and Honduras, which in turn followed Bolivia, Argentina, and Mexico.  And the frontrunner in Brazil’s presidential contest slated for October is a leftist. However, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and especially Cuba – countries led by explicitly socialist parties – are critically threatened by US imperialism, subjected to severe sanctions. In short, the geopolitical situation in the Western Hemisphere remains volatile. What does this portend for US hegemony and for socialism?

    Ebb and flow of the class struggle in Latin America

    The tidal metaphor describes the shifting constellations of governments in what Washington long considered its exclusive domain ever since the 1823 Monroe Doctrine. The Pink Tide is a reaction to, and a struggle against, neoliberalism, which is the contemporary form of capitalism. The Pink Tide first entered its flow phase in 1998 with the election of Hugo Chávez as president of Venezuela. What followed was truly a sea change with a developing expression of sovereignty and independence. An alphabet soup of regionally integrated entities arose: ALBA, UNASUR, MERCOSUR, Petrocaribe, CELAC, etc.

    Upon assuming state power, the emerging left governments paradoxically inherit the very problems that precipitated the popular discontent that had led to their ascendence. And that is not to mention the looming presence of the Colossus of the North whose official policy is zero tolerance of insubordination to the empire.

    The Pink Tide went into an ebb phase around 2015 with the election of hard-right Mauricio Macri in Argentina. A US-backed coup in Honduras had already deposed Manuel Zelaya’s leftist government in 2009 and foreshadowed a later US-instigated regime-change operation in Bolivia, overthrowing Evo Morales in 2020. “Lawfare” coups in Paraguay and Brazil along with electoral defeats of leftists in Chile and Uruguay shifted the balance right. In Brazil, frontrunner Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (known colloquially as “Lula”) was forced to sit out the presidential election in prison on trumped up charges, allowing Jair Bolsonaro, the “Trump of the Tropics,” to win in 2018.

    Mexico kicks off the second left wave, July 2018

    Prospects for hemispheric progressivism again began looking bullish with Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s (AMLO) victory in July 2018 after two previous attempts at the Mexican presidency, which were widely considered fraudulently stolen from him. A left turn by the second largest economy in Latin America, eleventh in the world, and the US’s second largest trading partner was not insignificant after decades of conservative rule. AMLO, whose MORENA party swept the 2018 national elections, has since shown fortitude in standing up to Washington.

    After it became apparent that Biden would not invite Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua to his Summit of the Americas in June of this year, AMLO led a boycott of the summit to be joined by Bolivia, Honduras, Guatemala, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. El Salvador and Uruguay also purposely missed the party, albeit for different reasons.

    AMLO pointedly made a state visit to Cuba and previously had conspicuously welcomed Venezuelan President Maduro as an honored guest.  AMLO stayed firm, even after Biden sent a special delegation to Mexico City apparently to remind him about the career prospects of others – such as Qaddafi, Noriega, and Hussein – who similarly failed to heed imperial summons.

    Then on July 4th, the Mexican president facetiously launched a campaign to take down the Statue of Liberty, “no longer a symbol of liberty,” because of the US prosecution of Julian Assange.

     A new president is anointed in Venezuela, January 2019

    Tempering any initial leftist euphoria over the ending of conservative rule in Mexico were the continuing US regime-change efforts against Venezuela designed to bring down the leading left state in the region. In one of the more bizarre examples of imperial hubris, US Vice President Pence called a person unknown to over 80% of the Venezuelan public and one who had never run for national office. Pence asked Juan Guaidó if he would like to be president of Venezuela. The next day, on January 23, 2019, this US security asset declared himself “interim president” of Venezuela on a Caracas street corner. US President Trump immediately recognized Guaidó as the legitimate chief-of-state followed by some 60 of the empire’s loyal vassals.

    Three years later, barely a baker’s dozen of states currently recognize Juan Guaidó as president of Venezuela. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who once gushed how “thrilled” she was with the puppet president, now doesn’t even recognize his name. The hapless Guaidó, by the way, failed to secure an invitation to Biden’s summit in Los Angeles last June now that he is such an embarrassment.

    After Obama first sanctioned Venezuela in 2015, the illegal measures were intensified by Trump and continued for the most part by Biden. After deliberately targeting Venezuela’s cash cow, the oil industry, the economy was devastated. Today, those fortunes are being reversed. With assistance from China, Russia, and Iran along with adroit economic planning and some concessions to garner support of the domestic bourgeoisie, the Venezuelan economy revitalized by 2022.

    Venezuelan President Maduro stood firm against repeated coup attempts by Juan Guaidó and military incursions from Colombia acting as a US proxy. Last November, the municipal and regional elections were a double triumph for Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution: the ruling Socialist Party (PSUV) won significantly while the extreme right opposition (including Guaidó’s party) was compelled to participate, implicitly recognizing the Maduro government.

    A major sticking point blighting relations between the US and Venezuela is the extradition of Venezuelan diplomat Alex Saab and his imprisonment in Miami. Saab had been instrumental in legally helping Venezuela circumvent the illegal US blockade. Apparently, the empire believes it has the prerogative to decide who other countries may appoint as their diplomats and to persecute those they do not like. This is despite the Vienna Convention, to which the US is a signatory and from which absolute diplomatic immunity is provided even in the time of war. However, under Mr. Biden’s “rules-based order” – as opposed to international law – the US makes the rules, and the rest of humanity must follow the orders.

    Rightist replaced in Argentina and a coup in Bolivia, Fall 2019

    The Pink Tide again began to rise when, on October 27, 2019, Alberto Fernández replaced Mauricio Macri, whose neoliberal policies had wrecked the economy in Argentina. The new president is aligned with more conservative elements within Peronism compared to his vice-president. The two Peronist factions have continued to wrangle over how to extricate Argentina from the debt-grip of the IMF and international finance, with the more progressive side recently gaining the upper hand.

    Then the Pink Tide suffered a major reversal only two weeks after its success in Argentina, when a US-backed coup overthrew leftist President Evo Morales in neighboring Bolivia. With the connivance of the Washington-based Organization of American States (OAS), Evo had to flee for his life. Rightist Senator Jeanine Áñez then entered the Bolivian presidential palace with a bible in her hand – I am not making this up –exorcized the building of indigenous paganism and declared herself temporary president. Major popular protests by the largely indigenous and poor populace followed, only to be brutally repressed with many fatalities.

    Almost precisely a year after the initial coup, Evo’s former minister of finance and a member of his Movement for Socialism (MAS) Party, Luis Arce, ran for the presidency. His landslide win vindicated Evo’s initial president victory in 2019.

    Marxist-Leninist assumes presidency in Peru, June 2021 – for now

    After four presidents in three years, in the ever mercurial and unpredictable Peru, a rural teacher and peasant leader from the Marxist-Leninist Perú Libre Party led the presidential primary election. Pedro Castillo faced far-right Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of an imprisoned former president and convicted human rights violator. Castillo was so unknown that the major press services had to scramble to find a photograph of him.

    Castillo was eventually declared the winner of the runoff on June 6, 2021, after a protracted vote count, but by a razor thin margin. With only a minority in the legislature, Castillo has been clinging to elected office by this fingernails ever since. Right off, he was pressured to remove his leftist foreign minister. Since then, he has survived two impeachment attempts, four cabinets, and his banishment from his own political party.

    The capital city of Peru, it should be noted, gave its name to the ill-fated Lima Group, a cabal of US client states aligned against Venezuela. Even before Peru voted red, the Lima Group had drowned in a rising Pink Tide.

    Left victories in Central America, November and December 2021

    The US deemed Nicaragua’s presidential election an undemocratic fraud nearly a year in advance as part of a larger regime-change campaign against left-leaning governments. Disregarding Washington’s call to boycott, a respectable 65% of the Nicaraguan electorate went to the polls on November 11, 2021, and 76% of the voters re-elected Sandinista President Daniel Ortega. The landslide victory was a testament to the Sandinistas’ success in serving Nicaragua’s poor and a repudiation of the 2018 coup attempt fomented by the US.

    Following the left reaffirmation in Nicaragua was the long-awaited and much savored victory in what was once called the USS Honduras, alluding to that country’s role as a base for US counter-insurgency operations during the “dirty wars” in Central America. Xiomara Castro, the first female president, was swept in by a landslide on November 28. The slogan of the now triumphant resistance front was: “They fear us because we have no fear.”

    It had been twelve years since a US-backed coup overthrew Manuel Zelaya, who was the democratically elected president and husband of Castro. The country had devolved into a state where the former president, Juan Orlando Hernández (JOH), was an unindicted drug smuggler, and where the intellectual authors who ordered the assassination of indigenous environmental leader Berta Cáceres ran free, Afro-descendent people and women were murdered with impunity, gang violence was widespread, and state protection from the pandemic was grossly deficient. Once the US government’s darling, JOH will likely spend the rest of his days behind bars given that he has been extradited to the US to face drug trafficking charges.

    Leftists win in Chile and Colombia with Brazil maybe next

    Last December 19, Gabriel Boric won the Chilean presidential election by a landslide against far-right José Antonio Kast. The 35-year-old Boric was a leader in the massive protests in 2019 and 2020 against corrupt President Sebastian Piñera. The slogan of the protests was: “If Chile was the birthplace of neoliberalism, then it will also be its graveyard!” The victory was a repudiation of the Pinochet legacy.

    A constituent assembly, where the left won the majority of the delegates in a May election, has rewritten the Pinochet-era constitution. But current polls suggest that the electorate may reject it. With a 59% disapproval rating and severe unrest in the territory of the Mapuche indigenous people, Boric has hard times ahead.

    Then, on June 19, history was made in the leading client state of the US in the Americas when Gustavo Petro became the first leftist president-elect ever, and his running mate, Francia Márquez, the first Afro-descendent vice president-elect. Petro, a former leftist guerilla and onetime mayor of Bogotá, had since shifted toward the center politically. But in the comparison to the far-right rule of former President Álvaro Uribe and his successors, Colombia has dramatically and decisively shifted to the left. Relations with Venezuela are being normalized and the Monómeros chemical plant, which was handed over to the Guaidó clique and run into the ground, may get returned to Caracas and restart producing needed fertilizers.

    Even more portentous than the left victory in Colombia would be one in neighboring Brazil, the largest economy in Latin America and the eighth in the world. That may happen with the October 2 presidential election where the frontrunner, Lula, has a substantial lead In the polls.

    Troubled waters ahead as the Pink Tide surges

    In conclusion, the surging Pink Tide is symptomatic of the increasingly manifest inability of neoliberalism to address the fundamental needs of the populace. Popular upheavals in Latin America are not isolated, but are indicative of a reaction to increasing inflation, poverty, crime, and drug-related violence. Demonstrations in July in Ecuador led by the indigenous CONAIE organization almost toppled the government of right-wing banker Guillermo Lasso over grievances regarding fuel prices, debts, and illegal mining. Panama is in “permanent strike.”

    The living standards of poor and working people globally are dramatically being eroded by a world order where the US and its imperial allies have imposed sanctions – what the UN calls unilateral coercive measures – on a third of humanity.

    The US may still be the hemispheric hegemon, but the edifice is corroding. While the US’s Millennium Challenge Corporation falters, China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has made major inroads in Latin America as it has in Asia and Africa. Argentina joined the BRI last February, following 19 other regional states including Bolivia, Chile, Uruguay, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.

    The BRICS summit of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa was held virtually in June, representing some 30% of the world’s economy and 40% of its population. Argentina attended and is slated to become the next member of an expanded group along with Iran and possibly others such as Indonesia, Niger, and Egypt.

    China has become the region’s largest creditor and second-largest trading partner after the US. China’s trade with Latin America and the Caribbean grew 26-fold between 2000 and 2020 and is expected to more than double by 2035. China has provided a vital lifeline for states attacked by the US and room for newfound independence from the hegemon. Particularly when the US weaponized the Covid pandemic by increasing pressure on left states, China filled in.

    Despite a resurgent Pink Tide, the US hybrid warfare measures against the explicitly socialist countries in Latin America has created a precarious and critical inflection point. Cuba solidarity activist W. T. Whitney warns: “Thanks to the US blockade, Cuba’s economic situation is more desperate than ever.”

    The post The Pink Tide Surges in Latin America first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Summit of the Americas Flops While Workers Summit Exposes Cracks in the Imperial Façade

    Valentín, the man next to us in line as we made our way across the international border, asked what we had been doing in Tijuana. We had been at the Workers Summit of the Americas, organized as an alternative to Biden’s Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles. Our summit was as a place where countries besieged by and barred from the US could participate and was held in cooperation with a kindred counter-summit in Los Angeles.

    Valentín, who had been born in Mexico and spent most of his working life in the United States, had seen the border from both perspectives. He commented about Biden’s summit that although the US is rich in resources, industry, and agriculture, “it wants it all,” which pretty much sums up what imperialism is about.

    Historical debt to Mexico

    That border had not always been at Tijuana. As the immigrant rights movement reminds us, “we did not cross the border, the border crossed us.”

    Texas seceded from Mexico and was annexed to the US in 1845. The following year, the Mexican-American War was provoked by the US in a campaign of conquest. Two years later, Mexico was forced to sign the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ceding nearly half its national territory. The US gained what would become parts or all of California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Wyoming, and Colorado. The Gadsden Purchase of 1853 added southern Arizona and New Mexico to the spoils of war.

    In all, 55% of Mexico, over half of her sovereign territory, was taken by the Colossus of the North. Consequently, the US owes Mexico a historical debt for the theft of its sovereign territory. This debt should be included with other major US historical debts such as those incurred by the exploitation of African slave labor and the genocide of its original peoples.

    Mexican Revolution

    Besides acknowledging the theft of Mexican lands, those of us on the left should also recognize Mexico’s considerable political contributions. The Mexican Revolution stands in the pantheon of great 20th century revolutions. Before the Russian, Chinese, Cuban, Vietnamese, and other revolutions, before the many Third World liberation struggles of the last century, came the Mexican Revolution, which began in 1910.

    As the first of the major 20th century revolutions, the Mexican Revolution guaranteed labor rights, nationalized subsoil rights, secularized the state and curbed the power of the Roman Catholic Church, and granted inalienable land rights to indigenous communities. Women’s rights were advanced, and women fought as soldiers and even commanders in General Emilio Zapata’s revolutionary army.

    There was no established path for the Mexicans when they made their revolution. That path was made by walking; they led the way.

    Cracks in the imperial façade

    For the first time since its 1994 launch in Miami, the US was hosting the Summit of the Americas, convened by the Washington-based Organization of American States (OAS). However, as AP News described, Biden’s maneuverings in the lead-up to his summit was a “scramble” to “avoid a flop.”

    That was in part because, today, Mexico again led the way challenging imperial hubris. Its president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), stood up to Biden’s imperial summons to come to the summit. AMLO would only dignify the event with his presence if all the countries of Our Americas were invited. Even after the US dispatched a team to Mexico City to cajole him to attend – but still refusing to invite the heads of Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela – AMLO stood by his original principled stand.

    Joe Biden surely found it lonely with the presidents of Bolivia, Honduras, Guatemala, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines similarly boycotting his summit. The presidents of El Salvador and Uruguay also purposely missed the party, albeit for different reasons.

    Biden’s summit took place, but the buzz both inside the meeting and outside was the hypocrisy of the US attempt to try to appear to be promoting a “Summit for Democracy” while its actions have proven the opposite. The US-imposed illegal sanctions and blockades – unilateral coercive measures – on countries whose people fail to elect leaders sufficiently obedient to Washington are, in fact, a denial of democracy.

    And speaking of unelected leaders, the Trump-anointed and Biden-supported so-called “interim president of Venezuela,” Juan Guaidó, wasn’t on the guest list for the Los Angeles summit either. Even though the US and a handful of sycophantic allies still embarrassingly recognize the puppet as the Venezuelan head of state, he was closeted.

    Inside Biden’s summit, Argentinian President Alberto Fernández delivered what the press called a “damning speech” condemning the US president to his face for excluding other states. Belize, Chile, and a number of Caribbean countries also criticized the exclusions, calling for a realignment of regional institutions.

    Outside Biden’s summit, the official Cuban government statement commented: “Arrogance, fear of inconvenient truths being voiced, determination to prevent the meeting from discussing the most pressing and complex issues in the hemisphere, and the contradictions of its own feeble and polarized political system are behind the US government’s decision to once again resort to exclusion in order to hold a meeting with no concrete contributions yet beneficial for imperialism’s image.”

    As Ajamu Baraka of the Black Alliance for Peace commented: “For the peoples of our region, the failure of Biden’s Summit of the Americas would be a welcome event.”

    Even a corporate press report admitted: “President Joe Biden sought to put on a show of hemispheric unity at a Los Angeles summit this week, but boycotts, bluster and lackluster pledges instead exposed the shaky state of US influence in Latin America.”

    Workers’ Summit of the Americas

    In contrast, the Workers’ Summit of the Americas in Tijuana called for the unity of grassroots working class, peasant, political, and social movements to create a permanent forum for solidarity and linking of progressive struggles.

    Organizers from workers, peace, human rights, and solidarity organizations from north of the Rio Grande included Alliance for Global Justice, All-African People’s Revolutionary Party, Fire This Time, Unión del Barrio, Troika Kollective, Black Lives Matter – OKC, the Latino Community Service Organization (CSO), Freedom Road Socialist Organization, and the Task Force on the Americas.

    Mexican participation included Movimiento Social Por la Tierra, Sindicato Mexicano Electricista, and Frente Popular Revolucionario. Venezuelans included militants with the Plataforma de la Clase Obrera Antiimperialista (PCOA). Among the other participating organizations were Central de Trabajadores de Cuba, Asociación de Trabajadores del Campo de Nicaragua (ATC), and the Haitian MOLEGHAF.

    Host Jesús Ruiz Barraza, rector of CUT-University of Tijuana, opened the encuantro on June 10. US political prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal, via recording, welcomed “the delegates of the excluded” in Tijuana. Former president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, addressed the encuantro, also via recording.

    Nelson Herrera of the Venezuelan PCOA, Rosario Rodríguez Remos of the Workers’ Central Union of Cuba, and Fausto Torres Arauz of the ATC of Nicaragua spoke. Revered Venezuelan campesino leader Braulio Alvarez, who had twice survived assassination attempts and is now a deputy in the National Assembly, addressed the meeting along with Venezuelan union leader Jacobo Torres de Leon.

    The second day was devoted to movement building and featured workshops on solidarity with the countries excluded from the Biden summit along with workshops on regional integration.

    With flags and banners flapping in the sea breeze, the last day convened on the international border. Speakers from both sides of the border and from throughout Our Americas addressed the crowd.

    Standing in front of the border wall, Venezuelan-American activist with the FreeAlexSaab campaign William Camacaro called for the immediate release of the Venezuelan diplomat from a Miami prison. That day, June 12, marked the second year of Alex Saab’s imprisonment for the “crime” of engaging in legal international trade to buy needed food, fuel, and medicine for the Venezuelan people, but in contravention of the illegal US sanctions designed to asphyxiate that independent nation.

    The final declaration of the Workers Summit called for a robust internationalism to promote solidarity with the sovereign nations and peoples suffering from sanctions imposed by the US and its allies. Latin America and the Caribbean were proclaimed a zone of peace.

    The post Summit of the Americas Flops While Workers Summit Exposes Cracks in the Imperial Façade first appeared on Dissident Voice.

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  • Why Are Colombian Election Candidates Auditioning in Washington?

    Staging a vice-presidential candidates debate in the run-up to Colombia’s May 29th national elections was entirely appropriate.  Nevertheless, the location of the event in Washington and its promotion by US-state functionaries requires some explanation. Because of its venue and sponsors, the affair had elements of an audition or a vetting process overseen by the US government.

    Along with the Washington consensus crowd, members of the Colombian diaspora attended the May 13th event, especially supporters of popular vice-presidential candidate Francia Márquez. Afro-descendent environmentalist Márquez is running with presidential candidate Gustavo Petro. Their frontrunning ticket could be the first administration on the left in Colombian history.

    Vice-presidential debate hosts

    The debate was hosted by the US Institute of Peace, a federal agency entirely funded by the US Congress. The board of the institute must by law include the US secretaries of defense and state along with the head of the Pentagon’s National Defense University. Activities include spreading “peace” in such oases of made-in-the-USA tranquility as Iraq, Sudan, Afghanistan, and Libya.

    If these officials pass for peacemakers in Washington’s inside-the-beltway world, who, one might ask, would be left to lead a military academy? Answer: the very same people, which is entirely the point of a US government “peace” agency.

    Co-hosts of the event were the Atlantic Council and the Woodrow Wilson Center. The former is known as “NATO’s think tank.” Its board of honorary directors is composed of four former secretaries of defense, three former secretaries of state, a former head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and a former Homeland Security official.

    The Woodrow Wilson Center is a semi-governmental entity, whose current head, Mark Andrew Green, was executive director of the McCain Institute for International Leadership and before that head of the CIA front organization USAID. Rounding out their board are Betsy DeVos, Trump’s secretary of education, and Antony Blinken, Biden’s current secretary of state.

    Colombia – US client state

    Colombia is the leading client state of the US in the Americas. The South American nation was touted by both Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden in their US presidential campaigns as a model for the rest of Latin America. This so-called model nation was partially paralyzed for four days starting on May 5 when the private paramilitary group Clan del Golfo imposed a national armed strike in retaliation for the extradition to the US of its leader on drug trafficking charges.

    Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, for example, boasted in 2013 in reference to Colombia’s regional role as a US client state: “If somebody called my country the Israel of Latin America, I would be very proud. I admire the Israelis, and I would consider that as a compliment.”

    According to the Task Force on the Americas, Colombia has been turned into a regional US military and political staging area. Plan Colombia and Plan Patriota constructed one of the most sophisticated armies in the world even though Colombia has no external wars.

    As the US’s leading regional proxy, Colombia is appropriately a land of superlatives. It is the leading recipient of US military and foreign aid in the hemisphere. According to Colombian academic Rena Vegas, the US has approximately 50 military units along with US agencies, headed by the CIA and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), which “operate daily and freely to intervene in the country.”

    Also, not inconsequently, Colombia is the most dangerous place to be a union activist. North American corporations there (e.g., Chiquita, Coca Cola, Drummond) have employed paramilitaries to do their dirty work.

    Colombia likewise gets the largest allocation of DEA funds. Also, not inconsequently, it is the world’s largest source of illicit cocaine, according to the CIA. The US war on drugs in Colombia has served as a smokescreen for massive repression against popular movements by the country’s military and allied paramilitary organizations.

    In 2017, Colombia became one of NATO’s Global Partners and its first in Latin American. In February, Colombia conducted a provocative joint naval drill with NATO near Venezuela, which included a nuclear submarine. Then on March 10, Colombia became a “Major Non-NATO Ally” of the US, giving the narco-state special access to military programs. Biden explained: “This is a recognition of the unique and close relationship between our countries.”

    Summit of the Americas

    In short, Colombia is the poster child for the US Monroe Doctrine, an assertion of US hegemony over the hemisphere dating back to 1823. Biden recently made a cosmetic change to the Monroe Doctrine risibly proclaiming that our southern neighbors are no longer in our “backyard” but rather in our “front yard.”

    However, many Latin American and Caribbean nations believe that they are sovereign countries. So Biden’s recent call for a Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles on June 6-10, which would exclude Nicaragua, Cuba, and Venezuela, faces significant pushback. Mexican President Lopez Obrador said he’ll shun the meeting along with the heads of state of over a dozen Caribbean countries, Bolivia, Guatemala, and possibly Brazil.

    Over half of the chief execs in the Americas have tentatively spurned the imperial summons. Unless Biden makes amends or more likely twists some arms, he’ll find Los Angeles a lonely place.

    Meanwhile counter-summits have been organized by social movements in Los Angeles on June 8-10 and followed by another in Tijuana on June 10-12, which may be attended by nationals barred from entering the US.

    Colombia’s relations with Venezuela

    Colombia has served as the main staging ground for US destabilization efforts against Venezuela. Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro accused Colombian President Iván Duque of plotting to sow unrest through the targeted killing of Venezuelan security forces along their shared border. A year ago, US-backed mercenaries trained in Colombia were caught in Venezuela before they could follow through on their plan to assassinate the Venezuelan president.

    Despite tremendous pressure from the US, the leading Colombian presidential candidate, Gustavo Petro, has stated that he intends to restore relations with neighboring Venezuela. Nevertheless, Petro has regularly made critical remarks about Venezuela, a country slated for regime change by Washington. While not mentioning Petro by name, Venezuelan President Maduro has called those who capitulate to US pressures “the cowardly regional left.”

    More recently Petro falsely characterized political prisoner Alex Saab of being allied with the far right. Venezuelan diplomat Saab is currently imprisoned in the US even though he should be afforded diplomatic immunity from prosecution under the Vienna Convention. The Venezuelan National Assembly unanimously passed a resolution condemning Saab’s treatment as what its president, Jorge Rodríguez, called an “act of immeasurable hypocrisy” by the US.

    Petro/Márquez campaign survives assignation attempts

    Given the domination of Colombia by its US-backed military, Petro is concerned not only about winning the election but surviving afterward. Both Petro and his running mate Márquez have already survived assassination attempts on the campaign trail.

    Breaking the constitutional requirement for neutrality by the armed forces, the commander of the Colombian army issued a direct attack against Petro. This prompted Medellín’s mayor to warn: “We are one step away from a coup.”

    Petro, a former leftist guerilla and onetime mayor of Bogotá, has since shifted toward the center politically. But in comparison to the far-right rule of former President Álvaro Uribe and his successors in Colombia, Petro and Márquez appear relatively left and their election would be a sea change for the better.

    Colombia has had leftist candidates assassinated – that is the genesis of the guerilla opposition – but none have survived to assume the presidential office. The win would be a necessary step in the left’s long struggle to free their troubled country from its erstwhile subjugation to the colossus to the north. Then, perhaps, their political candidates won’t feel compelled to audition in Washington.

    The post Why Are Colombian Election Candidates Auditioning in Washington? first appeared on Dissident Voice.

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  • Imprisoned Venezuelan Diplomat Contests Extraterritorial Judicial Abuse

    Venezuelan diplomat Alex Saab’s case took a dramatic turn as his legal defense team denounced the US government’s flagrant failure to respect long-standing diplomatic immunity conventions. Saab’s lawyer, David Rivkin, called the US government’s arguments before the 11th Circuit Court in Miami “utterly dangerous.” “The implication,” he added is that “because you are a disfavored regime, because you’re Venezuela under Maduro…we’re going to treat you as somehow you lost the Westphalian entitlement to sovereignty.” And with that, Rivkin pretty much summed up the US imperial view of the world.

    At issue at the April 6 hearing was Saab’s claim to diplomatic immunity under the Vienna Convention on Diplomat Relations. This international law, to which the US is a signatory, affords accredited diplomats absolute protection from arrest and prosecution even in time of war. Referring to the war in Ukraine, Saab’s attorney reminded the court that the principle at stake is “vital to the effective functioning of diplomacy for all states…[which] is all the more imperative these days.”

    Charges against Alex Saab

    Alex Saab, who was appointed as a special envoy by Venezuela in 2018, was initially detained on orders of the US on June 12, 2020. He was en route from Caracas to Tehran when his plane made a fueling stop in Cabo Verde. Saab had in his possession his diplomatic passport and other documents (see them on online) commensurate with his diplomatic mission.

    Saab had been on a mission to procure humanitarian supplies of basic food, fuel, and medicine for Venezuela from Iran in legal international trade but in circumvention of the illegal US sanctions and blockade of Venezuela. The US had identified Saab as a key player in the resistance to the US’s economic war against Venezuela.

    After being held in tortuous conditions in Cabo Verde for nearly 500 days, the US kidnapped Saab a second time and has imprisoned him in Miami since October 16, 2021. Washington did not have an extradition treaty with Cabo Verde and did not inform Saab’s lawyers or family before flying him to the US.

    The US government dropped its initial seven counts of money laundering and retained only one count of “conspiracy” to money launder, to which Saab pleaded not guilty in US District Court last November. That charge carries a maximum penalty of 20 years imprisonment. In this instance of extraterritorial judicial overreach by Washington, the defense has noted that Saab is neither a US citizen nor was the alleged crime committed in the US.

    Functional denial of immunity

    A half a year from now, Saab is scheduled to go on trial in the 8th District Court on the single conspiracy charge. His appearance this April 6 at the 11th Circuit Court was on appeal on the grounds that, like any other diplomat, he is protected by the Vienna Convention, which affords him absolute immunity from prosecution.

    Saab’s attorney, Rivkin, argued before the appellate court that “every day Mr. Saab is in prison is a grave breach. It’s almost a First Amendment type situation. It’s irreparable harm to him. It’s irreparable harm to the sovereign state whose diplomatic agent he is.”

    The US government attorney on April 6 maintained in court that Saab’s “claim of special envoy status is simply a ruse made up by a rogue nation to allow a defendant to escape criminal charges in the US.” On this basis, US prosecutor Jeremy Sanders argued that Saab should just wait however many more years behind bars it takes until after the conspiracy charge is adjudicated in the lower court. Then, if found guilty, he could try to contest his denial of diplomatic immunity.

    Even Circuit Court Judge Jordan challenged the US government attorney, using the hypothetical example of a state court criminally charging a US president. The judge quipped that rather than wait for the lower count trial to proceed, “you’d be up at the appellate court in a heartbeat, arguing that that issue had to be resolved immediately. Right?”

    Judge Luck, also on the three-judge panel, added that “the failure to rule on it [diplomatic immunity] is itself a decision to bring someone in, to haul someone into court when they are not otherwise required or entitled to be in court;” that is, a “functional denial of immunity” in Judge Jordan’s words.

    The court “will take the matter under advisement,” which is legalese to say they will mull it over as Saab continues to languish in prison.

    International support for Alex Saab

    Meanwhile, outside the courthouse, William Camacaro, head of the US #FreeAlexSaab Campaign, along with its honorary chair, Puerto Rican liberation hero, Oscar López Rivera, led a demonstration in support of Saab. Similar support rallies were held elsewhere in North America and internationally.

    The Venezuelan National Assembly unanimously passed a resolution condemning what its president, Jorge Rodríguez, called an “act of immeasurable hypocrisy” by the US.

    The National Lawyers Guild called for Saab’s immediate release, commenting that the case reflects on “the extent to which the US government will go in order to enforce its unilateral coercive measures and economic sanctions against Venezuela, Iran and other targeted nations.”

    This is a politically motivated case, not a legal one, and is “really about the international order and viability of diplomacy,” according to counsel Femi Falana. Falana was Saab’s lead attorney before the regional Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Court of Justice, which twice ordered Saab to be liberated when he was held in Cabo Verde.

    Venezuela’s successful resistance to US economic warfare

    The Biden administration, which had continued Trump’s “maximum pressure” blockade of Venezuela, is showing signs of needing to make amends with its Latin American neighbor. An already inflationary US economy has been rendered yet more volatile with Washington’s sanctions on Moscow causing increased prices at the gas pump. This led to a visit that would have been unthinkable for Washington a few months earlier.

    A high-level US delegation visited Caracas in early March to meet with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, presumably to negotiate an oil trade deal. While there has been no official confirmation of such a deal, the visit implicitly recognized the legitimacy of the elected president of Venezuela, handing Maduro a major victory. Meanwhile, the hapless Juan Guaidó, recognized as the “interim president” of Venezuela only by the US and a few of its most sycophantic allies, may soon be history.

    According to the UN, the US sanctions initially reduced Venezuelan government revenues by an extraordinary 99% and fueled astronomic hyperinflation. Venezuela’s successful resistance, aided by Saab and many others, has foiled the US attempt to foment regime change through imposition of what the UN calls “unilateral coercive measures,” a form of collective punishment and economic warfare. Rather, Venezuela’s once devastated economy is rejuvenating.

    In the last month, Venezuela’s inflation slowed down to 1.4%, which is lower than before Obama first imposed sanctions in 2015. The national consumer price index has been below 10% for the last seven months. The investment bank Credit Suisse projects a remarkable 20% GDP growth in 2022 and 8% more in 2023 for Venezuela. According to political analyst Ben Norton, “the worst of this US-fueled economic crisis has passed.”

    Alex Saab was instrumental in the economic turnaround. Venezuelan National Assembly President Rodríguez credited Saab with helping to “overcome the most brutal attack the country suffered,” which is precisely why the US has persecuted him. And the Venezuelan government has made clear that they will not abandon, in the words of President Maduro, their “kidnapped” diplomat.

    The post Imprisoned Venezuelan Diplomat Contests Extraterritorial Judicial Abuse first appeared on Dissident Voice.

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  • Illegally Imprisoned Venezuelan Diplomat Faces US Court Amid a Shifting Global Context

    Alex Saab’s April 6 hearing takes place in the setting of a mercurial world situation, where events in Ukraine may have indirect bearing on his case and on the larger US economic war against Venezuela.

    *****

    In a world where the US believes it makes the rules and the rest of humanity must follow its orders – what President Biden euphemistically calls the “rules-based order” – Washington has now even appropriated the prerogative to tell other countries who they may appoint as their ambassadors. As a consequence, Venezuelan diplomat Alex Saab is fighting for his freedom before the 11th District Circuit Court in Miami.

    US economic war against Venezuela

    Alex Saab was appointed a special envoy with diplomatic credentials by the Venezuelan government on April 9, 2018. The businessman had worked on the government’s food assistance (CLAP) and public housing programs. More importantly, he was assisting the government in trying to circumvent sanctions imposed on Venezuela by the US; sanctions intended to punish the people so that they would be motivated to overthrow their democratically elected government.

    The sanctions, which started in 2015 under Obama, have been ratcheted up by every successive US president since. Known as “unilateral coercive measures,” this kind of collective punishment is a form of economic warfare and is illegal under international law.

    As the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) admits: “The Venezuelan economy’s performance has…fallen steeply since the imposition of a series of US sanctions.” By barring access to basic necessities, such measures are as deadly as bombs. An estimated 100,000 Venezuelans have perished due to the sanctions as of March 2020, according to former UN special rapporteur for human rights Alfred de Zayas.

    Violation of diplomatic immunity

    On June 12, 2020, with diplomatic passport in hand, Alex Saab was en route from Caracas to Tehran to procure food, medicine, and fuel in legal international trade. His plane was diverted to the island archipelago nation of Cabo Verde off the coast of West Africa for a refueling stop. There, in an egregious example of extra-territorial judicial overreach, the US had him seized without warrant and thrown in prison.

    As a Venezuelan special envoy and deputy ambassador to the African Union, Saab was protected by the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. Under this treaty, diplomats are supposed to enjoy absolute immunity from arrest, even in the time of war.

    Not only is the US a signatory to the Vienna Convention, but the US Diplomatic Relations Act also protects all diplomats. Further, Saab is not a US citizen, and the alleged “crime” did not take place in the US. In short, the US prosecution of Saab is not a legal one, but a purely political act in the economic war against Venezuela.

    The regional court of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which has jurisdiction over Cabo Verde, ruled that not only must Saab be freed, but that he also be awarded monetary damages. Cabo Verde first appealed the verdict. After losing a second time, Cabo Verde simply flaunted the ruling, apparently under instructions from Washington. Similarly, the UN Human Rights Committee’s finding in favor of Saab was ignored.

    While incarcerated in squalid conditions, Saab wrote a series of letters about how he was tortured in an unsuccessful attempt to force him to reveal the secrets that facilitated humanitarian supplies reaching Venezuela, bypassing the US blockade.

    Second kidnapping of the Venezuelan diplomat

    Then on October 16, 2021, the US perpetrated what Venezuelan President Maduro called the “second kidnapping.” Alex Saab was unlawfully abducted – spirited away with no legal papers and no notification to his family or legal team – and flown to Miami, where he has languished in prison. The US does not have an extradition treaty with Cabo Verde and, with its presidential election scheduled to be held the next day, the US feared that the new administration there would free Saab.

    Initially, the US charged Saab with eight counts of money laundering. But the changes were reduced to a single one of “conspiracy to money launder,” a notoriously vague legal gimmick that is conveniently difficult to disprove.

    Previously, an exhaustive three-year investigation was conducted into allegations that Saab was misusing Swiss banks. Swiss government prosecutors, however, found no evidence of money laundering on the part of the Venezuelan diplomat.

    In fact, Saab is a political prisoner in the US empire’s drive to beat an independent Venezuela into submission by weaponizing economics. Even sources hostile to the Venezuelan government admit that the reason Saab is targeted is that he was instrumental in the “vast network [that] allowed Venezuela to evade [illegal] US oil sanctions.”

    Venezuelan government/opposition dialogue

    The Venezuelan government had been engaged in dialogue with their opposition, including US-backed Juan Guaidó, hoping that the talks in Mexico City would lead to some easing of the crippling US sanctions. Ambassador Saab had been appointed to the Venezuelan government’s delegation. But when he was kidnapped for the second time, Caracas immediately suspended the talks.

    Opposition figurehead Juan Guaidó had been “anointed” president of Venezuela by Donald Trump in January 2019 and had been initially recognized by over fifty of the US’s allies. Now, the hapless puppet is recognized by only the Biden administration and a handful of US vassals. As the Wall Street Journal reports: “The political movement the US has backed in Venezuela to challenge the country’s authoritarian [sic] government is on the verge of breaking up…”

    Guaidó’s opposition faction had previously boycotted what they considered “illegitimate” Venezuelan elections. But in Venezuela’s November 21 “mega-elections,” all the opposition – including the extreme far right – participated. Not only was this an implied recognition of the government’s legitimacy, but Maduro’s socialist party swept these regional and municipal elections.

    Venezuela resists the economic war as the US faces blowback

    The catastrophic US economic war against Venezuela, which deliberately and effectively targeted the cash cow of the Venezuelan oil industry, is being countered. The Maduro administration is trying to steer the economy out of its extreme dependency on petro chemicals.

    In response to the US economic blockade, Venezuela partly backfilled with Russian and especially Chinese trade. Rebounding from a severe drop in exports, Venezuela led the region in percentage increase this the last year. Russia also provided military assistance as part of a larger global geopolitical shift.

    After suffering negative growth, the Venezuelan economy is recovering with modest increases projected in GDP. Hyperinflation and currency freefall have now been overcome with monetary measures and de facto dollarization. The oil industry, after crashing, is again exhibiting vital signs with help from Iran, Russia, and China. The spike in international oil prices associated with the conflict in Ukraine also benefits Venezuela.

    However, the sanctions against Russia by the US and its allies are explicitly designed to impact Venezuela. Over 40 countries in addition to Venezuela are sanctioned by the US, some one-third of humanity. Especially with the initiative against Russia, the US may be inadvertently precipitating a global realignment with more and more countries forced to decouple from the US-dominated world economic system.

    Changing international climate

    Meanwhile, the international scene has been looking more bullish for the Bolivarian Revolution. The right-wing clique of anti-Venezuela counties in the Organization of America States (OAS), known as the Lima Group, has disintegrated with left-leaning presidents elected in Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Honduras, Bolivia, and Peru. Coming up are presidential elections with left-leaning front-runners in Brazil and Colombia, two of the most reactionary anti-Venezuela governments in the region.

    A sign of a changing political climate is an article in Forbes, which editorializes that US sanctions “have clearly become counterproductive” and calls for rescinding the coercive measures. The news outlet acknowledges that the sanctions “have impoverished the country but left the ruling class mostly untouched.” In other words, the sanctions had achieved their proximal goal of ravishing the Venezuelan economy but not its ultimate goal of regime change.

    Even the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) think tank criticized the sanctions. Leading luminaries at this liberal cheerleader for US imperialism previously complained that Trump was holding back on the very sanctions, which he then imposed and which – in an apparent pang of conscience – WOLA now finds distasteful.

    Another telling signal came on March 5, when the chief US government official for Latin America, Juan González, brought a delegation to Caracas and met with President Maduro. The two states do not have diplomatic relations, and this was the first high-level US visit in years. Escalating gasoline prices precipitated by the Ukraine conflict forced Washington’s concessionary move, implicitly recognizing the legitimacy of the Maduro administration. However, the discussions on easing oil sanctions have yet to yield results.

    Another member of the US delegation was, significantly for Alex Saab, the US’s presidential special envoy for hostage affairs, Roger Carstens. Amid speculation that a deal might be struck to free the Venezuelan diplomat, Caracas released two imprisoned criminals with US citizenship as a gesture of goodwill.

    Despite Washington’s best efforts to quash Venezuela, President Maduro has led a nation standing firm. The tide is flowing in favor of the Bolivarian Revolution and perhaps for Alex Saab. An international campaign has arisen to #FreeAlexSaab.

    As his wife Camila Fabri Saab said: “It’s not a crime to fulfill a diplomatic mission. It’s not a crime to evade sanctions that are harming an entire country. It can’t be illegal to help a people.”

    The post Illegally Imprisoned Venezuelan Diplomat Faces US Court Amid a Shifting Global Context first appeared on Dissident Voice.

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  • The True Adventure of a 19-year-old North American Fighting in the Cuban Revolution with Fidel Castro

    Wild Green Oranges describes how author Bob Baldock dropped out of college and was at loose ends in 1958. Then he became inspired after a chance viewing of a newsreel. It was about a band of rebels in the remote eastern mountains of Cuba fighting a guerilla war against the US-backed Batista dictatorship. He had access to news about the little-known events in Cuba at his job as a copy boy at the (now defunct) New York Herald Tribune and became determined to interview the rebels.

    Then a youth of nineteen years, his only travel outside the Midwest was to New York City. He recruited another dropout classmate, forged press credentials, and hitched to Miami. Working odd jobs and getting by with a little help from their friends to buy air tickets, the two flew to Havana.

    Dodging Batista’s security, the buddies traveled across the island toward the rebel enclave. His descriptions of the deprivation in Cuba under the dictatorship are graphic.

    By luck and aid from the clandestine movement, they made their way into the Sierra Maestra. There they somehow hooked up with Fidel Castro and his 26 de Julio movement. At first the rebels couldn’t believe that the youths had survived the journey and found their hideout.

    But what to do with these two periodistas (journalists), who had never written an article? Celia Sánchez, Castro’s closest revolutionary compañera, made clear that the two North Americans had best make themselves useful. The meager food they were eating was at the expense of the small group of 30 to 60 revolutionary combatants.

    So Baldock put his two years of college to good use. He had been in the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) and knew how to handle an M1 rifle. For five months, he fought with the revolutionary forces. The book presents an intimate window into the revolutionary struggle, complete with photographs.

    Only after getting seriously wounded and contracting a life-threatening case of bacillary dysentery was Baldock forced to leave.

    Wild Green Oranges, as an adventure story, is a page-turner. But, because it is autobiographical, it is not really a spoiler to reveal that Baldock lived to tell the tale. Baldock went on to a career of working for progressives causes and organizations such as Black Oak Books and Pacifica Radio.

    The book’s self-description as “an autobiographical novel” is a bit misleading. All the events actually took place, according to the author, including his close relationships with leaders of the Cuban Revolution such as Castro and even meeting the legendary Che. However, Baldock includes dialogue for dramatic effect, which had to be recreated to the best of his memory.

    The book had to be published out of the country because of the difficulty of getting US publishers to include a title favorable to the Cuban Revolution. However, it can be purchased at a reasonable price from most US book outlets.

    Only a few months after Baldock left the Sierras, the Cuban Revolution triumphed on January 1, 1959. For the same reason that Cuba has earned the admiration of oppressed peoples and allies worldwide, it has engendered the eternal hatred of the colossus to the north. Cuba is now into sixty years of a crippling US blockade.

    The current US president, contrary to his campaign pledges, has intensified the US hybrid war against Cuba. Joe Biden continues the same illegal policy of regime change against Cuba as that of the previous twelve US presidents: covert and overt destabilization, blockade, and occupation of Guantánamo.

    Despite an economy that’s been ravaged by the pandemic and the tightening of the US blockade, Cuba has produced three COVID vaccines with two more in development. More than 90% percent of Cubans are vaccinated, surpassing the US.

    World pandemic, increasing inequities, environmental catastrophe, and the possibility of an annihilating nuclear conflagration is the trajectory of the dystopian future promised by US “world leadership.” Cuba and the other peoples and nations striving for socialism are our glimpse into a better world. Although he never returned to Cuba, now 85-year-old Baldock is still proud to say for good reason, “I remain a Fidelista!”

    Fidel Castro, the author (right), and his college friend, 1958, Sierra Maestra, Cuba

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  • When Did the Ukraine War Begin?

    Viewing the Ukraine war as starting with the current Russian invasion leads to very different conclusions than if you consider that the starting point of this war was the 2014 US-orchestrated coup in Ukraine. The coup, which had elements of an authentic popular revolt, has been used by outside powers to pursue geopolitical ends.

    The conception that the war started on February 24 of this year is like viewing the “invasion” by the US and its allies of Normandy in June 1944 against the “sovereign” and “democratic” Vichy French as the start of World War II. Never mind that the Vichy government was a puppet of the Nazis; that the opportunities to negotiate had long been rejected; that the war had been raging for years; and that the only option for stopping the Nazis was militarily.

    The US imperial army

    NATO, it should be understood, is an army in the service of the US empire. Viewing it simply as an alliance of nominally sovereign entities obscures that it is commanded as a tool of US foreign policy in its stated quest of world dominion; that is, “full spectrum dominance.” The “alliance” members must fully integrate their militaries under that command along with purchasing US war equipment and offering up their own citizens as troops.

    After the implosion of the Soviet Union and the supposed end of the first cold war, instead of NATO being disbanded, the opposite occurred. There was no “peace dividend” and no honoring of the promise that NATO would not expand any further. Instead, NATO stampeded east towards the borders of the Russian Federation adding fourteen new members of former USSR republics and allies.

    Even before the 2014 coup, the US’s fateful decision in 2006 to draw Ukraine into NATO posed an existential threat to Russia. By December 2021, according to “realpolitik” international relations scholar John Mearsheimer, a US-armed Ukraine had become a de facto member of NATO, crossing a red line for Russia. Mearsheimer concludes, “the west bears primary responsibility for what is happening today.”

    Failure of peaceful negotiations

    Speaking before the UN on March 2, the Venezuelan representative identified the breach of the Minsk Protocols, with the encouragement of the US, as the precursor of the present crisis in Ukraine.

    After the 2014 coup in Ukraine, the Minsk Protocols were an attempt at a peaceful settlement through “a ceasefire, withdrawal of heavy weapons from the front line, release of prisoners of war, constitutional reform in Ukraine granting self-government to certain areas of Donbas, and restoring control of the state border to the Ukrainian government.” Moscow, Kyiv, and the eastern separatists were all parties to the agreements.

    The Russian perception of negotiations with the western alliance in the run-up to the invasion, as reported by the New York Post, was described using insensitive terminology as “like the mute with the deaf” by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on his meeting with his British counterpart. (NOTE: the NYP, even in the updated version of the article, refers to Lavrov as the “Soviet” Foreign Minister, forgetting that the USSR hasn’t been around for over 30 years.)

    Following the latest round of “sweeping” US-imposed sanctions on Russia, their Foreign Ministry announced, “we have reached the line where the point of no return begins.” Such sanctions are a form of warfare as deadly as bombs.

    Upsides of war for the US and the downsides for everyone else

    War is a great diversion for Joe Biden, whose popularity has been slipping due to a lackluster domestic performance. The US empire has much to gain: further unifying NATO under US domination, reducing Russian economic competition in the European energy market, justifying increasing the US war budget, and facilitating sales of war material to NATO vassals.

    NATO has dumped over a trillion dollars in arms and facilities into the border countries next to Russia and continues to this day to pour lethal weapons into Ukraine. The leader of Ukraine’s neo-Nazi C14 recently bragged on YouTube (while other voices are censored): “We are being given so much weaponry not because as some say ‘the west is helping us,’ not because it is best for us. But because we perform the tasks set by the west…because we have fun, we have fun killing.”

    More than 14,000 people have been killed in the eastern Ukraine region of Donbas in warfare between ethnic Russians and Ukrainian regular military/right-wing paramilitaries in the eight years since the coup. The self-proclaimed People’s Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, beleaguered enclaves in the Donbas of largely ethnic Russians, seceded from Ukraine and were recognized by Russia on February 21.

    The semi-governmental (over 80% US government funded) Rand Corporation’s playbook for the US and its allies says it all: “pursue across economic, political, and military areas to stress – overextend and unbalance – Russia’s economy and armed forces and the regime’s political standing at home and abroad.”

    The conflict could have ruinous consequences for the Russian Federation, according to western sources and even some people who identify as left in Russia. As a bonus for the US, according to Juan S. González, the US National Security Council’s senior director for the Western Hemisphere, the sanctions against Russia are “by design” intended to hurt Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, all targeted by Washington for regime change. And, of course, for Ukrainians of all ethnicities there is no winning in a war.

    It is difficult to think what other options Russia has to defend itself. Perhaps there are some, but surely they are slim. It should be clear that the US has continually been the aggressor even if some do not agree with the Russian response. As Phyllis Bennis with the Institute for Policy Studies argues, the US provoked this war.

    Severing Russia from Europe

    The peaceful integration of Russia with the rest of Europe would be a great threat to the US empire. A unified or even a cordial Europe could truly herald the end of US hegemony. The long-game geopolitical goal of preventing the unification of Europe may well be the fundamental aim of US foreign policy in that continent.

    What would become of “US strategic interests” if peace were to break out in Europe, and Russia would become partners with Germany, France, and Italy? A potentially more independent Europe, including Russia, would challenge the US-dominated Atlanticist project.

    The extreme hostility that the US took to the Nord Stream 2 project, which would have piped Russian natural gas under the Baltic Sea directly to Germany, went beyond the narrow economism of favoring US liquefied natural gas (LNG) suppliers. Where Washington’s earlier efforts of imposing illegal unilateral economic sanctions on its NATO ally faltered, the current conflict will surely discourage any rational and cooperative economic association of Russia with its western neighbors.

    The severing of Russia from the rest of Europe is a tremendous victory for the US imperial project. This is especially the case, when there were recent moves in the direction of economic, cultural, and political exchange, which have now been reversed.

    Spheres of Influence and inter-imperialist rivalry

    Russia shares a 1,426-mile border with Ukraine and considers that region within its security perimeter, vital to its national security. The US, which is 5,705 miles from Ukraine, considers the world its sphere of influence. Clearly, there is a conflict of interest.

    The contemporary geopolitical dynamic has evolved from the one Lenin described in 1916 in Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, which was then characterized as one of inter-imperialist rivalry. This theory is not entirely adequate to understand today’s world dominated by a single superpower (with its European Union, British, and Japanese junior partners). Surely, national centers of capital continue to compete. But over-arching this competition is a militantly imposed unipolar pax Americana.

    There is just one superpower with hundreds of foreign military bases, possession of the world’s reserve currency, and control of the SWIFT worldwide payment and transaction system. Simply reducing the conflict to one of contesting capitalists obscures the context of empire.

    Further, even if one just understands the present situation as one of a clash of two imperialist camps, that does not preclude taking sides. Surely World War II was an inter-imperialist war, but that did not prevent socialists from opposing the Axis pole and supporting the allies. The US is ever more aggressively stirring up the pot, not only in Ukraine, but also Taiwan, Africa, and elsewhere.

    Asymmetry of the Forces

    The forces are asymmetrical in this contest. Russia and the US may have comparable nuclear arsenals, but Russia has no bases of any kind in North America compared to at least six nuclear and many more conventional bases for the US in Europe. The US military budget is 11.9 times the size of Russia’s, not to mention the war chests of Washington’s NATO allies. Similarly, the US economy is 12.5 times as large as Russia’s. Of the Fortune 500 top international corporations, only four are Russian compared to 122 from the US. Russia’s labor productivity is only 36% of the US’s. In terms of finance capital, the US has 11 of the world’s top 100 banks; Russia has one. Far from being a key exporter of capital, Russia is a leader in capital flight, in part owing to sanctions imposed by the US and its allies.

    As analyst Stansfield Smith concludes, Russia “plays very little part in the quintessential imperialist activity: the export of capital to the periphery and the extraction of profit from developing countries’ labor and resources.” Russia is a target of US-led imperialism; Ukraine is caught in the crossfire.

    Hypocrisy of the “international community”

    If only the outrage over the Russian invasion had some ethical grounding by what is misleadingly called the “international community,” but is in reality the US and its subalterns. Biden’s touted “rules based order” is one where the US makes the rules and the rest of the world follows its orders, in contradiction to the Charter of the UN and other recognized international law.

    From Cuba, journalist Ángel Guerra Cabrera laments: “our region witnessed flagrant US violations of those principles in Guatemala, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Grenada and Panama, the last three through direct invasions. Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua are current examples of a US policy that flatly denies its assertion, not to mention Puerto Rico.”

    International law expert Alfred de Zayas reminds us that the so-called “international community seems to have accepted egregious violations of Art. 2(4) [of the UN Charter] by the US against Cuba, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Haiti, Nicaragua, Panama, Venezuela; by NATO countries against Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Yugoslavia; by Israel against all its Arab neighbors, including the Palestinians and Lebanese; by Saudi Arabia against Yemen; by Azerbaijan against Nagorno Karabakh, by Turkey against Cyprus, etc.”

    How this war will end

    Regardless of how one sides – or not – in the new cold war, it is instructive to understand the context of the conflict. This is especially so when views outside the dominant US narrative, such as those of Russian outlets Sputnik and RT that hosted US intellectuals like Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges, are being silenced.

    This article addressed how this war began. How it will end or even if it will end is another story. The world is spiraling into a new cold war, emanating from a region formally at peace under socialism.

    Expressing a view from the standpoint of the Global South, former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva commented: “we do not want to be anyone’s enemy. We are not interested, nor is the world, in a new cold war…which is for sure dragging the whole world into a conflict that could put humanity in danger.” If there is a lesson to be learned, it is that the end of endless war will come with end of the US imperial project that provoked this crisis.

    The post When Did the Ukraine War Begin? first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.