Tag: US imperialism

175 years in Jail for Revealing US War Crimes? Freedom for Assange!

 Where’s MSM outrage over persecution of Assange??
The news that WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange has been indicted on 17 additional charges under the US Espionage Act and could be sentenced to up to 175 years in prison should concern all journalists, the world over.

Some, to their credit, have spoken out against the relentless persecution of the white-haired Australian truth-teller.

But it’s nothing compared to the outrage that could and should be stirred. Most journalists in the west have stayed as silent as Trappist monks with sore throats, or actually taken the side of the authorities acting against Assange.

Just imagine, as I discussed here if Julian was a Russian dissident, being treated in the same way by the Russian authorities. Then we’d be seeing column after column in ‘serious newspapers’ urging people to join the ‘Free Assange’ campaign. Celebrities would be falling over themselves to show their support. There’d be calls for yet more sanctions to be imposed on Russia, and to be maintained until the ‘political prisoner’ was released. But who so far has come out in defense of Assange, save for Pamela Anderson and Roger Waters? Where are the great ‘human rights defenders’?

Also on rt.com Assange may spend the rest of his life in jail, he’s got a ‘HANGING judge’ – CIA whistleblowerLest we forget, the dominant neocon/Establishment liberal narrative about Assange was that he was a cowardly creep who fled from ‘rape charges’ to hide in the Ecuadorian Embassy.

Assange’s fears about being extradited to the US – the real reason he took refuge in the Embassy – were laughed at.

In 2010 Assange stated: “The big risk, the risk we have always been concerned about, is onwards extradition to the United States. And that seems to be increasingly likely.”

Now that the indictments from the US have come, will those who rubbished Julian’s concerns have the good grace to admit they were wrong, and that his flight to the Ecuadorian Embassy was justified?

Among those who owe Assange an apology is Emma Arbuthnot, the senior district judge, who in February 2018 said she did not find Assange’s fears of extradition to the US were “reasonable.”

But they were, as yesterday’s events prove.

Regarding the Swedish angle, we know from leaked emails the pressure put on the Swedes by the British authorities not to drop the investigation into Assange. “Don’t you dare get cold feet!!!” the Swedes were told.

It’s hard to believe that similar exhortations weren’t made again following Assange’s removal from the Ecuadorian Embassy and lo and behold on Monday it was announced that prosecutors in Sweden have asked the courts to detain Assange in absentia as part of an investigation into rape allegations.

Of course rape allegations are serious. Yet how many ‘liberal’ commentators have been talking or writing of Assange being “charged with rape” or “fleeing rape charges” or even call him “a rapist”- when it wasn’t factually correct?  The old legal principle ‘innocent until proven guilty’ is thrown out of the window when Assange is concerned. It’s not just a case of ‘guilty as charged’, with Assange it’s ‘guilty even though there has been no charge’.

The great ‘crime’ of Julian – and the reason he’ll probably never be at liberty again, was to pull back the curtain to show us what was behind it.

To reveal what our governments, which we pay for, were doing in our name. He exposed Western war crimes. He showed us what was really going on. He published information which we, as taxpayers, had every right to know. He was Tobermory, the talking cat, in Saki’s classic short-story.

Yet while Assange languishes in jail, and faces the prospect of spending the rest of his life behind bars, those who planned the most heinous of war crimes, such as the illegal invasion of Iraq which led to the deaths of one million people and the rise of the genocidal death cult Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS), go free.

Even if you think the founder of WikiLeaks should face some form of punishment or penalty for publishing leaked documents, you cannot honestly maintain that sentences of up to 175 years in jail are proportionate.

Assange is being destroyed to deter others from following in his path.

If journalists and politically-minded ‘celebrities’ stay silent on this great injustice, this crime against the profession they claim to represent, this crime against the truth and against common humanity, then they should kindly spare us their ‘outrage’ on other issues.

by Neil Clark @NeilClark66    Neil Clark is a journalist, writer, broadcaster and blogger. He has written for many newspapers and magazines in the UK and other countries . He is the co-founder of the Campaign For Public Ownership @PublicOwnership. His award winning blog can be found at https://neilclark66.blogspot.com   

Assange indictments aim to ‘discourage media from reporting atrocities & war crimes’

Gangsterism against Venezuela: US risks Bloodbath in Pirates of the Caribbean

Any discussion on Venezuela is likely to end in fisticuffs. On one side we have the US and neoliberal forces conspiring together with a repressed middle class and the old ruling class in every conceivable way to destroy a state socialist revolution, which may be corrupt, inept and brutal but guarantees basic health, education, housing, food and a vision of social revolution to the great majority of people..
 24 Jan, 2019 13:17      You could scour the bowels of US imperial crimes, from the Mexican-American War to the Gulf of Tonkin in Vietnam, and you won’t find a more brazen cynical act of gangsterism than that which is now underway against Venezuela.

Not since Hitler justified blitzing Poland by claiming it had encroached on the frontier into Nazi Germany has a more blatant set of falsehoods been adduced as a pretext for conflict.

Related image‘This Fight Is Ours’: Venezuela Women March Against Imperialism. 

In Venezuela, it will quickly become a civil war that will most likely draw in other countries from Cuba to Colombia and Brazil (as I previously predicted here) with incalculable consequences – not least for the world’s oil prices.

  US refuses to withdraw diplomats from Venezuela after Maduro breaks ties

Discerning readers will already be aware that Venezuela has the world’s largest oil reserves and is a major producer – and the biggest seller to the American market.

This is not about Maduro, the former bus driver-turned-foreign minister who is now the elected president of Venezuela. If it were, I’d waste my time critiquing his period in office.

Fake11.jpg

Here’s a heart-wrenching picture of babies in laundry-baskets, with the question, What kind of revolution is this? But the photo is from Honduras. see many more false images at…. Exposed: Tsunami of Blatant Lies by Western Media on Venezuela

 

It’s not about Maduro because the US had been seeking to overthrow his predecessor Hugo Chavez for more than a decade before this.

Even though Chavez was one of the most electorally successful politicians on the planet in a democratic process described by former US president Jimmy Carter as “the best in the world,” US presidents Bush, Obama and Trump routinely called him a dictator.

After 18 years of subversion, infiltration, coercion, bribery and a constant blitz of fake news the US is pushing Venezuela into a horrific civil war in order to take control of its oil.
Venezuelan commune movements march in support of the new Constituent Assembly (photo by AVN)

Before they drop the bombs, they drop the narrative, of course. And the disinformation bombardment in Venezuela has been one of the longest bombing runs in history.

Massive sums of US money have been spent on media distortion, subversion, sabotage, military coups, and threats of invasion throughout the Chavez-Maduro era.

Is Maduro a dictator? By whose standards? Remember how we were fooled by the blitz of fake news into condemning Gaddafi, so they could destroy the best welfare state in Africa, leaving him raped and murdered in the street and the country in horrific chaos to this day.  Remember the mega-lying witch hunt against Saddam..Why? To steal rights over their oil.

The gold-toothed Venezuelan emigres who fled to Miami with their ill-gotten gains have long been effectively a coup in the making.

The recruitment of neighboring Colombia into “associate membership” of NATO, the propeling of Brazil’s Bolsonaro (another NATO applicant) to power, and plans for US military bases there have all been in preparation for this day.

READ MORE: Venezuela divide: Turkey, Russia, China stand against Washington, its Latin America allies

Although many such crimes have been committed across all continents for centuries by the US, none have constituted such comic-opera gangsterism as this latest – more ‘Bugsy Malone’ than ‘The Godfather.’Image result for manifestacion en canarias en favor de venezuela

An almost random figure whose name was largely unknown until this week has disdained to put himself up for election as president of the republic, instead pronouncing himself to actually be the president, and has even sworn himself in!

‘Maduro called us and here I am..the Constituent Assembly is the path to peace..Lets Do It!’Another member of the ANC, Melvin Maldonado recalled that in 18 years of the Bolivarian Revolution, there have been 21 elections, which “shows the strength of our National Electoral Council, and it also shows the democratic nature and electoral power in our country.”

All the “experts” on Syria, Ukraine and Russia are scrambling to studios, practicing in the taxi how to say his name.

And the “international community” recognizes Juan Guaido. This includes US, Canada and assorted American satrapies across the world. They will likely soon be joined by the so-called democratic European Union, NATO and almost certainly the UK.
Image result for demonstration in support of venezuelan revolution
It is a new form, to be sure – usually the hated Latin American presidents are dead, like Allende in Chile, or have fled or been jailed before the coup de grace is delivered.

But Trump is in a hurry.

As investigations come ever closer to the Trump syndicate, as the clock ticks towards impeachment or defeat in 2020, as the war-cell of Bolton and company screech for a victory, somewhere, anywhere, it has come to this.

It is a “Wag the Dog” war, and it’s coming to your screens soon – today in fact.

”The rich want lower taxes, and ending social programs for the have-nots, and they want the privatization of vital government enterprises so that they can loot the country, as is happening right now in Brazil. And most of all, they want the privatization of the oil in their hands. They want to be billionaire oligarchs just like oligarchs in other oil-rich countries”. The have-nots, workers, unemployed, women, indigenous, blacks … still support the government. They want the government to keep control of the oil for the benefit of the people, the have-nots. They are in the streets too, they are supporting the government, and they are being violently attacked by the hoodlums of the haves and the mercenaries for the U.S. Empire”.

US backed Saudis hire African Child Soldiers in Yemen Invasion

Saudi-led coalition accused of using Sudanese child mercenaries ‘like firewood’ to fuel Yemen war
Saudi-led coalition accused of using Sudanese child mercenaries ‘like firewood’ to fuel Yemen war
 by  AndreeaCampeanu,   .. shared with thanks
by RT     The Saudi-led coalition in Yemen is recruiting Sudanese child soldiers from war-torn Darfur to serve on the front lines, according to a new report claiming children as young as 14 comprise up to 40 percent of some units.

Reports from Sudanese soldiers who’ve returned from Yemen indicate up to 14,000 Sudanese have been fighting for the Saudi-led coalition. Most hail from Darfur, a region still mired in chaos after a prolonged and bloody war that saw 300,000 people killed and 1.2 million displaced from their homes, and many are children, according to a shocking report from the New York Times.

So few are opportunities in war-torn Darfur that some families actually bribe militia officers to take their sons to fight in Yemen, according to the report. The Times interviewed five fighters returning from Yemen who confirmed children as young as 14 comprised at least a fifth of their units. Two soldiers said the proportion was closer to 40 percent. Continue reading “US backed Saudis hire African Child Soldiers in Yemen Invasion”

Trump beats up NATO members in American Protection Racket

   by Finian Cunningham    The capo-in-chief flew into Brussels like many feared he would, beating up on other NATO members with a combination of blackmail and extortion.

President Trump wants the others to cough up more dough for the “protection” provided to them by the United States. The American leader berated European heads of state as if they were naughty children, accusing them of “freeloading” on US military power for their defense over many decades, and of giving nothing back.

Trump singled out Germany in particular for his sharpest dressing down. He accused the top European economic power of being “controlled by Russia” owing to its supposed dependence on Russian oil and gas.

Trump used that claim as a form of blackmail, alleging that Germany has been giving billions of dollars to Moscow for energy supplies, while cheating on financial payments to NATO because it relies on US military defenses. Continue reading “Trump beats up NATO members in American Protection Racket”

US Fumes as ‘Petro Money’ subverts Campaign to Destroy Venezuela’

The Venezuelan “Petro” – Towards a New World Reserve Currency? By Peter Koenig

Global Research,      Imagine an international currency backed by energy? By a raw material that the entire world needs, not gold – which has hardly any productive use, but whose value is mostly speculative – not hot air like the US dollar. Not fiat money like the US-dollar and the Euro largely made by private banks without any economic substance whatsoever, and which are coercive. But a currency based on the very source for economic output – energy.

On February 20, 2018, Venezuela has launched the “Petro” (PTR), a government-made and controlled cryptocurrency, based on Venezuela’s huge petrol reserves of about 301 billion barrels of petrol. The Petro’s value will fluctuate with the market price of petrol, currently around US$61 per barrel of crude.

The Petro was essentially created to avoid and circumvent illegal US sanctions, dollar blockades, confiscations of assets abroad, as well as to escape illegal manipulations from Florida of the Bolivarian Republic’s local currency, the Bolívar, via the black-market dollars flooding Venezuela; and, not least, to trade internationally in a non-US-dollar linked currency. The Petro is a largely government controlled blockchain currency, totally outside the reach of the US Federal Reserve (FED) and Wall Street – and it is based on the value of the world’s key energy, hydrocarbons, of which Venezuela has the globe’s largest proven reserves…. article continues here..  The Venezuelan “Petro” –

Comment  Comment  Comment

MEFOBILLS shocktherapy   The Petro is money, not commodity.  The Petro became money the minute Maduro made it good for taxes.  Goods and Services will be priced in Petro’s.  Most likely there will be stores taking Petro’s for those who take their salary in that unit.

Government workers will be the first to have salary paid in Petro’s.  … Petro volume in money supply will be held to price of oil…Early adopters will be buying Petro’s with dollars, which will then help anchor Bolivar….Blockchain adds transparency, so Petro has good chance to be moral legal money.

I’ll make this prediction right now, it will work.  Other nations in Caribbean and Latin America will also jump on Petro bandwagon.  Mammon, now occupying Washington, London, and Tel-Aviv will not be happy.

Will the US Invade Venezuela?

by Kevin Zeese – Margaret Flowers  at   COUNTERPUNCH

Speaking at his alma mater, the University of Texas, on February 1, Secretary of State Tillerson suggested a potential military coup in Venezuela.  Tillerson then visited allied Latin American countries urging regime change and more economic sanctions on Venezuela.     ..                     continues below.. Continue reading “US Fumes as ‘Petro Money’ subverts Campaign to Destroy Venezuela’”

Chess Champ Anna Defies Murdering Misogynist Saudi Dictators

Ukrainian world chess champion not playing in dictatorial Saudi Arabia

”The Saudi State only exists so the US can rule the Oil Market. Terrorism, extreme misogyny, slavery and mass murder are therefore acceptable with impunity”.

This video is called The Famous Chess Trap In Action By Anna Muzychuk.

from  The Independent             ‘I am ready to stand for my principles’: Double world chess champion says she won’t defend titles in Saudi Arabia because of kingdom’s inequality

The Ukrainian, 27, will not travel to Saudi Arabia, where she wouldn’t even be allowed to walk down the street unaccompanied

”It would be great if the Ukrainian government would have principles as well, and would follow the example of this chess player by stopping selling Ukrainian warplanes to the Saudi absolute monarchy for their bloody war on the civilian people of Yemen. However, as they are waging their own bloody war against their own compatriots, I am afraid they won’t do that unless they are under big pressure to stop”. Continue reading “Chess Champ Anna Defies Murdering Misogynist Saudi Dictators”

Analysis of Ongoing Popular Power in Venezuela: by Uruguayan Anarchists

en castellano aqui: https://wp.me/pIJl9-aFZ       from   Black Rose Fed

The political situation in Venezuela continues to be embattled and the legacy of Chavismo is one that remains contested and debated on the left. We republish this translated statement by the Federación Anarquista Uruguaya (FAU) with their perspectives on the current situation. Founded in 1956 the FAU was one of the strongest anarchist movements in Latin America, survived the period of dictatorship and continues to be active today. We also recommend other translated pieces on Venezuela, “The ‘Madurization’ of Chavismo” a statement by Caribbean anarchists and an analysis by Chilean anarchists who conducted political research in Venezuela, “Political Situation in Venezuela: Crisis, Trends, and the Challenge of Class Independence.” The original text in Spanish appears below. 

“The Popular Power in Venezuela, initially pushed by charismatic Hugo Chavez, has been in a constant tension … From above, resources have been cut, and they have hindered, in every possible way, the development of Communes and the Popular Power.”

On Popular Power in Venezuela: A Statement by Uruguayan Anarchists

In 1989 Venezuela lived one of the biggest social uprisings known as “El Caracazo.” The motivation of this popular revolt was the measures taken by the government of Carlos Andrés Pérez, who gave over the Venezuelan economy to the International Monetary Fund and implemented a shock policy of explicit neo-liberal nature. Thus, the country’s existing economical crisis was deepened and the balance of this huge popular protest was 3,000 dead.

The appearance in the political arena of nationalist military figure Hugo Chavez, first through a failed coup, then developing a prominent election campaign and winning these elections [in 1999], brought together and channeled all of the popular enthusiasm which had been momentarily silenced with gunshots. Continue reading “Analysis of Ongoing Popular Power in Venezuela: by Uruguayan Anarchists”

US already had A Korean anti-nuke Peace Deal but Violated Every Single Clause

U.S. signed a nuke deal with N Korea; then totally trashed it

Why the US’s 1994 deal with North Korea failed – and what Trump can learn from it Image result for US violated every clause of korean peace deal

…  by michaellee, shared with thanks       If the Trump administration is to avoid spiralling into a nuclear confrontation with North Korea, it needs to understand what North Korea wants and why it behaves the way it does..

‘The North Korean leaders believe, with ample evidence, that they are in a desperate survival race against a rogue superpower which has destroyed a whole series of countries (recently Iraq, Libya, Yemen..) using its military power to try and reassert its dwindling economic hegemony’. The US has 28,500 troops in 11 US military bases in South Korea

… Under the terms of the 1994 framework, North Korea agreed to freeze and ultimately dismantle its nuclear programme in exchange for “the full normalisation of political and economic relations with the United States”. This meant four things:

  • By 2003, a US-led consortium would build two light-water nuclear reactorsin North Korea to compensate for the loss of nuclear power;
  • Until then, the US would supply the north with 500,000 tons per year of heavy fuel;Image result for US violated every clause of korean peace deal
  • The US would lift sanctions, remove North Korea from its list of state sponsors of terrorism, and – perhaps most importantly – normalise the political relationship, which is still subject to the terms of the 1953 Korean War armistice;
  • Finally, both sides would provide “formal assurances” against the threat or use of nuclear weapons.

The US has arrogantly  broken every single clause of the agreement

The light-water reactors were never built. The US-led consortium tasked with constructing them was in severe debt; senators accused Clinton of understating their cost while overstating how much US allies would contribute to funding them. Hawkish Republicans in Congress derided the framework for supposedly rewarding aggressive behaviour. Continue reading “US already had A Korean anti-nuke Peace Deal but Violated Every Single Clause”

Anti-Nukes Besiege Base, Occupy US War Bunker In Germany

Activists Challenge US Nukes in Germany; Occupy Bunker Deep Inside Nuclear Weapons Base

From left, Bonnie Urfer, Steve Baggarly, Susan Crane, John LaForge all of the US, and Gerd Buentzly of Germany, entered Büchel Air Base in Germany to challenge U.S. nuclear weapons deployment. (Photo by Ralph Hutchison)

by JOHN LAFORGE,   BÜCHEL, Germany          The fairy tale that nuclear weapons provide state security is a fiction believed by millions. On July 17, five of us proved that state guarantees of “highly secure” nuclear weapon facilities are just as fictitious.

see also: the War Starts Here … Camp 2017

Image result for Gerd Buentzly of Germany, entered Büchel Air Base i

After nightfall, an international group of five peace activists, me included, got deep inside the Büchel Air Base here, and for the first time in a 21-year long series of protests against its deployment of US nuclear bombs, we occupied the top of one of the large bunkers potentially used for storing nuclear weapons.

United Nations Votes to Adopt Legally Binding Nuclear Ban Treaty

The US still deploys up to 20 B61 gravity bombs at the air base and German pilots train to use them in war from their Tornado jet fighter bombers.

After hiking along shadowy farm roads, shushing through a dark row of tall corn, clipping through the base’s outer fence, crossing a brightly lit air base road, and tramping noisily through a few wooded brambles, our small group cut through a second chain-link fence, bumbled past a giant hanger and under the wing of a jet fighter bomber, and reached a double-fence surrounding the broad, earth- bermed bunkers. Continue reading “Anti-Nukes Besiege Base, Occupy US War Bunker In Germany”

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