The annexation of Colombia to the United States

Reflections of Fidel
The annexation of Colombia to the
United States

ANY person who is even moderately well-informed can immediately see that the sugar-coated "Complementation Agreement for Defense and Security Cooperation and Technical Assistance between the Governments of Colombia and the United States," signed on October 30 and made public in the afternoon of November 2 amounts to the annexation of Colombia to the United States.

The agreement puts theoreticians and politicians in a predicament. It would not be honest to remain silent now and speak later about sovereignty, democracy, human rights, freedom of opinion and other delights, when a country is being devoured by the empire with the same ease as a lizard catching a fly. This concerns the Colombian people, self-sacrificing, hard-working and combative. I searched for a digestible justification within that huge tome and found none whatsoever.

Of 48 pages containing 21 lines each, five are devoted to philosophizing on the reasons behind the shameful takeover that transforms Colombia into an overseas territory. They are all based on agreements signed with the United States following the assassination of the distinguished progressive leader Jorge Eliécer Gaitán on April 9, 1948, and the creation of the Organization of American States on April 30, 1948, debated by the foreign ministers of the region, who met in Bogotá under the baton of the United States during those tragic days in which the Colombian oligarchy cut short the life of that leader which sparked off the armed struggle in that country.

The Military Assistance Agreement between the Republic of Colombia and the United States in April, 1952; the one related to "Army, Navy and Air Force Missions by the United States", signed on October 7, 1974; the 1988 United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances; the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime of 2000; the 2001 Security Council Resolution of 2001 and the Inter-American Democratic Charter; the Democratic Security and Defense Policy resolution and others are evoked in the aforementioned document. None of them can justify converting a country covering 1,141,748 square kilometers, situated in the heart of South America, into a U.S. military base. Colombia is 1.6 times larger than Texas, the second largest state of the Union that was snatched from Mexico and later served as a base to violently conquer more than half of that sister nation.

On the other hand, 59 years have passed since Colombian soldiers were sent to far-off Asia to fight alongside Yankee troops against Chinese and Korean combatants in October 1950. What the empire is intending to do today is send them to fight against their brothers in Venezuela, Ecuador, and other Bolivarian and ALBA countries in order to crush the Venezuelan Revolution, as they tried to do with the Cuban Revolution in April 1961.

For more than 18 months prior to the invasion of Cuba, the yanki government supported, armed and used counterrevolutionary bandits in the Escambray mountains in the same way that it is using Colombian paramilitaries against Venezuela today.

When the Bay of Pigs invasion took place, the yanki B-26 aircraft flown by mercenaries operated out of Nicaragua. Their fighter planes were transported to the area of operations aboard an aircraft carrier, and the invaders of Cuban descent who landed at that point were escorted by U.S. warships and marines. Today, their war machinery and troops will be in Colombia, not only posing a threat to Venezuela but to all the states of Central and South America.

It is really very cynical to claim that the infamous agreement is necessary to combat drug-trafficking and international terrorism. Cuba has demonstrated that foreign troops are not needed to prevent the cultivation and trafficking of drugs and to maintain internal order, despite the fact that the United States – the mightiest power on Earth – has promoted, financed and armed the terrorists who for decades have attacked the Cuban Revolution.

The preservation of domestic peace is a fundamental prerogative of every state; the presence of yanki troops in any Latin American country for that purpose represents blatant foreign interference in a country’s internal affairs that will inevitably be rejected by the people.

A simple reading of the document demonstrates not only that Colombian airbases will be in the hands of the yankis, but also civilian airports and ultimately, any facility that could be useful to their armed forces. Radio space is also available to that country; a nation that conveys another culture and other interests that have nothing to do with the Colombian population.

The U.S. Armed Forces will enjoy exceptional prerogatives.

Anywhere in Colombia, the occupiers can commit crimes against Colombian families, property and laws, without having to respond to the country’s authorities; they have taken scandals and diseases to many places, such as the Palmerola military base in Honduras. In Cuba, when they visited the neo-colony, they sat astride the neck of José Martí’s statue in the capital’s Parque Central. The limit set with respect to the total number of soldiers can be modified at the request of the United States, with no restrictions whatsoever. The aircraft carriers and warships that visit the conceded naval bases can take as many crew members as they require and just one of their large aircraft carriers may contain thousands of individuals.

The Agreement, to be extended for successive periods of 10 years, cannot be modified until the end of each period, with a one-year period of notice. What will the United States do if a government such as that of Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, Bush Sr. or Bush Jr. and others like them, is asked to leave Colombia? The yankis have succeeded in ousting dozens of governments in our hemisphere. How long would a government last in Colombia if it announced such intentions?

Latin American politicians are now faced with a very delicate problem: the fundamental duty of explaining their viewpoints on the annexation document. I realize that what is occurring at this decisive moment in Honduras is consuming the attention of the media and the hemisphere’s foreign ministers, but the governments of Latin America cannot overlook the extremely grave and significant problem taking place in Colombia.

I do not harbor the slightest doubt about the reaction of the peoples; they will feel the dagger as it plunges into their most profound sentiments, particularly in Colombia: they will oppose it and never resign themselves to such sacrilege!

Today, the world is facing serious and pressing problems. Climate change is threatening the whole of humanity. European leaders are almost down on their knees begging for some kind of agreement in Copenhagen that will prevent the catastrophe. They are virtually conceding that the Summit will fail to meet its objective of reaching an agreement that will drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions. They promise to continue fighting to achieve that before 2012; there is a real risk, however, that that cannot be secured before it is too late.

The Third World countries are rightly claiming from the richest and most developed nations hundreds of billion dollars per year to pay for the costs of the climate battle.

Does it make sense for the United States government to invest time and money in building military bases in Colombia to impose its hateful tyranny on our peoples? Along that road, while a disaster is already threatening the world, a greater and more rapid disaster is threatening the empire, and all of it would be the result of the same old system of the exploitation and plunder of the planet.

Fidel Castro Ruz
November 6, 2009
10:30 a.m.

Translated by Granma International

- Reflections oF Fidel

The Leonard Peltier case and Obama's outreach to native tribes

The Leonard Peltier case and Obama's outreach to native tribes

publication date: Nov 5, 2009

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The Evil Empire

By Paul Craig Roberts November 06, 2009 "Information Clearing House" -- -The US government is now so totally under the thumbs of organized interest groups that “our” government can no longer respond to the concerns of the American people who elect the president and the members of the House and Senate. Voters will vent their frustrations over their impotence on the president, which implies a future of one-term presidents. Soon our presidents will be as ineffective as Roman emperors in the final days of that empire. Obama is already set on the course to a one-term presidency. He promised change, but has delivered none. His health care bill is held hostage by the private insurance companies seeking greater profits. The most likely outcome will be cuts in Medicare and Medicaid in order to help fund wars that enrich the military/security complex and the many companies created by privatizing services that the military once provided for itself at far lower costs. It would be interesting to know the percentage of the $700+ billion “defense” spending that goes to private companies. In American “capitalism,” an amazing amount of taxpayers’ earnings go to private firms via the government. Yet, Republicans scream about “socializing” health care. Republicans and Democrats saw opportunities to create new sources of campaign contributions by privatizing as many military functions as possible. There are now a large number of private companies that have never made a dollar in the market, feeding instead at the public trough that drains taxpayers of dollars while loading Americans with debt service obligations. Obama inherited an excellent opportunity to bring US soldiers home from the Bush regime’s illegal wars of aggression. In its final days, the Bush regime realized that it could “win” in Iraq by putting the Sunni insurgents on the US military payroll. Once Bush had 80,000 insurgents collecting US military pay, violence, although still high, dropped in half. All Obama had to do was to declare victory and bring our boys home, thanking Bush for winning the war. It would have shut up the Republicans. But this sensible course would have impaired the profits and share prices of those firms that comprise the military/security complex. So instead of doing what Obama said he would do and what the voters elected him to do, Obama restarted the war in Afghanistan and launched a new one in Pakistan. Soon Obama was echoing Bush and Cheney’s threats to attack Iran. In place of health care for Americans, there will be more profits for private insurance companies. In place of peace there will be more war. Voters are already recognizing the writing on the wall and are falling away from Obama and the Democrats. Independents who gave Obama his comfortable victory have now swung against him, recently electing Republican governors in New Jersey and Virginia to succeed Democrats. This is a protest vote, not a confidence vote in Republicans. Obama’s credibility is shot. And so is Congress’s, assuming it ever had any. The US House of Representatives has just voted to show the entire world that the US House of Representatives is nothing but the servile, venal, puppet of the Israel Lobby. The House of Representatives of the American “superpower” did the bidding of its master, AIPAC, and voted 344 to 36 to condemn the Goldstone Report. In case you don’t know, the Goldstone Report is the Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict. The “Gaza Conflict” is the Israeli military attack on the Gaza ghetto, where 1.5 million dispossessed Palestinians, whose lands, villages, and homes were stolen by Israel, are housed. The attack was on civilians and civilian infrastructure. It was without any doubt a war crime under the Nuremberg standard that the US established in order to execute Nazis. Goldstone is not only a very distinguished Jewish jurist who has given his life to bringing people to accountability for their crimes against humanity, but also a Zionist. However, the Israelis have demonized him as a “self-hating Jew” because he wrote the truth instead of Israeli propaganda. US Representative Dennis Kucinich, who is now without a doubt a marked man on AIPAC’s political extermination list, asked the House if the members had any realization of the shame that the vote condemning Goldstone would bring on the House and the US government. The entire rest of the world accepts the Goldstone report. The House answered with its lopsided vote that the rest of the world doesn’t count as it doesn’t give campaign contributions to members of Congress. This shameful, servile act of “the world’s greatest democracy” occurred the very week that a court in Italy convicted 23 US CIA officers for kidnapping a person in Italy. The CIA agents are now considered “fugitives from justice” in Italy, and indeed they are. The kidnapped person was renditioned to the American puppet state of Egypt, where the victim was held for years and repeatedly tortured. The case against him was so absurd that even an Egyptian judge order his release. One of the convicted CIA operatives, Sabrina deSousa, an attractive young woman, says that the US broke the law by kidnapping a person and sending him to another country to be tortured in order to manufacture another “terrorist” in order to keep the terrorist hoax going at home. Without the terrorist hoax, America’s wars for special interest reasons would become transparent even to Fox “News” junkies. Ms. deSousa says that “everything I did was approved back in Washington,” yet the government, which continually berates us to “support the troops,” did nothing to protect her when she carried out the Bush regime’s illegal orders. Clearly, this means that the crime that Bush, Cheney, the Pentagon, and the CIA ordered is too heinous and beyond the pale to be justified, even by memos from the despicable John Yoo and the Republican Federalist Society. Ms. deSousa is clearly worried about herself. But where is her concern for the innocent person that she sent into an Egyptian hell to be tortured until death or admission of being a terrorist? The remorse deSousa expresses is only for herself. She did her evil government’s bidding and her evil government that she so faithfully served turned its back on her. She has no remorse for the evil she committed against an innocent person. Perhaps deSousa and her 22 colleagues grew up on video games. It was great fun to plot to kidnap a real person and fly him on a CIA plane to Egypt. Was it like a fisherman catching a fish or a deer hunter killing a beautiful 8-point buck? Clearly, they got their jollies at the expense of their renditioned victim. The finding of the Italian court, and keep in mind that Italy is a bought-and-paid-for US puppet state, indicates that even our bought puppets are finding the US too much to stomach. Moving from the tip of the iceberg down, we have Ambassador Craig Murray, rector of the University of Dundee and until 2004 the UK Ambassador to Uzbekistan, which he describes as a Stalinist totalitarian state courted and supported by the Americans. As ambassador, Murray saw the MI5 intelligence reports from the CIA that described the most horrible torture procedures. “People were raped with broken bottles, children were tortured in front of their parents until they [the parents] signed a confession, people were boiled alive.” “Intelligence” from these torture sessions was passed on by the CIA to MI5 and to Washington as proof of the vast al Qaeda conspiracy. Amb. Murray reports that the people delivered by CIA flights to Uzbekistan’s torture prisons “were told to confess to membership in Al Qaeda. They were told to confess they’d been in training camps in Afghanistan. They were told to confess they had met Osama bin Laden in person. And the CIA intelligence constantly echoed these themes.” “I was absolutely stunned,” says the British ambassador, who thought that he served a moral country that, along with its American ally, had moral integrity. The great Anglo-American bastion of democracy and human rights, the homes of the Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights, the great moral democracies that defeated Nazism and stood up to Stalin’s gulags, were prepared to commit any crime in order to maximize profits. Amb. Murray learned too much and was fired when he vomited it all up. He saw the documents that proved that the motivation for US and UK military aggression in Afghanistan had to do with the natural gas deposits in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. The Americans wanted a pipeline that bypassed Russia and Iran and went through Afghanistan. To insure this, an invasion was necessary. The idiot American public could be told that the invasion was necessary because of 9/11 and to save them from “terrorism,” and the utter fools would believe the lie. “If you look at the deployment of US forces in Afghanistan, as against other NATO country forces in Afghanistan, you’ll see that undoubtedly the US forces are positioned to guard the pipeline route. It’s what it’s about. It’s about money, its about energy, it’s not about democracy.” http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article23906.htm Guess who the consultant was who arranged with then Texas governor George W. Bush the agreements that would give to Enron the rights to Uzbekistan’s and Turkmenistan’s natural gas deposits and to Unocal to develop the trans-Afghanistan pipeline. It was Karzai, the US-imposed “president” of Afghanistan, who has no support in the country except for American bayonets. Amb. Murray was dismissed from the UK Foreign Service for his revelations. No doubt on orders from Washington to our British puppet.

When the Israel Lobby goes on red alert, it becomes the Jewish Lobby

Two votes in the last few days show that when backed to the wall, the powerful Israel Lobby can become even more powerful when it marshals the resources of the worldwide Jewish Lobby. THe two lobbies went into red alert status over the UN report of well-respected South African judge Richard Goldstone, who is Jewish, a self-described Zionist, and trustee of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, that recommends an independent investigation into Israeli actions in what the report stated amounted to "war crimes, possibly crimes against humanity." Israel's invasion of Gaza, code named "Cast Lead," resulted in the deaths of over 1400 people, many of them children and women.

The reaction of the "twin lobby" to the Goldstone report was quick and fierce. On cue, the Anti-Defamation League's whiny Abe Foxman let loose with a barrage of criticism of Goldstone. From other quarters, Goldstone was accused of being "anti-Semitic" and a "self-hating Jew." The same sort of vitriolic name-calling had been meted out by the Lobby to Mary Robinson, the former Irish President, who served as UN Human Rights Commissioner.

The Israel Lobby, whose political backbone comes from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), had introduced into the House of Representatives resolution H.R. 867, which called on the Obama administration not only to reject the Goldstone report, also known as "Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict," but block any further consideration of it by the United Nations. On November 3, the House resolution passed by a lopsided 344-36 vote.

AIPAC was supported in its last-minute blitzkrieg of the House by like-minded organizations, including the American Jewish Committee, Jewish Federations of North America, Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), and the Zionist Organization of America.

AIPAC, through its power over campaign donations from wealthy Jews in the United States, can ram any legislation through Congress at a moment's notice. And H.R. 867 was time-sensitive. AIPAC and its allies had to send a message to the Obama administration that it and The Lobby expected strong American opposition to the upcoming UN General Assembly vote on accepting the Goldstone report. The UN vote took place two days later and passed 114 to 18, with 44 abstentions and 16 nations not voting.

With the power of the World Jewish Congress, the European Jewish Congress, and other pressure groups arrayed against them, many small countries dependent on World Bank and International Monetary Fund (both controlled by pro-Israelis, Robert Zoellick and Dominique Strauss-Kahn, respectively), were forced to vote against Goldstone, abstain, or simply not vote at all. Israel proclaimed that the 18 nations that voted against Goldstone represented a "moral majority." Israel, headed up by an expansionist and xenophobic government, in which avowed racist and gangster Avigdor Lieberman serves as Foreign Minister, received a seal of approval not only from the Obama administration but US ambassador to the UN Susan Rice, go daughter of former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, and Rice's deputy, Alejandro Daniel Wolff, reportedly cajoled various UN delegations to either vote no on Goldstone, abstain, or miss the vote entirely.

However, some countries, like some members of the House, stood up to the immense twin Lobby to vote for Goldstone and reject the threats made by the Lobbies' arm twisters and thumb breakers.

Among those who defied AIPAC and its allies were Representatives Keith Ellison (D-MN), Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), Ron Paul (R-TX), Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), Geoff Davis (D-KY), Lynn Woolsey (D-CA), Barbara Lee (D-CA), Charles Boustany (R-LA), Jim McGovern (D-MA), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), John Dingell (D-MI), and George Miller (D-CA). Perhaps the greatest courage was shown by Representative Bob Filner (D-CA), who is Jewish, and voted against AIPAC. Previously, Filner admitted the power of AIPAC to punish those members of the House who defied it. Filner cited the electoral losses of Representative Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) and Earl Hilliard (D-AL), who were defeated in their respective Democratic primaries after out-of-state money from wealthy Jewish circles poured into the campaign coffers of their opponents. Representative Donna Edwards (D-MD), who also voted against the AIPAC resolution, faces a similar AIPAC-inspired challenge next year.

The "Brave 36" who stood up to AIPAC on the Goldstone report:

Baird Baldwin Blumenauer Boustany Capps Carson (IN) Clarke Clay Davis (KY) Dingell Doggett Edwards (MD)

Ellison Filner Grijalva Hinchey Johnson, E. B. Kilpatrick (MI) Kucinich Lee (CA) Lynch McCollum McDermott McGovern

Miller, George Moran (VA) Olver Pastor (AZ) Paul Price (NC) Rahall Snyder Stark Waters Watt Woolsey

Other House members were able to silently protest by merely voting "Present." They included Hank Johnson, the Democratic primary challenger who beat McKinney in Georgia with the help of out-of-state Jewish campaign funds.

Becerra Cooper Dahlkemper DeFazio Delahunt Duncan Eshoo Farr

Heinrich Hirono Honda Johnson (GA) Jones Kaptur Loebsack Lofgren, Zoe

Luján Obey Speier Tierney Welch Wu

Other House members chose not to vote at all. They included Artur Davis, the candidate who defeated Hilliard, again, with out-of-state Jewish campaign funding, and John Conyers (D-MI), who represents the district with the largest percentage of Arab-Americans in the United States and, thus, has drawn a number of pro-Israeli operatives to his congressional and House Judiciary Committee staffs.

Abercrombie Ackerman Bachmann Barrett (SC) Boucher Brady (PA) Capuano Conyers Davis (AL) Davis (TN)

Deal (GA) Gordon (TN) Gutierrez Hall (NY) Holt Meeks (NY) Murphy, Patrick Nunes Pallone Pascrell

Payne Pingree (ME) Price (GA) Sánchez, Linda T. Sires Souder Stupak Towns Velázquez Wamp

AIPAC and its other Lobby allies were ensured the votes of 344 House members. They are:

Aderholt Adler (NJ) Akin Alexander Altmire Andrews Arcuri Austria Baca Bachus Barrow Bartlett Barton (TX) Bean Berkley Berman Berry Biggert Bilbray Bilirakis Bishop (GA) Bishop (NY) Bishop (UT) Blackburn Blunt Boccieri Boehner Bonner Bono Mack Boozman Boren Boswell Boyd Brady (TX) Braley (IA) Bright Broun (GA) Brown (SC) Brown, Corrine Brown-Waite, Ginny Buchanan Burgess Burton (IN) Butterfield Buyer Calvert Camp Campbell Cantor Cao Capito Cardoza Carnahan Carney Carter Cassidy Castle Castor (FL) Chaffetz Chandler Childers Chu Cleaver Clyburn Coble Coffman (CO) Cohen Cole Conaway Connolly (VA) Costa Costello Courtney Crenshaw Crowley Cuellar Culberson Cummings Davis (CA) Davis (IL) DeGette DeLauro Dent Diaz-Balart, L. Diaz-Balart, M. Dicks Donnelly (IN) Doyle Dreier Driehaus Edwards (TX) Ehlers Ellsworth Emerson Engel Etheridge Fallin Fattah Flake Fleming Forbes Fortenberry Foster Foxx Frank (MA) Franks (AZ) Frelinghuysen Fudge Gallegly Garrett (NJ) Gerlach Giffords Gingrey (GA) Gohmert Gonzalez

Goodlatte Granger Graves Grayson Green, Al Green, Gene Griffith Guthrie Hall (TX) Halvorson Hare Harman Harper Hastings (FL) Hastings (WA) Heller Hensarling Herger Herseth Sandlin Higgins Hill Himes Hinojosa Hodes Hoekstra Holden Hoyer Hunter Inglis Inslee Israel Issa Jackson (IL) Jackson-Lee (TX) Jenkins Johnson (IL) Johnson, Sam Jordan (OH) Kagen Kanjorski Kennedy Kildee Kilroy Kind King (IA) King (NY) Kingston Kirk Kirkpatrick (AZ) Kissell Klein (FL) Kline (MN) Kosmas Kratovil Lamborn Lance Langevin Larsen (WA) Larson (CT) Latham LaTourette Latta Lee (NY) Levin Lewis (CA) Lewis (GA) Linder Lipinski LoBiondo Lowey Lucas Luetkemeyer Lummis Lungren, Daniel E. Mack Maffei Maloney Manzullo Marchant Markey (CO) Markey (MA) Marshall Massa Matheson Matsui McCarthy (CA) McCarthy (NY) McCaul McClintock McCotter McHenry McIntyre McKeon McMahon McMorris Rodgers McNerney Meek (FL) Melancon Mica Michaud Miller (FL) Miller (MI) Miller (NC) Miller, Gary Minnick Mitchell Mollohan Moore (KS) Moore (WI) Moran (KS) Murphy (CT) Murphy (NY) Murphy, Tim Murtha Myrick

Nadler (NY) Napolitano Neal (MA) Neugebauer Nye Oberstar Olson Ortiz Paulsen Pence Perlmutter Perriello Peters Peterson Petri Pitts Platts Poe (TX) Polis (CO) Pomeroy Posey Putnam Quigley Radanovich Rangel Rehberg Reichert Reyes Richardson Rodriguez Roe (TN) Rogers (AL) Rogers (KY) Rogers (MI) Rohrabacher Rooney Ros-Lehtinen Roskam Ross Rothman (NJ) Roybal-Allard Royce Ruppersberger Rush Ryan (OH) Ryan (WI) Salazar Sanchez, Loretta Sarbanes Scalise Schakowsky Schauer Schiff Schmidt Schock Schrader Schwartz Scott (GA) Scott (VA) Sensenbrenner Serrano Sessions Sestak Shadegg Shea-Porter Sherman Shimkus Shuler Shuster Simpson Skelton Slaughter Smith (NE) Smith (NJ) Smith (TX) Smith (WA) Space Spratt Stearns Sullivan Sutton Tanner Taylor Teague Terry Thompson (CA) Thompson (MS) Thompson (PA) Thornberry Tiahrt Tiberi Titus Tonko Tsongas Turner Upton Van Hollen Visclosky Walden Walz Wasserman Schultz Watson Waxman Weiner Westmoreland Wexler Whitfield Wilson (OH) Wilson (SC) Wittman Wolf Yarmuth Young (AK) Young (FL)

The 114 countries that voted to support the Goldstone report in the UN General Assembly were:

Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Belize, Benin, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Central African Republic, Chad, Chile, China, Comoros, Congo, Cuba, Cyprus, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Eritrea, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Grenada, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Jamaica, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Lebanon, Lesotho, Libya, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Malta, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mexico, Mongolia, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Nepal, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Portugal, Qatar, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Slovenia, Solomon Islands, Somalia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Suriname, Switzerland, Syria, Tajikistan, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Republic of Tanzania, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, Viet Nam, Yemen, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

Those who voted to support Israeli genocide and reject Goldstone were:

Israel, United States, Australia, Canada, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Netherlands, Palau, Panama, Poland, Slovakia, Macedonia, and Ukraine.

Countries that abstained were:

Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, Ethiopia, Fiji, Finland, France, Georgia, Greece, Iceland, Japan, Kenya, Latvia, Liberia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Monaco, Montenegro, New Zealand, Norway, Papua New Guinea, Republic of Korea, Republic of Moldova, Romania, Russian Federation, Samoa, San Marino, Spain, Swaziland, Sweden, Tonga, Uganda, United Kingdom, and Uruguay.

Countries not voting were:

Bhutan, Cape Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, Honduras, Kiribati, Kyrgyzstan, Madagascar, Rwanda, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Sao Tome and Principe, Seychelles, Togo, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu.

Not only is the power of the loan-wielding World Bank and IMF seen in the decision of some countries to abstain or not vote, but the influence-peddling of George Soros, himself a Hungarian Jew by birth, can be seen in the "no" votes of the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Ukraine, Macedonia and the abstention and not voting positions of Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, Moldova, Romania, Kyrggyzstan, and Turkmenistan, nations were Soros's Open Society Institute maintains political sway.

Russia's abstention likely arose from fears that a UN precedent on Israel might be set for other war crimes investigations and Chechnya weighs heavily on Moscow in that respect.

Even with the full-court press by the Israel and Jewish Lobbies, aided by Rice and Wolff at the UN, the yes votes included those of major Latin American nations, including Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Peru, Chile, and Venezuela, as well as countries that will undoubtedly feel the punch of Jewish Lobby's threats to their tourist industries, including Bahamas, Barbados, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, Dominica, Antigua, Belize, Jamaica, Switzerland, Trinidad and Tobago, Slovenia, Portugal, Singapore, Malta, Cyprus, Ireland, and Grenada.

UNDER THE AFPAK VOLCANO, Part 2 Breaking up is (not) hard to do By Pepe Escobar

UNDER THE AFPAK VOLCANO, Part 2
Breaking up is (not) hard to do
By Pepe Escobar

PART 1: Welcome to Pashtunistan

PARIS - "The horror ... the horror." General Stanley McChrystal, the Pentagon supremo in Afghanistan, is being massively sold in the US as a Zen warrior - a 21st-century stalwart incarnation of the "best and the brightest". But he may be a warrior intellectual more like Colonel Kurz than Captain Willard in Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now. He led an elite death squad in Iraq and, for all of his Confucius-meets-counter-insurgency social engineering schemes, still appears not to understand what Pashtuns are really all about.

McChrystal remains bemused about why, in Afghanistan, most young Pashtuns decide to become Taliban. Because Kabul is immensely corrupt; because the Americans have bombed their houses or killed their families and friends; because they can improve their social status. They simply won't sell out for (devalued) American dollars. Their infinite drive is geared towards throwing the occupiers out - and re-establishing the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, governed by sharia law. In this sense, McChrystal's soldiers are the new Soviets, no different from the Red Army that waged war in Afghanistan during the 1980s.

McChrystal - with all his "secure the population" talk - cannot possibly level with the American public about the Taliban. Afghans know that if you don't mess with the Taliban, the Taliban don't mess with you. If you're an opium poppy grower, the Taliban just collect a little bit of tax on it.

Conquering Pashtun hearts and minds Westmoreland, sorry, McChrystal-style is a no-win proposition. There's nothing McChrystal's non-Pashto speaking soldiers can say or do to counteract a simple Taliban-to-villager one-liner "we're in a jihad to throw out the foreigners".

As for the Taliban/al-Qaeda nexus, the Taliban nowadays simply don't need al-Qaeda, and vice-versa. Al-Qaeda is closely linked with Pakistani outfits, not Afghan, such as Lashkar-e-Taiba. If McChrystal wants to find al-Qaeda jihadis, he should set up shop in Karachi, not in the Hindu Kush.

Over the summer of 2009 alone, 20,000 US and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) troops, practicing the iron dogma of "clear, hold and build", were able to secure only a third of desert Helmand province. The Taliban control at least 11 provinces in Afghanistan. It's easy to do the math on what it would take to "secure" the other 10 provinces, not to mention the whole country until, well, 2050, as the British high command has been speculating. No wonder Washington is drowning in numbers - rife with speculation that McChrystal wants 500,000 boots on the ground before 2015. If Confucian McChrystal doesn't get them, goodbye counter-insurgency; it's back to a devastating hell from above drone missile war.

If you break it, you control it
The Pentagon as well as NATO will never be cheerleaders for a strong, stable and really independent Pakistan. Washington pressure over Islamabad will never be less than relentless. And then there's the return of the repressed: the chilling Pentagon fear that Islamabad might one day become a full Chinese client state.

Think-tankers in their comfy leather chairs do entertain the dream of the Pakistani state unraveling for good - victim of a clash within the military of Punjabis against Pashtuns. So what's in it for the US in terms of balkanization of AfPak? Quite some juicy prospects - chief of all neutralizing the also relentless Chinese drive for direct land access, from Xinjiang and across Pakistan, to the Arabian Sea (via the port of Gwadar, in Balochistan province).

Washington's rationale for occupying Afghanistan - never spelled out behind the cover story of "fighting Islamic extremism" - is pure Pentagon full spectrum dominance: to better spy on both China and Russia with forward outposts of the empire of bases; to engage in Pipelineistan, via the Trans-Afghan (TAPI) pipeline, if it ever gets built; and to have a controlling hand in the Afghan narco-trade via assorted warlords. Cheap heroin is literally flooding Russia, Iran and Eastern Europe. Not by accident, Moscow regards opium/heroin as the key issue to be tackled in Afghanistan, not Islamic fundamentalism.

As for those think-tankers, they do remain incorrigible. Last week at a Rand-sponsored Afghanistan bash in the Russell Senate Office Building in Washington, former president Jimmy Carter's national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, the man who gave the Soviets their Vietnam in Afghanistan, announced that he had advised the George W Bush administration to invade Afghanistan in 2001; but he also told then Pentagon supremo, Donald Rumsfeld, that the Pentagon should not stay on "as an alien force". That's exactly what the Pentagon is right now.

And yet, Zbigniew believes the US should not leave Afghanistan; it should "use all our leverage" to force NATO to fulfill the mission - whatever that is. Not surprisingly, Zbigniew couldn't help revealing what the heart of the "mission" really is: Pipelineistan, that is, to build TAPI by any means necessary.

China, India and Russia may agree that a regional - and not an American - solution to Afghanistan may be the only way to go, but still can't agree on how to formalize a proposal which would be offered in the cadre of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Li Qinggong, the number two at the China Council for National Security Policy Studies, has been a key voice of this proposal. Washington, not surprisingly, wants to remain unilateral.

It all harks back to a 1997 Brookings Institution publication by Geoffrey Kemp and Robert Harkavy, Strategic Geography and the Changing Middle East, in which they identify an "energy strategic ellipse" with a key node in the Caspian and another in the Persian Gulf, concentrating over 70% of global oil reserves and over 40% of natural gas reserves. The study stressed that the resources in these zones of "low demographic pressure" would be "threatened" by the pressure of billions living in the poor regions of South Asia. Thus the control of the Muslim Central Asian "stans" as well as Afghanistan would be essential as a wall against both China and India.

So all along the watchtower, the princes of war keep their view. That spells balkanization all along. It's full spectrum dominance against the Asian energy security grid. The Pentagon well knows that AfPak is the key land bridge between Iran to the west and China and India to the east; and that Iran has all the energy that both China and India need. The last thing full spectrum dominance wants is to have the AfPak theater subjected to more influence from Russia, China and Iran.

There could not be a more graphic illustration of empire of chaos logic in action than the AfPak theater. While the McChrystal show amuses the galleries, what's really at stake for Washington is how to orchestrate a progressive encirclement of Russia, China and Iran. And the name of the game is not really AfPak - even with all the breaking up and balkanization it may entail. It's all about the New Great Game for the control of Eurasia.

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007) and Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge. His new book, just out, is Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).

He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.

(Copyright 2009 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)

BREAKING NEWS: Official US Air Force Document Reveals the True Intentions Behind the US-Colombia Military Agreement *

BREAKING NEWS: Official US Air Force Document Reveals the True Intentions Behind the US-Colombia Military Agreement *

By Eva Golinger


An official document from the Department of the US Air Force reveals that the military base in Palanquero, Colombia will provide the Pentagon with “…an opportunity for conducting full spectrum operations throughout South America…” This information contradicts the explainations offered by Colombian President Alvaro Uribe and the US State Department regarding the military agreement signed between the two nations this past October 30th. Both governments have publicly stated that the military agreement refers only to counternarcotics and counterterrorism operations within Colombian territory. President Uribe has reiterated numerous times that the military agreement with the US will not affect Colombia’s neighbors, despite constant concern in the region regarding the true objetives of the agreement. But the US Air Force document, dated May 2009, confirms that the concerns of South American nations have been right on target. The document exposes that the true intentions behind the agreement are to enable the US to engage in “full spectrum military operations in a critical sub-region of our hemisphere where security and stability is under constant threat from narcotics funded terrorist insurgencies…and anti-US governments…”

The military agreement between Washington and Colombia authorizes the access and use of seven military installations in Palanquero, Malambo, Tolemaida, Larandia, Apíay, Cartagena and Málaga. Additionally, the agreement allows for “the access and use of all other installations and locations as necessary” throughout Colombia, with no restrictions. Together with the complete immunity the agreement provides to US military and civilian personnel, including private defense and security contractors, the clause authorizing the US to utilize any installation throughout the entire country - even commercial aiports, for military ends, signifies a complete renouncing of Colombian sovereignty and officially converts Colombia into a client-state of the US.

The Air Force document underlines the importance of the military base in Palanquero and justifies the $46 million requested in the 2010 budget (now approved by Congress) in order to improve the airfield, associated ramps and other installations on the base to convert it into a US Cooperative Security Location (CSL). “Establishing a Cooperative Security Location (CSL) in Palanquero best supports the COCOM’s (Command Combatant’s) Theater Posture Strategy and demonstrates our commitment to this relationship. Development of this CSL provides a unique opportunity for full spectrum operations in a critical sub-region of our hemisphere where security and stability is under constant threat from narcotics funded terrorist insurgencies, anti-US governments, endemic poverty and recurring natural disasters.”

It’s not difficult to imagine which governments in South America are considered by Washington to be “anti-US governments”. The constant agressive declarations and statements emitted by the State and Defense Departments and the US Congress against Venezuela and Bolivia, and even to some extent Ecuador, evidence that the ALBA nations are the ones perceived by Washington as a “constant threat”. To classify a country as “anti-US” is to consider it an enemy of the United States. In this context, it’s obvious that the military agreement with Colombia is a reaction to a region the US now considers full of “enemies”.

COUNTERNARCOTICS OPERATIONS ARE SECONDARY

Per the US Air Force document, “Access to Colombia will further its strategic partnership with the United States. The strong security cooperation relationship also offers an opportunity for conducting full spectrum operations throughout South America to include mitigating the Counternarcotics capability.” This statement clearly evidences that counternarcotics operations are secondary to the real objetives of the military agreement between Colombia and Washington. Again, this clearly contrasts the constant declarations of the Uribe and Obama governments insisting that the main focus of the agreement is to combat drug trafficking and production. The Air Force document emphasizes the necessity to improve “full spectrum” military operations throughout South America – not just in Colombia – in order to combat “constant threats” from “anti-US governments” in the region.

PALANQUERO IS THE BEST OPTION FOR CONTINENTAL MOBILITY

The Air Force document explains that “Palanquero is unquestionably the best site for investing in infrastructure development within Colombia. Its central location is within reach of…operations areas…its isolation maximizes Operational Security (OPSEC) and Force Protection and minimizes the US military profile. The intent is to leverage existing infrastructure to the maximum extent possible, improve the US ability to respond rapidly to crisis, and assure regional access and presence at minimum cost. Palanquero supports the mobility mission by providing access to the entire South American continent with the exception of Cape Horn…”

ESPIONAGE AND WARFARE

The document additionally confirms that the US military presence in Palanquero, Colombia, will improve the capacity of espionage and intelligence operations, and will allow the US armed forces to increase their warfare capabilities in the region. “Development of this CSL wil further the strategic partnership forged between the US and Colombia and is in the interest of both nations…A presence will also increase our capability to conduct Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR), improve global reach, support logistics requirements, improve partnerships, improve theater security cooperation and expand expeditionary warfare capability.”

The language of war included in this document evidences the true intentions behind the military agreement between Washington and Colombia: they are preparing for war in Latin America. The past few days have been full of conflict and tension between Colombia and Venezuela. Just days ago, the Venezuelan government captured three spies from the Colombian intelligence agency, DAS, and discovered several active destabilization and espionage operations against Cuba, Ecuador and Venezuela. The operations - Fénix, Salomón and Falcón, respectively, were revealed in documents found with the captured DAS agents. Approximately two weeks ago, 10 bodies were found in Táchira, a border zone with Colombia. After completing the relevant investigations, the Venezuelan government discovered that the bodies belonged to Colombian paramilitaries infiltrated inside Venezuelan territory. This dangerous paramilitary infiltration from Colombia forms part of a destabilization plan against Venezuela that seeks to create a paramilitary state inside Venezuelan territory in order to breakdown President Chávez’s government.

The military agreement between Washington and Colombia will only increase regional tensions and violence. The information revealed in the US Air Force document unquestionably evidences that Washington seeks to promote a state of warfare in South America, using Colombia as its launching pad. Before this declaration of war, the peoples of Latin America must stand strong and unified. Latin American integration is the best defense against the Empire’s aggression.


*The US Air Force document was submitted in May 2009 to Congress as part of the 2010 budget justification. It is an official government document and reaffirms the authenticity of the White Book: Global Enroute Strategy of the US Air Mobility Command, which was denounced by President Chávez during the UNASUR meeting in Bariloche, Argentina this past August 28th. I have placed the original document and the non-official translation to Spanish that I did of the relevant parts relating to Palanquero on the web page of the Center to Alert and Defend the People “Centro de Alerta para la Defensa de los pueblos”, a new space we are creating to garantee that strategic information is available to those under constant threat from imperialist aggression.

Original document in English: http://www.centrodealerta.org/documentos_desclasificados/original_in_english_air_for.pdf

Traducción no oficial al español: http://www.centrodealerta.org/documentos_desclasificados/traduccion_del_documento_de.pdf

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Recommended Reading on Venezuela in English

• Bush vs. Chávez: Washington's War on Venezuela, by Eva Golinger
• Changing Venezuela by Taking Power, By Greg Wilpert
• Cowboy in Caracas: A North American's memoir of Venezuela's Democratic Revolution, by Charles Hardy
• Hugo Chávez: The Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela, by Richard Gott
• Hugo! The Hugo Chávez Story: From Mud Hut to Perpetual Revolution, by Bart Jones
• The Chávez Code: Cracking US Intervention in Venezuela, by Eva Golinger
• The Magical State: Nature, Money & Modernity in Venezuela, by Fernando Coronil
• Understanding the Venezuelan Revolution: Hugo Chávez Talks to Marta Harnecker, by Chesa Boudin and Marta Harnecker
• Venezuelan Politics in the Chávez Era: Class, Polarization & Conflict

Sites of Interest

• Venezuela Information Office
• Artículos de Eva en español
• Radio Nacional de Venezuela
• BoRev
• Venezuela Foia
• Venezuela Analysis
• Aporrea

The Anti-Empire Report- November 4th, 2009 by William Blum

"It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets." — Voltaire

Question: How many countries do you have to be at war with to be disqualified from receiving the Nobel Peace Prize?

Answer: Five. Barack Obama has waged war against only Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia. He's holding off on Iran until he actually gets the prize.

Somalian civil society and court system are so devastated from decades of war that one wouldn't expect its citizens to have the means to raise serious legal challenges to Washington's apparent belief that it can drop bombs on that sad land whenever it appears to serve the empire's needs. But a group of Pakistanis, calling themselves "Lawyers Front for Defense of the Constitution", and remembering just enough of their country's more civilized past, has filed suit before the nation's High Court to make the federal government stop American drone attacks on countless innocent civilians. The group declared that a Pakistan Army spokesman claimed to have the capability to shoot down the drones, but the government had made a policy decision not to. ¹

The Obama administration, like the Bush administration, behaves like the world is one big lawless Somalia and the United States is the chief warlord. On October 20 the president again displayed his deep love of peace by honoring some 80 veterans of Vietnam at the White House, after earlier awarding their regiment a Presidential Unit Citation for its "extraordinary heroism and conspicuous gallantry". ² War correspondent Michael Herr has honored Vietnam soldiers in his own way: “We took space back quickly, expensively, with total panic and close to maximum brutality. Our machine was devastating. And versatile. It could do everything but stop.” ³

What would it take for the Obamaniacs to lose any of the stars in their eyes for their dear Nobel Laureate? Perhaps if the president announced that he was donating his prize money to build a monument to the First — "Oh What a Lovely" — World War? The memorial could bear the inscription: "Let us remember that Rudyard Kipling coaxed his young son John into enlisting in this war. John died his first day in combat. Kipling later penned these words:

"If any question why we died,
Tell them, because our fathers lied."

“The Constitution supposes what the history of all governments demonstrates, that the executive is the branch of power most interested in war, and most prone to it. It has accordingly with studied care vested the question of war in the legislature.” — James Madison, in a letter to Thomas Jefferson, April 2, 1798.

A wise measure, indeed, but one American president after another has dragged the nation into bloody war without the approval of Congress, the American people, international law, or world opinion. Millions marched against the war in Iraq before it began. Millions more voted for Barack Obama in the belief that he shared their repugnance for America's Wars Without End. They had no good reason to believe this — Obama's campaign was filled with repeated warlike threats against Iran and Afghanistan — but they wanted to believe it.

If machismo explains war, if men love war and fighting so much, why do we have to compel them with conscription on pain of imprisonment? Why do the powers-that-be have to wage advertising campaigns to seduce young people to enlist in the military? Why do young men go to extreme lengths to be declared exempt for physical or medical reasons? Why do they flee into exile to avoid the draft? Why do they desert the military in large numbers in the midst of war? Why don't Sweden or Switzerland or Costa Rica have wars? Surely there are many macho men in those countries.

"Join the Army, visit far away places, meet interesting people, and kill them.”

War licenses men to take part in what would otherwise be described as psychopathic behavior.

"Sometimes I think it should be a rule of war that you have to see somebody up close and get to know him before you can shoot him." — Colonel Potter, M*A*S*H

"In the struggle of Good against Evil, it's always the people who get killed." — Eduardo Galeano

After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, a Taliban leader declared that “God is on our side, and if the world’s people try to set fire to Afghanistan, God will protect us and help us.” ⁴

"I trust God speaks through me. Without that, I couldn't do my job." — George W. Bush, 2004, during the war in Iraq. ⁵

"I believe that Christ died for my sins and I am redeemed through him. That is a source of strength and sustenance on a daily basis." — Barack Obama. ⁶

Why don't church leaders forbid Catholics from joining the military with the same fervor they tell Catholics to stay away from abortion clinics?

God, war, the World Bank, the IMF, free trade agreements, NATO, the war on terrorism, the war on drugs, "anti-war" candidates, and Nobel Peace Prizes can be seen as simply different instruments for the advancement of US imperialism.

Tom Lehrer, the marvelous political songwriter of the 1950s and 60s, once observed: "Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize." Perhaps each generation has to learn anew what a farce that prize has become, or always was. Its recipients include quite a few individuals who had as much commitment to a peaceful world as the Bush administration had to truth. One example currently in the news: Bernard Kouchner, co-founder of Medecins Sans Frontieres which won the prize in 1998. Kouchner, now France's foreign secretary, has long been urging military action against Iran. Last week he called upon Iran to make a nuclear deal acceptable to the Western powers or else there's no telling what horror Israel might inflict upon the Iranians. Israel "will not tolerate an Iranian bomb," he said. "We know that, all of us." ⁷ There is a word for such a veiled threat — "extortion", something normally associated with the likes of a Chicago mobster of the 1930s ... "Do like I say and no one gets hurt." Or as Al Capone once said: "Kind words and a machine gun will get you more than kind words alone."

The continuing desperate quest to find something good to say about US foreign policy

Not the crazy, hateful right wing, not racist or disrupting public meetings, not demanding birth certificates ... but the respectable right, holding high positions in academia and in every administration, Republican or Democrat, members of the highly esteemed Council on Foreign Relations. Here's Joshua Kurlantzick, a "Fellow for Southeast Asia" at CFR, writing in the equally esteemed and respectable Washington Post about how — despite all the scare talk — it wouldn't be so bad if Afghanistan actually turned into another Vietnam because "Vietnam and the United States have become close partners in Southeast Asia, exchanging official visits, building an important trading and strategic relationship and fostering goodwill between governments, businesses and people on both sides. ... America did not win the war there, but over time it has won the peace. ... American war veterans publicly made peace with their old adversaries ... A program [to exchange graduate students and professors] could ensure that the next generation of Afghan leaders sees an image of the United States beyond that of the war." ⁸ And so on.

On second thought, this is not so much right-wing jingoism as it is ... uh ... y'know ... What's the word? ... Ah yes, "pointless". Just what is the point? Germany and Israel are on excellent terms ... therefore, what point can we make about the Holocaust?

As to America not winning the war in Vietnam, that's worse than pointless. It's wrong. Most people believe that the United States lost the war. But by destroying Vietnam to its core, by poisoning the earth, the water, the air, and the gene pool for generations, the US in fact achieved its primary purpose: it left Vietnam a basket case, preventing the rise of what might have been a good development option for Asia, an alternative to the capitalist model; for the same reason the United States has been at war with Cuba for 50 years, making sure that the Cuban alternative model doesn't look as good as it would if left in peace.

And in all the years since the Vietnam War ended, the millions of Vietnamese suffering from diseases and deformities caused by US sprayings of the deadly chemical "Agent Orange" have received from the United States no medical care, no environmental remediation, no compensation, and no official apology. That's exactly what the Afghans — their land and/or their bodies permeated with depleted uranium, unexploded cluster bombs, and a witch's brew of other charming chemicals — have to look forward to in Kurlantzick's Brave New World. "If the U.S. relationship with Afghanistan eventually resembles the one we now have with Vietnam, we should be overjoyed," he writes. God Bless America.

One further thought about Afghanistan: The suggestion that the United States could, and should, solve its (self-created) dilemma by simply getting out of that god-forsaken place is dismissed out of hand by the American government and media; even some leftist critics of US policy are reluctant to embrace so bold a step — Who knows what horror may result? But when the Soviet Union was in the process of quitting Afghanistan (during the period of May 1988-February 1989) who in the West insisted that they remain? For any reason. No matter what the consequences of their withdrawal. The reason the Russians could easier leave than the Americans can now is that the Russians were not there for imperialist reasons, such as oil and gas pipelines. Similar to why the US can't leave Iraq.

Washington's eternal "Cuba problem" — the one they can't admit to.

"Here we go again. I suppose old habits die hard," said US Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, on October 28 before the General Assembly voted on the annual resolution to end the US embargo against Cuba. "The hostile language we have just heard from the Foreign Minister of Cuba," she continued, "seems straight out of the Cold War era and is not conducive to constructive progress." Her 949-word statement contained not a word about the embargo; not very conducive to a constructive solution to the unstated "Cuba problem", the one about Cuba inspiring the Third World, the fear that the socialist virus would spread.

Since the early days of the Cuban Revolution assorted anti-communists and capitalist true-believers around the world have been relentless in publicizing the failures, real and alleged, of life in Cuba; each perceived shortcoming is attributed to the perceived shortcomings of socialism — It's simply a system that can't work, we are told, given the nature of human beings, particularly in this modern, competitive, globalized, consumer-oriented world.

In response to such criticisms, defenders of Cuban society have regularly pointed out how the numerous draconian sanctions imposed by the United States since 1960 have produced many and varied scarcities and sufferings and are largely responsible for most of the problems pointed out by the critics. The critics, in turn, say that this is just an excuse, one given by Cuban apologists for every failure of their socialist system. However, it would be very difficult for the critics to prove their point. The United States would have to drop all sanctions and then we'd have to wait long enough for Cuban society to make up for lost time and recover what it was deprived of, and demonstrate what its system can do when not under constant assault by the most powerful force on earth.

In 1999, Cuba filed a suit against the United States for $181.1 billion in compensation for economic losses and loss of life during the first 39 years of this aggression. The suit held Washington responsible for the death of 3,478 Cubans and the wounding and disabling of 2,099 others. In the ten years since, these figures have of course all increased. The sanctions, in numerous ways large and small, make acquiring many kinds of products and services from around the world much more difficult and expensive, often impossible; frequently, they are things indispensable to Cuban medicine, transportation or industry; simply transferring money internationally has become a major problem for the Cubans, with banks being heavily punished by the United States for dealing with Havana; or the sanctions mean that Americans and Cubans can't attend professional conferences in each other's country.

These examples are but a small sample of the excruciating pain inflicted by Washington upon the body, soul and economy of the Cuban people.

For years American political leaders and media were fond of labeling Cuba an "international pariah". We don't hear much of that any more. Perhaps one reason is the annual vote in the General Assembly on the resolution, which reads: "Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba". This is how the vote has gone:

Year	Votes (Yes-No)	No Votes
1992	59-2	US, Israel
1993	88-4	US, Israel, Albania, Paraguay
1994	101-2	US, Israel, Uzbekistan
1995	117-3	US, Israel, Uzbekistan
1996	138-3	US, Israel, Uzbekistan
1997	143-3	US, Israel
1998	157-2	US, Israel
1999	155-2	US, Israel, Marshall Islands
2000	167-3	US, Israel, Marshall Islands
2001	167-3	US, Israel, Marshall Islands
2002	167-3	US, Israel, Marshall Islands
2003	173-3	US, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau
2004	179-3	US, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau
2005	182-4	US, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau
2006	183-4	US, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau
2007	184-4	US, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau
2008	185-3	US, Israel, Palau
2009	187-3	US, Israel, Palau

How it began, from State Department documents: Within a few months of the Cuban revolution of January 1959, the Eisenhower administration decided "to adjust all our actions in such a way as to accelerate the development of an opposition in Cuba which would bring about a change in the Cuban Government, resulting in a new government favorable to U.S. interests." ⁹

On April 6, 1960, Lester D. Mallory, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, wrote in an internal memorandum: "The majority of Cubans support Castro ... The only foreseeable means of alienating internal support is through disenchantment and disaffection based on economic dissatisfaction and hardship. ... every possible means should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba." Mallory proposed "a line of action which ... makes the greatest inroads in denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government." ¹⁰ Later that year, the Eisenhower administration instituted the suffocating embargo.

Notes

1. The Nation (Pakistan English-language daily newspaper), October 10, 2009 ^↩
2. Washington Post, October 20, 2009 ^↩
3. Michael Herr, "Dispatches" (1991), p.71 ^↩
4. New York Daily News, September 19, 2001 ^↩
5. Washington Post, July 20, 2004, p.15, citing the New Era (Lancaster, PA), from a private meeting of Bush with Amish families on July 9. The White House denied that Bush had said it. (Those Amish folks do lie a lot you know.) ^↩
6. Washington Post, August 17, 2008 ^↩
7. Daily Telegraph (UK), October 26, 2009 ^↩
8. Washington Post, October 25, 2009 ^↩
9. Department of State, "Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958-1960, Volume VI, Cuba" (1991), p.742 ^↩
10. Ibid., p.885 ^↩

–

William Blum is the author of:

• Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War 2
• Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower
• West-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Memoir
• Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire

Portions of the books can be read, and signed copies purchased, at www.killinghope.org

Previous Anti-Empire Reports can be read at this website.

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