Wayne Madsen

Bound and determined to reverse Latin America’s progressive drift and movement away from the dictates of Washington, President Obama has quietly called forth from America’s sordid history south of the border a demon the Latin Americans know only too well: Israel. During the Ronald Reagan administration, Israel propped up with military equipment, intelligence, counter-insurgency training, and money a number of right-wing fascist governments in Latin America.

Israel’s support for fascism in Latin America actually began during the Jimmy Carter presidency. After Carter embargoed U.S. weapons exports to Nicaragua’s brutal dictator Anastasio Somoza, Israel stepped in to fill the void.

Today, Obama has permitted Israel and Israel’s agents of influence in his own administration, to use all the means at their disposal to undermine progressive governments in Latin America. After the death of Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez, a bitter critic of Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians, the subversive activities of Israeli and American operatives, operating under George Soros-linked non-governmental organization (NGO) cover, have increased across the region.

Although Obama, unlike Reagan, does not have congressional bans like the Boland Amendment, to stymie efforts to overthrow progressive Latin American leaders, he does have a public perception that he, as a Nobel Peace Prize recipient, is committed to peace. Rather than sacrifice his public persona with bloody moves to overthrow Latin American governments, Obama has chosen stealthily to work through Israel and its sayanim foreign foot soldiers to return Latin America to the status quo ante of a series of dictatorships that protect the wealthy and subjugate the poor and working class.

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Wayne Madsen

We all have common foes in the greedy and environmentally-destructive capitalist corporations and their puppets who run the governments of Canada and the United States.

By all measures of governing standards, the Conservative government of Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper embodies the same racist policies as that of the governments of the former Rhodesia and apartheid South Africa. The Harper government’s patronizing policies over Canada’s First Nations is a case in point. Coupled with Canada’s abhorrent support for Israel’s expansionistic Zionist policies at the expense of the people of Palestine, the Harper government’s attempt to wrest control of resource-rich lands from Canada’s indigenous peoples for exploitation by multinational corporations is reminiscent of the same policies that saw native lands of South Africa and Rhodesia crudely exploited by DeBeers and British American Tobacco…

The Harper government represents the most right-wing government in the recent history of Canada. With its Anglo-Canadian base, it has alienated the French-speaking province of Quebec, where independence sentiment has been renewed; Muslims and Arabs, with its pro-Zionist policies; and Canada’s First Nations, with its attempt to grab native lands protected by treaties.

The only area where the Harper government has shown itself to be “liberal” is that of gay rights. It should be recalled that favoring rights for homosexuals is not necessarily liberal. After the 1934 Nazi Party purge of Ernst Rohm and his coterie of working class homosexual supporters, gay Nazis like Reinhard Heydrich and Baldur von Schirach who originated from the German elite were permitted to hold high office and operate more or less in the open. In the Canadian government of today, reputed homosexuals like Foreign Minister John “Rusty’ Baird and Immigration Minster Jason Kenney, sometimes called Canada’s deputy prime minister, follow in the footsteps of Heydrich and von Schirach in frolicking with fellow Tory gays at “Fabulous Blue Tent” parties in Ottawa. Similar parties in Berlin were attended by some of the Nazi party’s top lieutenants at the height of Adolf Hitler’s reign.

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Wayne Madsen

It is clear that Russia’s arrest and expulsion of two CIA agents who were trying to recruit members of the Russian intelligence service fighting against Salafist separatists in the Caucasus is part of a Russian mopping-up operation directed at the CIA’s decades-long covert support for terrorists operating in the Northern and Southern Caucasus.

Russia’s Federal Security Bureau (FSB) recently arrested Ryan Christopher Fogle, a CIA «official cover» U.S. embassy Third Secretary, who was trying to recruit an FSB counter-terrorism officer for the CIA. A Russian phone intercept of Fogle’s conversation with the targeted counter-terrorism officer revealed the following offer by the CIA agent: “You can earn up to $1 million per year and I’ll give you $100,000 up front, but only if we meet right now. Yes or no?» Earlier this year, the FSB nabbed another CIA agent, yet unnamed, and quietly deported him.

The list of key U.S. Foreign Service officers, dated April 1, 2013, does not contain Fogle’s name on the list of key U.S. diplomats assigned to the Moscow embassy. Traditionally, the CIA prefers to operate under the official cover of “Political Officer” at large embassies like Moscow. In smaller embassies, the CIA presence can often be found in the deputy chief of mission. The Political Officer in Moscow is Michael Klecheski, formerly with the CIA-connected RAND Corporation and the National Security Council, who was assigned to the Moscow embassy during Soviet times. There is a good chance that Klecheski was Fogle’s local supervisor. The FSB revealed publicly that the CIA station chief for the embassy is Stephen Holmes. Another embassy Third Secretary, Benjamin Dillon, was expelled in January for activities similar to those of Fogle.

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Wayne Madsen

Through a myriad of «civil society» organizations, the United States has been financing Chechen groups inside the autonomous republic, in Russia, and abroad. However, large portions of U.S. assistance money has «bled» over to support Chechen and other North Caucasus terrorist groups, which the U.S. State Department and U.S. intelligence agencies insist on referring to as «separatist guerrillas», «nationalists», «insurgents», and «rebels», instead of terrorists.

The U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) has continuously refused to refer to Chechen and Islamic Emirate terrorists operating in Russia as «terrorists». NSA analysis reports of signals intelligence (SIGINT) intercepts of Russian police, Federal Security Bureau (FSB), Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), and Russian military communications, including radio, landline and cellular telephone, fax, text message, and fax, have, since 2003, referred to Chechen and North Caucasus terrorists as «guerrillas». Prior to that year, TOP SECRET Codeword internal NSA directives stated that Chechen terrorists were to be called «rebels».

Imagine the surprise if the United States began referring to «Al Qaeda» as Islamist guerrillas and rebels instead of terrorists. Yet, that is exactly how the NSA and CIA have referred to terrorists in Russia that have launched deadly attacks on airports, trains, subway stations, schools, and movie theaters throughout the Russian Federation.

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Stephen Lendman

False flags are an American tradition. They go way back. The Boston bombings appear the latest. - Notable earlier false flags or incidents approximating them include:

■ In 1845, America lawlessly annexed Texas. It was Mexican territory. President James Polk deployed US troops. A future president led them. General Zachary Taylor paraded them along the disputed border. In May 1846, Polk told cabinet officials that if Mexican forces retaliated, he'd ask Congress to declare war. He wanted it whether or not Mexico attacked. After an incident occurred, Polk told Congress: "Mexico has passed the boundary of the US and shed American blood on American soil." The Mexican War followed. Half of Mexico was annexed. Included were California, Utah, Nevada, as well as parts of New Mexico, Arizona, Wyoming and Colorado. The Rio Grande became the Texas-Mexico border.

■ In 1898, Cubans neared freeing themselves from Spanish colonial rule. US President William McKinley promised to respect its sovereignty. In January 1898, the USS Maine entered Havana harbor. Allegedly it was to protect US Consul Fitzhugh Lee and other American citizens. On February 15, a huge explosion sank the Maine. Doing so killed 266 crew members. The Spanish-American war followed. At the time, publisher William Randolph Hearst hyped the big lie. He claimed Spain sunk the Maine. An internal coal bunker explosion caused it. Notably Hearst told his Havana illustrator: "You furnish the pictures, and I'll furnish the war." Big lies launch them. Doing so enlists public support. America became Cuba's colonial power. The Philippines, Guam, Samoa, Hawaii, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Canal Zone, Puerto Rico and other territories were annexed.

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Wayne Madsen

A sticker saying "No Thanks" is posted on a controversial pla-
card that was used by supporters of Switzerland's campaign to
ban minarets. (Photo: Associated Press / Der Spiegel)

Europe’s anti-austerity popular revolt is not benefitting the political parties of the authentic left that should be reaping electoral support from disaffected workers, pensioners, and students. Instead, the parties of the far-right, which are in lockstep with the corporate-fascist goals of multinational banks and corporations, are gaining in strength. The parties of the far right stand to upend Europe’s bourgeois supranational infrastructures in favor of a group of nationalist governments that will continue to take their orders from the international mega-corporations and banks that have always been more favorably disposed toward fascist regimes than democratic conservative or even bourgeois socialist governments.

It is ironic that many nations are drifting toward fascism as a result of severe austerity measures imposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and, in the case of Europe, the European Central Bank. The corporate-owned media provides fascist parties like Jobbik in Hungary and Golden Dawn in Greece with massive coverage while actual left-progressive parties like SYRIZA in Greece receive minimal coverage. In fact, SYRIZA’s leader, Alexis Tsipras, was criticized by much of the corporate media for attending the funeral of Venezuela’s socialist president Hugo Chavez. While the corporate media expresses doubt that Tsipras could ever become a Greek Chavez -- a leftist leader willing to kick out NATO once and for all and move Greece into a progressive socialist camp where the ultra-wealthy are forced to give back what they have stolen from the Greek people -- the fascist Golden Dawn is given more of a chance of achieving political power. And that would be fine for the tax-avoiding Greek billionaires who have hidden their wealth abroad while Greek workers, pensioners, the disabled, and students have been forced into penury by the dictates from the bankers in Frankfurt, London, Brussels, and Washington.

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Wayne Madsen

In this March 20, 2003 photo, smoke rises from the Trade Ministry in
Baghdad after it was hit by a missile during US-led forces' attacks.

Although Cable News Network (CNN) no longer reports news but blatant propaganda and worthless reports on insignificant celebrities, it and other media operations should not be permitted to engage in the same war-mongering today that they fostered ten years ago.

On the very day that America was reflecting on the preposterous reasons it attacked and occupied Iraq ten years ago – March 20, 2003 – CNN and other broadcasters were hyping a phony story about Syria using WMDs – weapons of mass destruction – against civilians. Ten years ago, Saddam Hussein was used as an international bogeyman for his possession of WMDs. However, the claims of Iraqi WMDs were based on false and forged intelligence. And the claims that Bashar al-Assad’s government is using chemical weapons are just as fallacious…

CNN’s neo-Conservative main stay Wolf Blitzer, who once served as a mouthpiece for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), an unregistered foreign agency of the Israeli government operating as a pressure group on the U.S. government, interviewed Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein of California and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers of Michigan on the «breaking news» that Syria was using chemical weapons against its own population. Blitzer, of course, engaged in the very same theatrical propaganda and war mongering over Saddam’s alleged possession of mass destruction.

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Wayne Madsen

The Guardian newspaper’s self-proclaimed Venezuela expert Rory Carroll has glibly categorized serious charges that Venezuela’s late President Hugo Chávez Frías was assassinated by a United States-produced bio-weapon as being in the same league with «conspiracy theorists who wonder about aliens at Roswell and NASA faking the moon landings». A number of Venezuelan and international officials believe a hostile party covertly introduced an aggressive form of cancer into the 58-year old president.

Carroll also wrote that Chávez, himself, believed that the cancers that befell former leftist leaders of Latin America, including Argentine President Nestor Kirchner, diagnosed with colon cancer and Brazilian President Ignacio Lula da Silva, treated for throat cancer, were part of a CIA plot directed against left-wing leaders. Curiously, Carroll suggests that Uruguay’s former leftist president, Tabare Vazquez, also recovered from cancer. In fact, Vazquez never had cancer. Furthermore, he is a renowned oncologist trained in France. It was Paraguay’s former president, Fernando Lugo who was ousted in a 2012 CIA-backed right-wing coup, who was diagnosed with lymphoma, cancer of the immune system. Carroll simply proclaims that because all three ex-leaders recovered from cancer, there was nothing to the U.S. cancer assassination weapon story.

Carroll conveniently omitted the cancers that have struck other Latin American leaders, including Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, afflicted with thyroid cancer, and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, struck with lymphoma. After beginning peace talks with the left-wing Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Colombia’s conservative president Juan Manuel Santos was diagnosed with prostate cancer.

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Wayne Madsen

President Obama’s military incursion into Niger, ostensibly to establish a drone base to counter «Al Qaeda» and other Islamist guerrilla activity in neighboring Mali, has little to do with counter-insurgency and everything to do with establishing U.S. control over Niger’s uranium and other natural resources output and suppressing its native Tuareg population from seeking autonomy with their kin in northern Mali and Algeria.

The new drone base is initially located in the capital of Niamey and will later be moved to a forward operating location expected to be located in Agadez in the heart of Tuareg Niger… The base is being established to counter various Islamist groups – including Ansar Dine, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), Nigeria-based Boko Haram, and a new group, Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MOJWA) - that briefly seized control of northern Mali from Tuaregs, led by the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad, who took advantage of a coup d’état in Mali to establish an independent Tuareg state called Azawad.

The U.S. has long been opposed to any attempt by the suppressed Tuareg people to establish their own independent state in the Sahara. American opposition to the Tuaregs dovetails with historical French opposition to Tuareg nationalism.

However, U.S. State Department and CIA personnel have been discussing a U.S. presence in Niger since February 25, 2010, when a U.S. delegation met with the Chairman of the Supreme Council for the Restoration of Democracy (CSRD), General Souleyman Salou, just one week after the military junta overthrew democratically-elected President Mamadou Tandja in a coup and suspended the Nigerien constitution.

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Wayne Madsen

President Obama ran for president in 2008 on a promise of closing down the U.S. prisoner detention center at the U.S. naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Recently, Obama went back on his word by ordering closed down the State Department office in charge of closing down the detention camps. On January 22, 2009, two days after Obama was sworn in as president, he issued an Executive Order that stated; «The detention facilities at Guantánamo for individuals covered by this order shall be closed as soon as practicable, and no later than one year from the date of this order.» Four years later, the Guantánamo detention centers remain open…

Shortly after Obama was sworn in for his second term, the State Department announced the special envoy for closing Guantánamo, Daniel Fried, was being reassigned and would not be replaced. Adding insult to injury, the Obama administration named Fried as the head of U.S. sanctions policy, which includes the over five decade long economic blockade of Cuba.

Obama clearly has other plans for Guantánamo that have nothing to do with closing the book on a shameful American legacy of maintaining a tropical gulag in the Caribbean Sea.

The Obama administration clearly foresees as political change coming to Cuba during his second term. Just as the United States used its bases in West Germany and West Berlin to facilitate NATO’s absorption of East Germany and the other Eastern European nations, it sees Guantánamo as a salient within Cuba to transition the socialist island nation back into an American «banana republic», akin to Honduras, Panama, Paraguay, and Guatemala. It is for such a reason that the United States has remained in illegal possession of Guantánamo Bay more than a decade after its 99-year lease expired. For the United States, Guantánamo or «Gitmo» as it is known to U.S. military personnel, is a forward base for U.S. imperialism in the Caribbean and, more widely, in Latin America.

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