Latin America

[Vrede too]

Trump Administration Discussed Coup Plans With Rebel Venezuelan Officers

This is exactly the kind of 'Ugly American' crap that's aided the left hard liners in Venezuela, that benefits Maduro's authoritarianism and that generates hatred for America. We never learn.

[Vrede too]

Say NO to aerial fumigation in Colombia

Under US pressure, Colombia's president Duque is planning on resuming aeriel fumigation. This is despite widespread research indicating that supply-side eradication doesn't work. What's more, glysophate has detrimental impacts such as respiratory problems, soil contamination, displacement of communities, miscarriages and eradication of food crops. Write your Representative to demand that this practice be stopped!

[Vrede too]

Subject: Response from Senator Tillis
From: "Senator Thom Tillis" <donotreply@tillis.senate.gov>
Date: Fri, October 12, 2018 7:56 am
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear (Vrede too):

Thank you for taking the time to contact me about S. 2265, the Nicaraguan Investment Conditionality Act (NICA). I appreciate hearing from you.

As you may know, on April 27, 2017, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) introduced S. 2265, which was referred to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. If enacted, this bill would apply diplomatic inducements through the restriction of loans by international financial institutions to the Nicaraguan Government with the purpose of encouraging more democratic practices within the country. Financial loans, excluding humanitarian aid, would be conditional upon improvements to the rule of law, fee and credible elections, the removal of corrupt public officials from office, and the protection of journalists and human rights defenders.

I share your concerns about the human rights offenses occurring in Nicaragua. In my position as co-chair of the Senate Human Rights Caucus, I believe that no person, no matter where he or she is located, should be denied basic human or political rights. Please know that, should legislation regarding this issue come before the full Senate, I will keep your views in mind.

Again, thank you for taking the time to contact me. Please do not hesitate to get in touch with me again about other issues that are important to you.


Sincerely,
Thom Tillis (R-NC)
U.S. Senator

Your staff needs needs new glasses. I am AGAINST S. 2265, the Nicaraguan Investment Conditionality Act (NICA).

For all of its problems, Nicaragua's human rights situation is far superior to that of US client states Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras and Colombia. As co-chair of the Senate Human Rights Caucus, your partisan hypocrisy is very disappointing.

I await your reply.

Peace,
(Vrede too)

[Vrede too]

Trump says U.S. military intervention in Venezuela 'an option,' Russia objects

It's about oil, as usual.

Maduro should go, and that will happen with nonviolent internal and external pressure. However, if the lifelong cowardly Chickenhawk in Chief sends armed Yanquis it will unite Latin America in opposition and solidify Maduro's position.

[neoplacebo]

Uh oh, guess we need to call Colonel North and Admiral Poindexter to straighten this shit out. The US has an illustrious history in Latin America dating back to about 1965. The only good thing you could say about our interventions is that they weren't as bad as Pizarro or Cortez. And also the Colonel's secretary (Faye?) can conceal part of the evidence in a dark warm place for extra security.

[Vrede too]

Uh oh, guess we need to call Colonel North and Admiral Poindexter to straighten this shit out. The US has an illustrious history in Latin America dating back to about 1965. The only good thing you could say about our interventions is that they weren't as bad as Pizarro or Cortez. And also the Colonel's secretary (Faye?) can conceal part of the evidence in a dark warm place for extra security.

Much further back than 1965.

United States involvement in regime change

Too many pre-1965 in Latin America for me to individually mention, going all the way back to the Monroe Doctrine ... beginning in 1823.



red - United States
dark green - Coups and regime change actions
light green - Election interference
blue - Territories annexed by the US following coups or invasions
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File ... erence.svg

[Vrede too]

Urge Congress to stop arming human rights abusers in Mexico



Ask your Congressional Representative to sign onto the Dear Colleague letter circulated by Congressmen Grijalva and Lowenthal to prevent guns exported from the United States from getting into the hands of human rights abusers or organized crime, especially in Mexico. These legally-exported weapons have already been used in massacres, disappearances, and by security forces that collude with criminal organizations or those who have committed serious human rights violations.

[Vrede too]

Confirming US Orchestration, Report Details Pence's Key Phone Call to Venezuelan Opposition Leader
"The U.S. had been planning this coup in Venezuela. It was the Trump administration that told the little-known opposition leader Juan Guaidó to declare himself (unelected) 'president.'"

(Tell Congress) Oppose military intervention in Venezuela

[Vrede too]

Trump Venezuela envoy interrogated by (Rep.) Ilhan Omar (D-MN) over his role in Iran-Contra scandal (and rightwing atrocities)

[Vrede too]

Trump Venezuela envoy interrogated by (Rep.) Ilhan Omar (D-MN) over his role in Iran-Contra scandal (and rightwing atrocities)

This is what congressional oversight looks like (BRIEF VIDEO)

[Vrede too]

Tell Congress: Don't let Trump use the military to intervene in Venezuela

[Vrede too]

Speak out against criminalization of human rights and environmental defenders in Honduras!

Contact the offices of your Representative and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Ranking Member Robert Menendez to ask them to contact the US Embassy in Honduras about the US-backed Public Prosecutor's Office criminalization of human rights and environmental defenders, including the recent imprisonment of 12 defenders of the Guapinol River.

[Vrede too]

Tell Congress: Sponsor and Pass the Berta Caceres Act

The United States should not be sending public money to the military and police of Honduras, especially when basic human rights conditions have not been met.

[Vrede too]

Thank you for taking the time to contact me about foreign assistance to Central America. I appreciate hearing from you.

As you may know, the countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, also known as the “Northern Triangle,” are facing widespread poverty, gang violence, and political dysfunction that has increased instability and encouraged migration out of the region. Other factors, such as a recent severe drought and the high prevalence of drug trafficking, have only exacerbated the current crisis.

Not to mention America's responsibility for much of this.

Like you, I understand the valuable impact that foreign assistance funding can have when properly allocated and deployed. Proactive investments in infrastructure and health and nutrition programs can prevent needless suffering, prevent future conflicts, and ultimately serve as a highly efficient use of taxpayer dollars. With respect to proposed cuts to International Affairs spending, I agree with former Secretary of Defense James Mattis that a drop in State Department funding and foreign aid means that we will have to buy more bullets. Without adequate funding for foreign engagements, the likelihood that military force will be our first response increases exponentially....

Sincerely,

Thom Tillis (R-NC)
U.S. Senator

[Vrede too]

NYT’s Exposé on the Lies About Burning Aid Trucks in Venezuela Shows How U.S. Government and Media Spread Pro-War Propaganda

Every major U.S. war of the last several decades has begun the same way: the U.S. government fabricates an inflammatory, emotionally provocative lie which large U.S. media outlets uncritically treat as truth while refusing at air questioning or dissent, thus inflaming primal anger against the country the U.S. wants to attack. That’s how we got the Vietnam War (North Vietnam attacks U.S. ships in the Gulf of Tonkin); the Gulf War (Saddam ripped babies from incubators); and, of course, the war in Iraq (Saddam had WMDs and formed an alliance with Al Qaeda).

This was exactly the tactic used on February 23, when the narrative shifted radically in favor of those U.S. officials who want regime change operations in Venezuela. That’s because images were broadcast all over the world of trucks carrying humanitarian aid burning in Colombia on the Venezuela border. U.S. officials who have been agitating for a regime change war in Venezuela – Marco Rubio, John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, the head of USAid Mark Green – used Twitter to spread classic Fake News: they vehemently stated that the trucks were set on fire, on purpose, by President Nicolas Maduro’s forces....

Other liars and dupes:

USConsulateFrankfurt
CNN
The Telegraph
BBC
Kasie Hunt, NBCNews Capitol Hill Correspondent
Dany Bahar, Brookings Institution economist

But on Saturday night, the New York Times published a detailed video and accompanying article proving that this entire story was a lie. The humanitarian trucks were not set on fire by Maduro’s forces. They were set on fire by anti-Maduro protesters who threw a molotov cocktail that hit one of the trucks. And the NYT’s video traces how the lie spread: from U.S. officials who baselessly announced that Maduro burned them to media outlets that mindlessly repeated the lie.

While the NYT’s article and video are perfectly good and necessary journalism, the credit they are implicitly claiming for themselves for exposing this lie is totally undeserved. That’s because independent journalists – the kind who question rather than mindlessly repeat government claims and are therefore mocked and marginalized and kept off mainstream television – used exactly this same evidence on the day of the incident to debunk the lies being told by Rubio, Pompeo, Bolton and CNN.

On February 24, the day the lie spread, Max Blumenthal wrote from Venezuela, on the independent reporting Grayzone site, that “the claim was absurd on its face,” noting that he “personally witnessed tear gas canisters hit every kind of vehicle imaginable in the occupied Palestinian West Bank, and I have never seen a fire like the one that erupted on the Santander bridge.” He compiled substantial evidence strongly suggesting that the trucks were set ablaze by anti-Maduro protesters, including Bloomberg video showing them using Molotov cocktails, to express serious doubts about the mainstream narrative....

Meanwhile, others – who use their brains to critically evaluate what the U.S. Government says when it’s trying to start a new war, rather than mindlessly recite those claims as Truth, as U.S. media stars do – used the exact same evidence cited by the NYT last night to show that it was anti-Maduro protesters, not Maduro troops, who set the trucks on fire. But they were able to do it in the hours immediately following the incident, not three weeks later – but, needless to say, they were ignored by U.S. media outlets ...

So everything the New York Times so proudly reported last night has been known for weeks, and was already reported in great detail, using extensive evidence, by a large number of people. But because those people are generally skeptical of the U.S. Government’s claims and critical of its foreign policy, they were ignored and mocked and are generally barred from appearing on television, while the liars from the U.S. Government and their allies in the corporate media were, as usual, given a platform to spread their lies without any challenge or dissent, just like the manual for how to maintain State TV intructs.

Indeed, none of the people questioning the original claim about the burning trucks, or citing this evidence to argue that the U.S. Government and its Venezuelan ally Guaidó were lying, ever made it onto national television to present their dissent. They weren’t allowed on. To the extent they were acknowledged at all, it was to defame them as Maduro apologists – for telling the truth – just as those who tried to combat the propaganda of 2002 and 2003 were smeared as being pro-Saddam. Only Rubio, Bolton, Pompeo, and various other U.S. officials were permitted to spread their lies without any challenge.

That’s particularly notable since the Russian Government, a long-time ally of the Maduro government, themselves published the evidence showing this was a lie. Claims from the Russian or Venezuelan governments deserves as much skepticism as the claims of any other government, but they at least deserve to be heard. But the corporate U.S. media – precisely because it is State TV even as it is loves to accuse others of being that – never airs the views of governments adverse to the U.S. Government except in the most cursory and mocking way ...

It should be noted that this is not the first time outrights lies were spread by the U.S. Government and the U.S. media to inflame regime change against Venezuela. A photograph of a bridge between Colombia and Venezuela was broadcast all over the world as proof that Maduro was blocking humanitarian aid.

But the CBC – to their great credit – published a long apology noting that they, too, had fallen for this propaganda by publishing the photo of the bridge to support this narrative when, in fact, that bridge had been closed years earlier due to tensions between the two countries. Few, if any, of the U.S. media outlets that spread that lie offered a similar correction or apology.

Equally false is the widespread, popular media claim that Maduro has refused to allow any humanitarian aid to enter Venezuela. That, too, is an outright lie. The Venezuelan government has allowed substantial amounts of aid into their country from countries that have not threatened to overthrow the President with an external coup; Maduro has only blocked trucks and planes from entering that come from those countries (the U.S, Brazil, Colombia) that have been threatening Venezuela. something any country would do.

Indeed, both the Red Cross and the United Nations expressed concerns about “humanitarian aid” from the U.S. on the ground that it was a pretext for regime change and would politicize humanitarian aid). Even NPR recognized that “the U.S. effort to distribute tons of food and medicine to needy Venezuelans is more than just a humanitarian mission. The operation is also designed to foment regime change in Venezuela — which is why much of the international aid community wants nothing to do with it.”

That concern is obviously valid given the history of Elliott Abrams, the envoy leading U.S. policy in Venezuela, of exploiting “humanitarian aid” as a scam to smuggle weapons and other tools to overthrow Latin American governments he dislikes – another fact rarely if ever mentioned in U.S. media reports.

... the U.S. media, by design, does not permit dissent on U.S. foreign policy, particularly when it comes to false claims about U.S. adversaries. That’s why skeptics of U.S. regime change in Venezuela, or dissenters on the prevailing orthodoxies about Russia, have largely been disappeared from mainstream media outlets, just as they were in 2002 and 2003.

That’s not because U.S. media stars are ordered to do this. They don’t need to be ordered. They know propaganda is their job. More to the point, they are über-patriotic jingoists who revere U.S. officials and thus do not possess a single cell of critical thinking in their brain. That’s why they have TV programs in the first place. If they weren’t this way, they wouldn’t be on TV, as Noam Chomsky put it to the BBC’s Andrew Marr so perfectly in this short clip from many years ago (the whole three-minute context, well worth watching, is here). This tells the whole story of this sordid affair in Venezuela:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2EPgix5_5w

"the whole three-minute context":


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLcpcytUnWU

[Vrede too]

Tell your Representative to Stop U.S. Security Aid to Honduras

[Vrede too]

[Vrede too]

Act of war:

US Seizes Cargo Ship Trying to Deliver Food to Venezuela
Sanctions on Venezuela are expanding to a naval blockade

... US officials as yet have not commented, but it’s not clear under what pretext they consider themselves allowed to seize a ship carrying food. The Panama Canal is no longer US territory in the first place, and seizing a food ship bound for Venezuela after spending most of 2019 claiming Venezuelans are starving and in need of food aid seems particularly spiteful.

Vice President Rodriguez condemned the move as “serious aggression,” and accused the Trump Administration of trying to impede Venezuela’s right to food....

[Vrede too]

Five Men Sentenced to Life for Operation Condor Killings Trained at School of the Americas
Revelation comes after Italian court sentences 24 men to life behind bars for roles in U.S.-backed state terror campaign

Five of the 24 men sentenced last week by an Italian court to life in prison for their roles in a brutal and bloody U.S.-backed Cold War campaign against South American dissidents graduated from a notorious US Army school once known for teaching torture, assassination, and democracy suppression.

On July 8 judges in Rome’s Court of Appeals sentenced the former Bolivian, Chilean, Peruvian and Uruguayan government and military officials after they were found guilty of kidnapping and murdering 23 Italian nationals in the 1970s and 1980s during Operation Condor, a coordinated effort by right-wing military dictatorships in Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Paraguay, Brazil—and, later, Peru and Ecuador—against perceived leftist threats. The campaign, which was characterized by kidnappings, torture, disappearances and murder, claimed an estimated 60,000 lives, according to human rights groups. Victims included leftists and other dissidents, clergy, intellectuals, academics, students, peasant and trade union leaders, and indigenous peoples.

The United States government—including military and intelligence agencies—supported Operation Condor with military aid, planning, and technical support as well as surveillance and torture training during the Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter and Reagan administrations. Much of this support, which the U.S. attempted to justify within the context of the global Cold War struggle against communism, was based at U.S. military installations in Panama. It was there that the US Army opened the School of the Americas in 1946, which would graduate 11 Latin American heads of state over the following decades. None of them became their country’s leader by democratic means, leading critics to dub the SOA “School of Assassins” and “School of Coups” because it produced so many of both....

We suck.

This despicable legacy continues with US support for:

The extreme rightwing leader of Brasil;
Continued paramilitary terror in Colombia;
Intervention in Venezuela;
The illegitimate coup-installed regime in Honduras;
The "drug war" in Mexico;
The continuation of the SOA “School of Assassins” in Georgia.

[Vrede too]

Stop the Attacks on Rural Colombia

Write your Representative calling on them to denounce the recent string of assassinations of Colombian small farmers, and to help protect land defenders and members of the National Coordinator of Small-Scale Coca, Marijuana and Poppy Farmers (COCCAM).

Additionally, urge them to end funding for forced eradication and aerial fumigation, and instead support voluntary substitution of illicit crops (PNIS) in the framework of the 2016 Havana Peace Accords, and to help fund sustainable economic alternatives in coca-growing regions.