Honduras wordt geteisterd door doodseskaders die worden gesteund door…. de VS!!

De
geheime diensten van de VS hebben zich met de grote bedrijven gekeerd
tegen de zogenaamde ‘Pink Tide’, de wens van
Latijns-Amerikaanse volkeren voor een socialistische beleid in hun
land en waar een aantal van die volkeren deze
wens waarmaakten door met grote meerderheden te kiezen voor socialistische partijen. Voorbeelden te over, neem Venezuela, waar de al jaren durende oorlog* van de VS
tegen het Venezolaanse volk en het door Maduro socialistische
gevoerde beleid in dat land…… Volgens de laatste berichten hebben de
illegale sancties van de VS (gesteund door Canada en onze EU) al aan
meer dan 100.000 mensen het leven gekost, dit o.a. door een
blokkade op voedsel**, medicijnen, medische hulpmiddelen en medische
apparaten….. De VS zegt wel dat medicijnen en voedsel niet onder de
sancties vallen echter de bewijzen van het tegendeel liegen er niet
om…….

Of
wat dacht je van de bloedige coup door de VS georganiseerd tegen het
uiterst succesvolle socialistische bewind van Evo Morales in Bolivia.
Deze man, de eerste president sinds de witte Europeanen daar een aantal eeuwen geleden begonnen met de
genocide tegen de oorspronkelijke  bevolking van dit land……  Deze bevolking vormt NB een
meerderheid in het land en niet vreemd dus dat Morales daar de ene na
de andere verkiezing won en de armoede onder de oorspronkelijke
bevolking wist weg te werken, waarbij ze recht kregen op goede
en goedkope: -scholing, -gezondheidszorg, -energievoorziening en -huisvesting…..
De CIA en de OAS (Vereniging van Amerikaanse Staten) hebben een
opstand georganiseerd in het land en leger en politie omgekocht om
aan de zijde (van de minderheid) van meer welgestelde burgers en het
grootkapitaal in dat land te vechten tegen de oorspronkelijke
bewoners en hun regering….. Morales werd door de militairen
ontvoerd en naar Mexico gedeporteerd….. Intussen is de partij van
Morales toch weer de grootste en heeft men een medestander van
Morales gekozen tot president…..*** De junta, o.l.v. de fascistische
christenhoer Áñez, is op de vlucht geslagen…..

Ook
speelde de VS de hoofdrol in de ‘constitutionele crisis’ in Brazilië,
waar de socialistische presidenten Dilma Rousseff en Lula da Silva
werden beschuldigd van corruptie middels een smeercampagne en zogenaamde (vervalste) bewijzen een eind maakten aan de regering van da
Silva en hij in de gevangenis verdween…..

Dan
heb je nog Honduras waar Killary Clinton en de CIA in 2009 een
staatsgreep pleegden en een eind maakten aan de socialistische regering van Manuel Zelaya…… Er
zijn nog meer voorbeelden te noemen echter niet vergeten moet worden
dat de CIA (en daarmee de VS) ook verantwoordelijk was voor een bloedige
(fascistische) staatsgreep in Guatemala in 1954 die een eind maakte
aan het bewind van President, Jacobo Árbenz, om nog maar te zwijgen
over de uiterst bloedige coup in Chili, op 11 september 1973 (ja
de eerste (9/11….) tegen de socialistische president Salvador
Allende en diens regering door de CIA en zijne kwaadaardigheid nazigeneraal Pinochet…….

Lees
het volgende uitstekende artikel van T.J Coles, die veel verder
ingaat op de VS bemoeienis met Latijns-Amerika, gepubliceerd op
CounterPunch en zegt het voort!! De hoogste tijd dat alle
volkeren over de wereld zich gaan verzetten tegen het fascistische
Vierde Rijk, de grootste terreurentiteit ter wereld, ofwel de VS!!

December
20, 2020

The
Evolution of U.S.-Backed Death Squads in Honduras

The
Pathology of U.S. Foreign Policy

by T.J.
Coles

Photo
Source Capt. Thomas Cieslak – CC
BY 2.0

U.S. intelligence
agencies and corporations have pushed back against the so-called Pink
Tide
, the coming to power of socialistic governments in Central
and South America. Examples include: the slow-burning
attempt
to overthrow Venezuela’s President; Nicolás Maduro;
the initially
successful
soft coup in Bolivia against President Evo Morales;
and the constitutional
crises
that removed Presidents Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff
in Brazil.

In 2009, the Obama
administration (2009-17) backed
a coup
against President Manuel Zelaya. Since then, Honduras has
endured a decline in its living standards and democratic
institutions. The return of 1980s-style death squads operating
against working people in the interests of U.S. corporations has
contributed to the refugee-migrant
flow
to the United States and to the rise of racist politics.

EMPIRES: FROM
THE SPANISH TO THE AMERICAN

Honduras (pop. 9.5
million) is surrounded by Guatemala and Belize in the north, El
Salvador in the west, and Nicaragua in the south. It has a small
western coast on the Pacific Ocean and an extensive coastline on the
Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic. Nine out of 10 Hondurans are
Indo-European (
mestizo).
GDP is <$25bn and over
60 percent
of the people live in poverty: one in five in extreme
poverty.

Honduras gained
independence from Spain in 1821, before being annexed to the Mexican
Empire. Hondurans have endured some 300 rebellions, civil wars,
and/or changes of government; more than half of which occurred in the
20
th
century. Writing in 1998, the Clinton White House acknowledged
that Honduras’s “agriculturally based economy came to be
dominated by U.S. companies that established vast banana plantations
along the north coast.”

The significant U.S.
military presence began
in the 1930s,
with the establishment of an air force and military
assistance program. The Clinton White House also noted
that the founder of the National Party, Tiburcio Carías Andino
(1876-1969), had “ties to dictators in neighboring countries and to
U.S. banana companies [which] helped him maintain power until 1948.”

The C.I.A. notes
that dictator Carías’s repression of Liberals would make those
Liberals “turn to conspiracy and [provoke] attempts to foment
revolution, which would render them much more susceptible to
Communist infiltration and control.” The Agency said that in
so-called emerging democracies: “The opportunities for Communist
penetration of a repressed and conspiratorial organization are much
greater than in a freely functioning political party.” So, for
certain C.I.A. analysts, “liberal democracy” is a buffer against
dictatorships that legitimize genuinely left-wing oppositional
groups. The C.I.A. cites the case of Guatemala in which “a strong
dictatorship prior to 1944 did not prevent Communist activity which
led after the dictator’s fall, to the establishment of a
pro-Communist government.”

REDS UNDER THE
BED

To understand the
thinking behind the U.S.-backed death squads, it is worth looking at
some partly-declassified C.I.A. material on early-Cold War planning.
The paranoia was such that each plantation laborer was potentially a
Soviet asset hiding in the fruit field. These subversives could be
ready, at any moment, to strike against U.S. companies and the
nascent American Empire.

In line with some
strategists’ conditional preferences for “liberal democracies,”
Honduras has the façade of voter choice, with two main parties
controlled by the military. After the Second World War, U.S. policy
exploited Honduras as a giant military base from which left-wing or
suspected “communist” movements in neighboring countries could be
countered. In 1954, for instance, Honduras was used
as a base for the C.I.A.’s operation PBSuccess to overthrow
Guatemala’s President, Jacobo Árbenz (1913-71).

Writing in ‘54, the
C.I.A. said
that the Liberal Party of Honduras “has the support of the majority
of the Honduran voters. Much of its support comes from the lower
classes.” The Agency also believed that the banned Communist Party
of Honduras planned to infiltrate the Liberals to nudge them further
left. But an Agency document notes
that “there may be fewer than 100” militant Communists in
Honduras and there were “perhaps another 300 sympathizers.”

The document also
notes: “The organization of a Honduran Communist Party has never
been conclusively established,” though the C.I.A. thought that the
small Revolutionary Democratic Party of Honduras “might have been a
front.” The Agency also believed
that Communists were behind the Workers’ Coordinating Committee
that led strikes of 40,000 laborers against the U.S.-owned United
Fruit and Standard Fruit Companies, which the Agency acknowledges
“dominate[d] the economy of the region.” In the same breath, the
C.I.A. also says that the Communists “lost control of the workers,”
post-strike.

A PROXY
AGAINST NICARAGUA

A U.S. military report
states
that “[c]onducting joint exercises with the Honduran military has a
long history dating back to 1965.” By 1975, U.S. military
helicopters operating in Honduras at Catacamas, a village in the
east, assisted “logistical support of counterinsurgency
operations,” according
to the CIA. These machines aided the Honduran forces in their
skirmishes against pro-Castro elements from Nicaragua operating along
the Patuca River in the south of Honduras. By the mid-1990s, there
were at
least 30
helicopters operating in Honduras.

In 1979, the National
Sandinista Liberation Front (Sandinistas) came to power in Nicaragua,
deposing and later assassinating the U.S.-backed dictator, Anastasio
Somoza Debayle (1925-80). For the Reagan administration (1981-89),
Honduras was a proxy against the defiant Nicaragua.

The U.S. Army War
College wrote at the time: “President Reagan has clearly expressed
our national commitment to combating low intensity conflict in
developing countries.” It says that “The responsibility now falls
upon the Department of State and the Department of Defense to develop
plans and doctrine for meeting this requirement.” The same document
confirms
that the U.S. Army Special Operations Forces (SOF), the 18
th
Airborne Corps, was sent to Honduras. “Mobile Training Teams (MTT)
were dispatched to train Honduran soldiers in small unit tactics,
helicopter maintenance and air operations, and to establish the
Regional Military Training Center near Trujillo and Puerto Castilla,”
both on the eastern coast.

A SOUTHCOM document
dates significant U.S. military assistance to Honduras to the 1980s.
It notes
the effect of public pressure on U.S. policy, highlighting: “a
general lack of appetite among the American public to see U.S. forces
committed in the wake of the Vietnam War [which] resulted in strict
parameters that limited the scope of military involvement in Central
America.”

According
to SOUTHCOM, the Regional Military Training Center was designed “to
train friendly countries in basic counterinsurgency tactics.”
President Reagan wanted to smash the Sandinistas, but “the
executive branch’s hands were tied by the 1984 passage of the
Boland Amendment [to the Defense Appropriations Act], banning the use
of U.S. military aid to be given to the Contras,” the
anti-Sandinista forces in Nicaragua. As a result, “the strong and
sudden focus instead on training, and arguably by proxy, the
establishment of [Joint Task Force-Bravo],” an elite military unit
assigned a “counter-communist mission.”

The Green Berets
trained the
contras
from bases in Honduras, “accompanying them on missions into
Nicaragua.” The North American Congress on Latin America noted
at the time that “Military planes flying out of Honduras are
coordinated by a laser navigation system, and
contras
operating inside Nicaragua are receiving night supply drops from
C-130s using the Low Altitude Parachute Extraction System,” first
used in Vietnam and operational only to a few personnel. “The CIA,
operating out of Air Force bases in the United States, hires pilots
for the hazardous sorties at $30,000 per mission.” The report notes
that troops from El Salvador “were undergoing U.S. training every
day of the year, in Honduras, the United States and the new basic
training center at La Union,” in the north.

SPECIAL UNITS
AND ANTI-COMMUNISTS

The U.S. also launched
psychological operations against domestic leftism in Honduras. This
involved morphing a special police unit into a military intelligence
squad guilty of kidnap, torture, and murder: Battalion 316. Inducing
a climate of fear in workers, union leaders, intellectuals, and human
rights lawyers is way of ensuring that progressive ideas like good
healthcare, free education, and decent living standards don’t take
root.

In 1963, the Fuerza
de Seguridad Pública

(FUSEP, Public Security Force) was set
up
as a branch of the military. During the early-‘80s, FUSEP
commanded the National Directorate of Investigations, regular
national police units, and National Special Units, “which provided
technical support to the arms interdiction program,” according
to the CIA, in which “material from Nicaragua passed through
Honduras to guerrillas in El Salvador.” The National Directorate of
Investigations ran the secret Honduran Anti-Communist Liberation Army
(ELACH, 1980-84), described by the C.I.A. as “a rightist
paramilitary organization which conducted operations against Honduran
leftists.”

The C.I.A. repeats
allegations that “ELACH’s operations included surveillance,
kidnappings, interrogation under duress, and execution of prisoners
who were Honduran revolutionaries.” ELACH worked in cooperation
with the Special Unit of FUSEP. “The mission of the Unit was
essentially … to combat both domestic and regional subversive
movements operating in and through Honduras.” The C.I.A. also notes
that “this included penetrating various organizations such as the
Honduran Communist Party, the Central American Regional Trotskyite
Party, and the Popular Revolutionary Forces-Lorenzo Zelaya (FPR-LZ)
Marxist terrorist organization.”

Gustavo Adolfo Álvarez
(1937-89), future head of the Honduran Armed Forces, told
U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s Honduras Ambassador, Jack Binns, that
their forces would use “extra-legal means” to destroy communists.
Binns wrote
in a confidential cable: “I am deeply concerned at increasing
evidence of officially sponsored/sanctioned assassinations of
political and criminal targets, which clearly indicate [Government of
Honduras] repression has built up a head of steam much faster than we
had anticipated.” But U.S. doctrine shifted under President Reagan.
Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, Thomas O.
Enders, told
Binns not to send such material to the State Department for fear of
leakage. Enders himself said
of human rights in Honduras: “the Reagan administration had broader
interests.”

Under Reagan, John
Negroponte replaced Binns at the U.S. Embassy in the capital
Tegucigalpa, from where many C.I.A. agents operated. In 1981, secret
briefings informed
Negroponte that “[Government of Honduras] security forces have
begun to resort to extralegal tactics — disappearances and,
apparently, physical eliminations to control a perceived subversive
threat.” Rick Chidster, a junior political officer at the U.S.
Embassy was ordered
by superiors in 1982 to remove references to Honduran military abuses
from his annual human rights report prepared for Congress.

THE MAKING OF
BATTALION-316

In March 1981, Reagan
authorized
the expansion of covert operations to “provide all forms of
training, equipment, and related assistance to cooperating
governments throughout Central America in order counter
foreign-sponsored subversion and terrorism.” Documents obtained by
The
Baltimore Sun

the reveal
that from 1981, the U.S. provided funds for Argentine
counterinsurgency experts to train anti-Communists in Honduras; many
of whom had, themselves, been trained by the U.S. in earlier years.
At a camp in Lepaterique, in western Honduras, Argentine killers
under U.S. supervision trained their Honduran counterparts.

Oscar Álvarez, a
former Honduran Special Forces officer and diplomat trained
by the U.S., said:
“The Argentines came in first, and they taught how to disappear
people.” With training and equipment, such as hidden cameras and
phone bugging technology, U.S. agents “made them more efficient.”
The U.S.-trained
Chief of Staff, Gen. José Bueso Rosa, says:
“We were not specialists in intelligence, in gathering information,
so the United States offered to help us organize a special unit.”
Between 1982 and 1984, the aforementioned Gen. Álvarez headed the
Armed Forces. In 1983, Reagan awarded him the Legion of Merit for
“encouraging the success of democratic processes in Honduras.”
When C.I.A. Station Chief, Donald Winters, adopted a child, he asked
Álvarez to be the godfather.

After WWII, the U.S.
Army established, in the Panama Canal Zone, a Latin American Training
Center-Ground Division at Fort Amador, later renamed the U.S. Army
School of the Americas and moved to Fort Benning, Georgia. Now called
the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, the
C.I.A.’s Phoenix
Program
in Vietnam and its MK-ULTRA
mind-torture programs influenced the Honduras curriculum at the
School.

In 1983, the U.S.
military participated in Strategic Military Seminar with the Honduran
Armed Forces, at which it was decided that FUSEP would be transformed
from a police force into a military intelligence unit. “The purpose
of this change,” says
the C.I.A., “was to improve coordination and improve control.” It
also aimed “To make available greater personnel, resources, and to
integrate the intel production.” In 1984, the Special Unit was
placed under the command of the Military Intelligence Division and
renamed the 316
th
Battalion, at which point “it continued to provide technical
support to the arms interdiction program” in neighboring countries.

A C.I.A. officer based
in the U.S. Embassy is known
to have visited the Military Industries jail: one of Battalion 316’s
torture chambers in which victims were bound, beaten, electrocuted,
raped, and poisoned. Battalion torturer, José Barrera, says: “They
always asked to be killed … Torture is worse than death.”
Battalion 316 officer, José Valle, explained
surveillance methods: “We would follow a person for four to six
days. See their daily routes from the moment they leave the house.
What kind of transportation they use. The streets they go on.” Men
in black ski masks would bundle the victim into a vehicle with
dark-tinted windows and no license plates.

Under Lt. Col. Alonso
Villeda, the Battalion was disbanded
and replaced
in 1987 with a Counterintelligence Division of the
Honduran Armed Forces. Led by the Chief of Staff for Intelligence
(C-2), it absorbed the Battalion’s personnel, units, analysis
centers, and functions.

In 1988, Richard
Stolz, then-U.S. Deputy Director for Operations, told
the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in secret hearings that
C.I.A. officers ran courses and taught psychological torture. “The
course consisted of three weeks of classroom instruction followed by
two weeks of practical exercises, which included the questioning of
actual prisoners by the students.” Former Ambassador Binns says:
“I think it is an example of the pathology of foreign policy.” In
response to the allegations, which he denied, former Assistant
Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs, Elliott
Abrams, replied:
“A human rights policy is not supposed to make you feel good.”

Between 1982 and 1993,
the U.S. taxpayer gave half
a billion dollars
in military “aid” to Honduras. By 1990, 184
people had “disappeared,” according
to President Manuel Zelaya, who in 2008 intimated that he would
reopen cases of the disappeared.

THE ZELAYA
COUP

After centuries of
struggle, Hondurans elected a President who raised living standards
through wealth redistribution. Winner of the 2005 Presidential
elections, Manuel Zelaya of the Liberal Party’s
Movimiento
Esperanza Liberal

faction increased the minimum wage, provided free education to
children, subsidised small farmers, and provided free electricity to
the country’s poorest. Zelaya countered media monopoly propaganda
by imposing minimum airtime for government broadcasts and allied with
America’s regional enemies via the proposed ALBA trading bloc.

The Congressional
Research Service (CRS) reported
at the time that “analysts” reckoned Zelaya’s move “runs the
risk of jeopardizing the traditionally close state of relations with
the United States.” The CRS also bemoaned Zelaya delaying the
accreditation of the U.S. Ambassador, Hugo Llorens, “to show
solidarity with Bolivia in its diplomatic spat with the United States
in which Bolivia expelled the U.S. Ambassador.”

Because Zeyala did not
have enough Congressional representatives to agree to his plan, he
attempted to expand democracy by holding a referendum on
constitutional changes. Both the lower and Supreme Courts agreed to
the opposition parties blocking the referendum. In defiance of the
courts, Zelaya ordered the military to help with election logistics,
an order refused by the head of the Armed Forces, Gen. Romeo Vásquez,
who later claimed that Zelaya had dismissed him, which Zelaya denies.
Using pro-Zelaya demonstrations as a pretext for taking to the
streets, the military mobilized and, in June 2009, the Supreme Court
authorized Zelaya’s capture, after which he was exiled to Costa
Rica.

In the book Hard
Choices
,
then-U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s ghostwriters, with
her approval, refer to Latin America as the U.S.’s “backyard”
and to Zelaya as “a throwback to the caricature of a Central
American strongman, with his white cowboy hat, dark black mustache,
and fondness for Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro” (p. 222). The
publishers omitted
from the paperback edition Clinton’s role in the coup: “We
strategized on a plan to restore order in Honduras” (plus the usual
boilerplate about democracy promotion.)

Decree PCM-M-030-2009
ordered the election be held during a state of emergency. The
peaceful, pro-Zelaya groups,
La
Resistencia

and
Frente
Hondureña de Resistencia Popular
,
were targeted under Anti-Terror Laws. The right-wing Porfirio Lobo
was elected with over 50 percent of the vote in a fake 60 percent
turnout (later revised to 49 percent). U.S. President Obama described
this as “a restoration of democratic practices and a commitment to
reconciliation that gives us great hope.” Hope and change for
Honduras came in the form of economic changes benefitting U.S.
corporations:

The U.S. State
Department notes:
“Many of the approximately 200 U.S. companies that operate in
Honduras take advantage of protections available in the Central
American and Dominican Republic Free Trade Agreement.” Note the
inadvertent acknowledgement that “free trade” is actually
protection for U.S. corporations. The State Department also notes:
“The Honduran government is generally open to foreign investment.
Low labor costs, proximity to the U.S. market, and the large
Caribbean port of Puerto Cortes make Honduras attractive to
investors.”

Four years into
Zelaya’s overthrow, unemployment jumped from 35.5 percent to 56.4
percent. In 2014, Honduras signed an agreement with the International
Monetary Fund for a $189m loan. The Center for Economic and Policy
Research states:
“Honduran authorities agreed to implement fiscal consolidation…
including privatizations, pension reforms and public sector layoffs.”
The Congressional Research Service states:
“President Juan Orlando Hernández of the conservative National
Party was inaugurated to a second four-year term in January 2018. He
lacks legitimacy among many Hondurans, however, due to allegations
that his 2017 reelection was unconstitutional and marred by fraud.”

RETURN OF THE
DEATH SQUADS

Since the coup, the
U.S. has expanded its military bases in Honduras from 10 to 13. U.S.
“aid” funds the Honduran National Police, whose long-time
Director, Juan Carlos Bonilla, was trained
at the School of the Americas. Atrocities against Hondurans increased
under the U.S. favorite, President Hernández, who vowed
to “put a soldier on every corner.” SOUTHCOM worked
under Obama’s Central America Regional Security Initiative, which
supported Operation Morazán: a program to integrate Honduras’s
Armed Forces with its domestic policing units. With SOUTHCOM funding,
the 250-person Special Response Security Unit (TIGRES) was
established
near Lepaterique. The TIGRES are trained
by the U.S. Green Berets or 7
th
Special Forces Group (Airborne) and described
by the U.S. Army War College as a “paramilitary police force.”

The cover for setting
up a military police force is countering narco- and
human-traffickers, but the record shows that left-wing civilians are
targeted for death and intimidation. To crush the pro-Zelaya,
pro-democracy movements Operation Morazán, according
to the U.S. Army War College, included the creation of the Military
Police of Public Order (PMOP), whose members must have served at
least one year in the Armed Forces. By January 2018, the PMOP
consisted
of 4,500 personnel in 10 battalions across every region of Honduras,
and had murdered
at least 21 street protestors.

Berta Cáceres
co-founded the Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of
Honduras. One of the Organization’s missions was resisting the
Desarrollos
Energéticos
(DESA) corporation’s Agua Zarca hydroelectric dam
on the Gualcarque River, which is sacred to the Lenca people. DESA
hired a gang, later convicted of murdering Cáceres. They included
the U.S.-trained
Maj. Mariano Díaz Chávez and Lt. Douglas Geovanny Bustillo, himself
head of security at DESA. The company’s director, David Castillo,
also a U.S.-trained
ex-military intelligence officer, is alleged to have colluded with
the killers. The TIGRE forces oversaw
the dam’s construction site.

Between 2010 and 2016,
as U.S. “aid” and training continued to flow, over
120
environmental activists were murdered by hitmen, gangs,
police, and the military for opposing illegal logging and mining.
Others have been intimidated. In 2014, for instance, a year after the
murder of three Matute people by gangs linked to a mining operation,
the children of the indigenous Tolupan leader, Santos Córdoba, were
threatened
at gunpoint
by the U.S.-trained, ex-Army General, Filánder
Uclés, and his bodyguards.

Home to the Regional
Military Training Center, Bajo Aguán is a low-lying region in the
east, whose farmers have battled land privatization since the
early-1990s. After Zelaya was deposed, crimes against the peoples of
the region increased. Rights groups signed a letter to then-Secretary
of State Hillary Clinton, who facilitated U.S. aid to Honduras,
stating:
“Forty-five people associated with peasant organizations have been
killed” between September 2009 and February 2012. A joint
military-police project, Operation Xatruch II in 2012, led to the
deaths of “nine peasant organization members, including two
principal leaders.” One 17-year-old son of a peasant organizer was
kidnapped, tortured, and threatened with being burned alive. Lawfare
is also used, with over 160 small farmers in the area subject to
frivolous legal proceedings.

BACK TO THE
PAST”

In the 1980s, Tomás
Nativí, co-founder of the People’s Revolutionary Union, was
“disappeared” by U.S.-backed death squads. Nativí’s wife,
Bertha Oliva, founded of the Committee of Relatives of the
Disappeared in Honduras to fight for justice for those murdered
between 1979 and 1989. She told
The
Intercept

that the recent killings and restructuring of the so-called security
state is “like going back to the past.”

The iron-fist of
Empire in the service of capitalism never loosens its grip. The names
and command structures of U.S.-backed military units in Honduras have
changed over the last four decades, but their goal remains the same.

T. J. Coles
is director of the Plymouth Institute for Peace Research and the
author of several books, including
Voices
for Peace

(with Noam Chomsky and others) and  
Fire
and Fury: How the US Isolates North Korea, Encircles China and Risks
Nuclear War in Asia
(both
Clairview Books).

===========================================

*   Een oorlog van de VS tegen het Venezolaanse volk, bestaande uit illegale sancties, het organiiseren van een opstand en het bewapenen van extreem rechtse groepen, beter gezegd fascistische groeperingen, plus het regisseren van geweld gepleegd door die fascisten….. Deze groeperingen hebben korte lijnen met extreem rechtse parijen, zoals die van fascist Guaidó, al is deze ploert pas sinds vorig jaar januari bekend geworden, voor die tijd was hij onbekend bij het overgrote deel van de bevolking….. De VS heeft deze fascist uit de anonimiteit gehaald en zelfs benoemd tot president van Venezuela, terwijl het overgrote deel van de bevolking kiest voor de partij van Maduro en voor de gematigde oppositie partijen in dat land…… Zie wat dit betreft: ‘Guaidó is een ordinaire couppleger van de VS, e.e.a. gaat volledig in tegen de Venezolaanse constitutie‘ (en zie de links in dat bericht)

**  Al onder Obama werd de grote supermarktketens van de VS, die winkels in Venezuela hebben, ‘gevraagd’ (onder sterke dwang) hun voorraden niet langer aan te vullen……. Ofwel hier was in feite al sprake van illegale sancties, al waren deze ‘geheim’, onder Trump werden dergelijke sancties ‘gelegitimeerd’ en officieel gemaakt, waarna de sancties een paar keer werden verscherpt…. Volkeren middels sancties of andere valse redenen voedsel en medicijnen onthouden is een zware misdaad tegen de menselijkheid……

*** Zie: ‘Bolivia: een jaar na de coup wint de socialistische partij alsnog de verkiezingen

Zie ook: ‘651 miljardairs in de VS zijn sinds maart 1 biljoen dollar rijker geworden o.a. door de Coronacrisis

NOS met fake news over Bolivia‘ (en zie de links over Bolivia en Morales in dat bericht)

Venezuela: onafhankelijke journalisten ontmaskeren leugens over dit land bij presentatie voor de VN‘ (en zie de links over Venezuela en Maduro in dat bericht)

Nieuwe VS sancties tegen Iran zullen een groot aantal mensen het leven kosten, ofwel: hier is sprake van een grove misdaad tegen de menselijkheid

Moord op Iraanse nucleaire wetenschapper mogelijk aanzet om oorlog met Iran uit te lokken‘ (en zie de links in dat bericht over Iran) 

EU sprak over sancties tegen Wit-Rusland, terwijl men Brazilië en Saoedi-Arabië laat begaan met het uitvoeren van genocides‘ (en zie de links in dat bericht)

Heavy metal band Sepultura zet zich in voor het redden van volkeren in het Amazonewoud‘ (en zie voor meer berichten over Brazilië en bosbranden de links in dat bericht, ouder dan de hieronder getoonde)

Dilma Rousseff afgezet, CIA coup gelukt……..‘ (en zie de desbetreffende links in dat bericht)

Beste bezoeker, dit was het voor deze dag, morgen meer berichten, maak er zo mogelijk een mooide dag van. Tot morgen.

Mosul, 18 maanden na ‘de bevrijding’

Door
recente droogte is Mosul weer onder de aandacht gekomen van de
internationale media, daar die droogte ervoor zorgde dat een oude ruïne bloot kwam te liggen van een 3.400 jaar oud paleis.

De
aandacht van de reguliere westerse media voor Mosul was tijdens ‘de
bevrijding’ van die stad vooral wat het VS leger en het Iraakse
bewind daarover te zeggen hadden. Zo was Hans Jaap Melissen* één
van de ‘journalisten’ die embedded waren bij de VS/Irak coalitie en
die verboden werd de stad in te gaan…… Deze zogenaamde oorlogscorrespondenten lepelden braaf op wat hen was voorgekauwd door de propaganda machine van die
coalitie……

Met name
‘de bevrijding’ van West-Mosul heeft een enorm aantal doden
gekost en waarbij de historische binnenstad werd vernietigd door
bombardementen van de VS…… Diverse mensenrechtenorganisaties en
zelfs de VN hebben de VS destijds gesmeekt te stoppen met die
bombardementen, daar de bewoners van de oude stad zo hutjemutje op elkaar woonden….. (de VS trok zich daar niets van aan….) Dit was dan ook de oorzaak voor het enorme aantal omgekomen burgers bij die bombardementen…….

Na ‘de
bevrijding’ van Mosul heeft het Iraakse leger niet gepoogd
slachtoffers te bergen, nee men koos ervoor de ruïnes te bulldozeren,
met de slachtoffers nog onder het puin. Er moeten tienduizenden
burgers zijn omgekomen (men houdt het officieel op het ongeloofwaardig aantal van 10.000; zie de links onder het hieronder opgenomen artikel), echter door het bulldozeren van de ruïnes zullen we nooit weten hoeveel slachtoffers terreurentiteit VS
heeft gemaakt met haar terreurbombardementen…..

Intussen
leven de teruggekeerde inwoners nog steeds tussen ruïnes en is er een
gebrek aan zaken als sanitaire voorzieningen waardoor ziekten de kop
opsteken, die de zo geplaagde bevolking nog verder in de ellende
storten……

In het
hieronder opgenomen artikel gaat de schrijver, T.J. Coles dieper in
op deze zaak, o.a. met het noemen van het enorme aantal bommen dat de
VS op Irak en Syrië heeft doen neerkomen, waarvan een aanzienlijk
deel op Mosul (en later op Raqqa in Syrië), voorts stelt hij nogmaals
dat de VS de hoofdverantwoordelijke is voor het ontstaan van IS, de
terreurgroep aan wie de VS zelf meermaals wapens en ander militair
tuig heeft geleverd…. (zie ook daarvoor weer de links onder het hieronder opgenomen artikel) Het artikel van Coles werd gisteren gepubliceerd op
CounterPunch:

Life
Among the Rubble: Mosul 18 Months after “Liberation”

by T.J.
COLES

Photograph
Source: Mstyslav Chernov – 
CC
BY-SA 4.0

Recent
news of drought has brought Mosul, Iraq, to the attention of Western
media; for the drought has led to the discovery of ancient ruins of
archaeological significance. But let’s not forget the other news:
the UN report on returnees. The refugees are returning to the carnage
wrought upon the city by the US and its allies under the pretext of
“liberating” it from Daesh: carnage that transformed much of the
city to modern ruins.

ANCIENT
RUINS DISCOVERED

Mosul
is a city in Iraqi Kurdistan with a 
population of
1.3 million; 60% of whom are Sunni Arabs, around 25% of whom are
Kurds. Ongoing drought has brought Mosul to the attention of Western
media, as receding water levels at Kemune reservoir reveals the ruin
of a 3,400 year-old palace. Researchers from the University of
Tübingen and the Kurdistan Archaeology Organization 
reckon that
the palace was part of the Mittani Empire (circa 1450-1350 BCE).
According to 
onearchaeological
history, “[Mittani’s] end as independent realm can be dated to
the time of Hittite king Šuppiluliuma I in the middle of the 14th
century BC.”

Echoes
of the conquests and rivalry of the ancient past haunt both recent
history and the present. The so-called 
Mosul
Question
 was
a territorial dispute in the early-20th century between the British
and Ottoman empires, with both parties wanting a share of the
region’s oil. In the latter-part of the 20th century, Iraq’s
one-time 
US-British-backed dictator
Saddam Hussein launched the Anfal genocide against Kurds who have
historic and ongoing links to the region. A couple of years ago, the
US-approved leaders of the central Iraqi government and the regional
Kurdish authorities 
squabbled over
control of Mosul, anticipating that Daesh would be defeated.

But
the discovery of ancient Mittani ruins coincides with darker news.
recent
report
 by
the UN International Organization for Migration documents the effects
of the US-led coalition bombardment of the city. It begins: “Entire
neighborhoods have not yet been rebuilt, basic services are
insufficient in some areas, and poor sanitation is contributing to
serious public health problems and the spread of diseases.
Furthermore,” the report continues, “reports of harassment and
violence against civilians by state as well as non-state actors are
undermining efforts to build trust in state institutions and
authorities.” Western-led humanitarian intervention is the price
that Iraqis pay for being an oil-rich, militarily vulnerable nation.

MAKING
ENEMIES

Daesh
(a.k.a., Islamic State) was largely the by-product of US-British
savagery in Iraq. Having left the nation politically and
infrastructurally 
decimated by
decades of unprecedented sanctions, military occupation, and
divide-and-conquer strategizing, the more extreme Islamic elements in
Iraq—backed by foreign powers for their own geostrategic
interests—sprouted from fertile ground. The US Army’s Strategic
Studies Institute launched an unusually scathing attack on the Bush
II administration’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003 and how it and
the succeeding Obama administration handled the occupation. Ignoring
moral questions and focusing solely on tactics, as well as blaming
the US-backed politician Ahmed Chalabi, the report (worth quoting at
length) 
says that
the growth of the Islamic State Organization (ISO):

did
not occur in a vacuum … The ISO would not exist, or at this level
of severity at least, had the ruling Shia elements in Iraq following
the USG [US Government] occupation made the essential, painful
choices required to pursue a new social compact with the nation’s
Sunni population. Or, had the USG not operationalized Ahmad Chalabi’s
long-dreamt of goal of imposing a punitive de-Ba’athification,”

meaning
the dismantling of Iraq’s political, military, and policing
infrastructure. It goes on:

Or,
had the USG not imposed the disastrous policy of dissolving the Iraqi
armed forces and security forces, numbering in the hundreds of
thousands; or had been prepared for a Sunni insurgency; or had
developed a realistic post-occupation, longer-term stabilization
policy based in a keen and learned awareness that the USG’s
decapitation, occupation, and empowerment of Iraq’s Shia would
profoundly destabilize an existing equilibrium in Iraq; or understood
that the decapitation of the Iraqi regime would profoundly alter the
terms of the broader Sunni-Shia rivalry inaugurated by the emergence
of a Shia revolutionary State in 1979, and thereby further energizing
proponents and antagonists who view this schism as a difference so
wide as that between God and the Devil; or, finally, had the USG not
first gone into Iraq the wrong way, and later repeated the error by
disengaging from Iraq the wrong way.”

Even
though US-British violence created Daesh, the US-British answer to
defeating Daesh was more violence.

AIR
AND GROUND WAR

In
June 2014, Daesh took Mosul, triggering a refugee flight of half a
million. According to the 
timeline, by
September ten Arab majority states announced their participation in
the US-led anti-Daesh coalition. Britain started bombing Iraq, again,
on September 30th with Paveway IV and Brimstone missiles. As well as
using Reaper drones in its anti-Daesh operations, the UK supplied 275
ground troops. By the end of the destruction of Mosul, the UK had 600
personnel on the ground in Iraq. Maj. Gen. Rupert Jones 
boasted that
“the UK was the second biggest contributor from a military
perspective in the campaign.” According to 
Forces.Net,
the British Army 
trained 75,000
Iraqi military personnel at Camp Taji and other bases. Many of those
who fought in Mosul committed war crimes, including 
torturing
and murdering
 alleged
Daesh members. In particular, the US-trained 16th Division
executed suspects, 
including
children.

These
atrocities pale in comparison to the devastation of the aerial
bombardments.

In
2016, the US-led coalition 
dropped 30,743
bombs on Iraq and Syria. In 2017, it dropped 39,577. In 2018, the
coalition dropped over 6,800 bombs. In February 2018, Pehr Lodhammar
of the UN Mine Action Service 
reported that
the “liberation” of Mosul had left 11 million tonnes of debris,
burying two-thirds of the unexploded bombs (UXB). The anti-mine,
anti-UXB operations will take the UN a decade to complete; assuming
that their budget isn’t reduced. It took the agency 12 months to
remove 25,000 explosive remnants in Mosul alone. The
BBC 
reported that
UK Ministry of Defence bombs “malfunctioned and strayed off target”
sometimes by “hundreds of metres,” adding to the civilian death
toll which reached up to 10,000; 11,000, according to the
same 
Forces.Net source
noted above. Mosul resident and civilian, Abdel Rahman Ali, lost five
children to the blitz. “Nobody destroyed us except the coalition,”
he told the BBC.

In
its written evidence to the British government, Amnesty
International 
says: “Our
field research constitutes 
prima
facie
evidence
that Coalition strikes, which killed and injured civilians in Syria
and Iraq, violated International Humanitarian Law (IHL).”
Criticizing what it calls a “crisis in accountability,” Save the
Children’s written evidence 
notes that
$700 million-worth of damage was wrought on each of Mosul’s 54
residential districts. Save the Children concludes: “In Mosul, the
UN Security Council also found that at least 4200 civilians were
killed by EWIPA [explosive weapons with wide-area effects in
populated areas] between October 2016 and July 2017. Research
undertaken by the UN suggests that in such settings, over 90 percent
of the casualties are civilians.”

IN
CONCLUSION

Instead
of being decapitated and immolated by Daesh, thousands of inhabitants
of Mosul were blown to pieces and incinerated by US-British bombs. UN
International Organization for Migration’s recent
report 
notes that,
at its peak, nearly one million residents fled the city. By now,
350,000 or so remain “internally displaced persons” (IDPs). “Many
IDPs are unable to return because their houses have been destroyed,
either by [Daesh] or during the battle, and renting or buying new
property is prohibitively expensive.” They are some of the millions
of refugees generated by the US-British imperial war machine. Mosul
is a small part of a much larger tragedy: one of US global hegemony
in the age of Full Spectrum Dominance.

More
articles by: 
T.J.
COLES

Dr.
T. J. Coles
 is
director of the Plymouth Institute for Peace Research and the author
of several books, including 
Voices
for Peace
 (with
Noam Chomsky and others) and the forthcoming 
Fire
and Fury: How the US Isolates North Korea, Encircles China and Risks
Nuclear War in Asia
 (both
Clairview Books).

====================================

Nog even over de gifgasaanvallen in de 80er jaren van de vorige eeuw door Saddam Hoessein: zakenman van Anraat werd veroordeeld voor het leveren van grondstoffen voor dat gifgas, echter zijne VVD kwaadaardigheid Bolkestein, die destijds tegen advies van deskundigen in, toestemming gaf voor de export van die grondstoffen, een oorlogsmisdaad van formaat, waarvoor deze VVD ploert nooit werd vervolgd……

* Melissen blaast nu weer regelmatig op Radio1 over zijn bezoeken aan Syrië, waar deze plork eerder embedded was bij een terreurorganisatie, die hij loofde als gematigde oppositie, maar die later door de mand vielen als een afschuwelijke terreurorganisatie……. Onbegrijpelijk dat er nog iemand is die deze zakkenwasser serieus neemt….. (voor meer berichten met Melissen, klik op het label met zijn naam, direct onder dit bericht)

Zie ook:

Misvormde kinderen in Irak door gebruik van verarmd uranium in VS munitie

9/11 voorkennis verzwegen in officiële rapporten‘ (deze link daar de illegale oorlog van de VS tegen Afghanistan, in feite de voorloper is van die tegen Irak; zie ook de andere links in dat bericht naar 9/11)

The massacre of Mosul: 40,000 feared dead in battle to take back city from Isis as scale of civilian casualties revealed

Iraakse strijdmacht gaf grif toe dat tot hun orders voor West-Mosul ook het vermoorden van vrouwen en kinderen behoorde……..

CIA valt nogmaals door de mand als wapenleverancier van IS…….‘ (zie ook de links in dat bericht over VS wapenleveranties en training van terreurgroepen >> je gelooft je ogen niet…)

Kinderen in Irak vermoord middels VS terreur…….

Mosul: minstens 40.000 gedode burgers in 9 maanden tijd, ofwel VS terreur op grote schaal…..

Mosul, stad van lijken: vele honderden doden onder het puin

Mosul verwoest door VS………

Mosul, het verschil in berichtgeving vergeleken met de bevrijding van Oost-Aleppo………..

Raqqa, een strijd als om West-Mosul, echter met geheel andere media aandacht……….

Bombarderen was een probleem in Mosul, maar niet bij het nieuwe Iraakse/VS offensief…….

Mosul ‘zal met precisie ontdaan worden van de terroristen, inclusief een minimum aan burgerslachtoffers…….’‘ (een ongelofelijk en ongeloofwaardige belofte….)

VS vermoordde met bombardementen in augustus 433 burgers in Raqqa………. Westerse media alweer stil…….

Hennis-Plasschaert hoopte nog zo, dat IS de bevolking van Mosul niet als schild zou gebruiken……..

Honderden burgerslachtoffers in Mosul door VS bombardementen, ofwel grootschalige terreur……

Mass Media Siege: Comparing Coverage Of Mosul and Aleppo‘ (met mogelijkheid tot vertaling)

After Mosul’s “Liberation,” Horror of US Siege Continues to Unfold‘ (met mogelijkheid tot vertaling)

Mosul (bijna) bevrijd: ‘een positief verslag’ van de BBC

Mosul ‘bevrijd’ en BBC anti-Assad propaganda……….

Mosul is ‘bevrijd’ zo stelt de VS, daar zijn echter wel wat aanmerkingen op te maken………

Machthebbers en elite misbruiken media en fake news voor uitbreiding en bestendiging van macht…….

Oké
mensen, niets nieuws, maar gezien het continu volhouden van leugens
in de reguliere westerse media (en door het grootste deel van de
politici), kan de waarheid niet vaak genoeg herhaald worden (als was het tegengif), inclusief het noemen van de bewijzen dat het om
leugens gaat. Dat geldt bijvoorbeeld voor alle leugens over ‘fake
news’ (nepnieuws), maar ook die over de illegale oorlogen van de VS
tegen Afghanistan, Irak, Libië, Syrië, Iran en Venezuela (de laatste
2 een economische oorlog die deze landen op de knieën moeten krijgen voor
de VS…..)…….

Overigens zijn de reguliere westerse (massa-) media in handen van super welgestelden (plutocraten) en investeringsmaatschappijen, die daarmee die media al sturen, ofwel winst über alles! Die winst gaat op zeker ver voor de waarheid, waarbij het inhumane neoliberalisme (‘fascisme light’) ten koste van alles moet worden beschermd en gepropageerd……. Over manipulaties gesproken……

Kit
Klarenberg is de schrijver van het hieronder opgenomen artikel,
eerder geplaatst op Sputnik, daarin beschrijft zij het boek van T.J. Coles met de
volgende titel: ‘Real Fake News: Techniques of Propaganda
and Deception-based Mind Control’.

Coles
gaat ook in op de geschiedenis van fake news, maar dan wel het ‘fake
news’ dat machthebbers gebruiken om hun positie veilig te
stellen…… Het eerst bekende gebruik van fake news was dat door de
Babylonische heersers, die daarmee hun goddelijke aanwijzing
probeerden te bewijzen (en dat lukte destijds wonderwel goed, later
nam het christelijk geloof het over om de koning en koningin als door god gegeven functies neer te zetten, deze achterlijke gedachtekronkel werd ook in de bijbel opgenomen). Terwijl de adel aanvankelijk bestond uit de sterkste en
wreedste boeren die de boel met veel geweld onder hun duim wisten te houden en het volk uitbuitten tot het erbij neerviel…….. 

Trouwens
over religies of geloven gesproken: als er één groot fake gebeuren
is zijn het de religies wel, al gaat het dan in het westen wel over ‘lang’ vervlogen tijden, tegenwoordig gebruikt men zoals gezegd de media (en de
politiek) als vehikel om ‘fake news’ (nepnieuws) te brengen……. De voorbeelden
van het verkondigen van fake news zijn overweldigend zie wat dat
betreft niet alleen het bericht hierna, maar ook de links die na dat
artikel zijn opgenomen.

HOW
ELITES USE MAINSTREAM MEDIA TO ‘MAINTAIN AND EXPAND THEIR POWER’

Tags:
NOVEMBER
18, 2018
 FRIENDS
OF GREED 3
ELITISMFAKE
NEWS
MEDIAPOLITICSPROPAGANDA,SPUTNIK

Fake News

(Sputnik)
– 
For
quite some time, debate about ‘fake news’ has reverberated
clamorously in both mainstream and alternative discourse. One could
easily conclude the issue was a pressingly new plague, restricted to
certain corners of the web – but academic TJ Coles begs to differ.
In fact, he tells Sputnik fake news has been ubiquitous for thousands
of years.

It’s
difficult to pinpoint the precise moment the term ‘fake news’
entered the Western political and media lexicon, but the
election of Donald Trump as US President certainly
turbocharged its usage. For the controversial leader and his
supporters, the label can be automatically applied to any and
all media reporting critical of him, while his opponents play
much the same game when roles are reversed.

This
tit-for-tat sparring inspired TJ, director of the Institute
for Peace Research, to write a book on the subject —
the fruit of his labours, 
Real
Fake News: Techniques of Propaganda and Deception-based Mind
Control
,
was published in September.

All
that talk made me think ‘hang on a minute, we’ve always had
fake news’. It’s the nature of power — all power
structures want to maintain and expand their power, so it’s
therefore important to present information that benefits them,
and keeps populations in a psychological and/or intellectual
prison. The ‘fake news’ peddled by elite financial,
commercial and political financial interests, duly regurgitated
by major media organizations, eclipses any bogus story
perpetuated by alleged ‘bots’ on Twitter, or whatever,”
TJ says.

BABYLONIAN
BEGINNINGS

In
his work, TJ traces the birth of fake news all the way back
to ancient Babylon, when rulers sought to perpetuate the
notion they were descended from Gods and thus had a right
to dominate and control the populace — history’s first
recorded instance of the ‘divine right of kings’.

Similarly,
Plato famously popularized the idea of the ‘noble lie’ —
privileging untruths told for the benefit of elites and the
population alike. These ideas very much endure in the modern
day — TJ notes Wikileaks’ dump of the Clinton
campaign’s internal emails amply demonstrates her team felt it
wouldn’t be good, or necessary, for Hillary’s supporters
to be aware of her close connections to Wall Street,
so did their utmost to conceal the mephitic kinship.

Elites
the world over are acutely aware information is power, and
actually quite open about their use and abuse of the news
to shape public perceptions and preserve sociopolitical
conditions benefitting them. For instance, the UK Ministry of Defence
regularly publishes projections of how planners think the world
will look in 10 — 20 years, and they routinely note the
media is one of the key ways to maintain the current
paradigm, and discuss the various ways information can be
‘weaponized’ against the public,” he says.

TJ
suggests elites shape and control the public mind so effectively
because they exploit fundamental facets of human nature. First,
the well-established instinctive inclination to reflexively
believe something reinforcing one’s existing beliefs, rather
than assessing whether alternative facts or viewpoints have any
value, or indeed considering whether what one believes might be
wrong, or informed by confirmation bias.

This
tendency is greatly exacerbated by the use of internet and
social media algorithms that present a ‘personalized’ picture
of the world to users, unfailingly presenting individuals
with content they want to see, and tacitly suppressing
information contrary to their existing opinions.

Elites
also know how easy it is to exploit guilt, which is why atrocity
propaganda is so widespread today. Most sympathize with the
victims of major atrocities, and naturally want to do
something to help, so this aspect of human nature can be
easily manipulated to justify aggressive foreign policy
actions — ‘look at what we’re letting happen to poor
defenceless people, we have a responsibility to protect them’
etcetera. It’s funny, when it comes to the economy, the
powerful are quick to say people are naturally selfish, so it’s
everyone for themselves, but when it comes to foreign
policy, we should care about our fellow human beings and do
something to help,” TJ says.

ABSENCE
IS EVIDENCE

As
the academic’s work makes clear, atrocity propaganda doesn’t even
need to have any grounding in reality whatsoever. In the
lead-up to the NATO-backed violent overthrow of Libyan
leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, the mainstream media was awash
with reports government forces fuelled by viagra were
conducting mass rapes of civilians, and planning a borderline
genocidal massacre of rebel forces — claims used
to justify the imposition of a no-fly zone over the
country, and NATO airstrikes.

The
stories were subsequently found to be 
entirely
without foundation
 —
similarly, serious question marks hover over the veracity
of 
numerous
claimed
 chemical
weapons attacks in Syria, which likewise have provided a pretext
for Western attacks on the country.

It’s
especially easy to exploit guilt when you present bite-sized
news reports about an atrocious event stripped of all
context, and exclude the voices of people who are actually
on the ground. Occasionally, contradictory voices do filter
through the system, although largely by accident. For
instance, the BBC made the mistake of inviting Peter Ford,
former UK ambassador to Syria, on air to discuss
chemical weapons attacks — he quickly demolished their
propaganda. He hasn’t been invited back since,” TJ says.

Ford
is surely but one of a great many talking heads
to effectively be banned from appearing on the BBC
for daring to state views and evidence contrary
to ascendant elite narratives. However, the British state
broadcaster’s blacklisting activities also extend to its own
employees — 
in April
2018
,
the BBC admitted that for decades, job applicants and serving
staff were subject to political vetting by MI5, in an
effort to prevent “subversives” gaining employment with the
Corporation.

Often,
individuals were ostracized on extremely tenuous grounds. For
instance, respected film director John Goldschmidt was blacklisted
in the late 1960s, with two projects he was working on for
the Beeb cancelled midway through production without warning
or explanation — MI5 deemed him a potential subversive as he’d
spent a few weeks in Czechoslovakia in his youth, as part
of a student exchange program. Similarly, award-winning
journalist Isabel Hilton was refused a job by BBC Scotland
in 1976 — that she spoke Chinese and had been a member
of Scottish China Association at Edinburgh University made
MI5 extremely anxious.

Under
the policy, popular children’s book author and playwright Michael
Rosen was also outright sacked from the BBC in 1972 while a
graduate trainee for a number of ‘transgressions’, including
student activism at Oxford, and producing a film featuring clips
of US soldiers being tested with LSD. The American Embassy
in London complained about the project to both MI5 and
the BBC directly, whereupon Rosen was shown the door.

The
policy was wound down in the 1990s, and it’s unknown whether
any comparable structures existed at other major news
organizations — although 
City
University research
 suggests
dissenting voices remain rare in the British mainstream media.
The 2016 study concluded UK journalists are overwhelmingly white,
male, and elite-university educated — and are far more
trusting of politicians, the government, police and military
than the general population, which the study’s authors partly
attributed to reporters’ “reliance on these
institutions as sources of information”.

Such
widespread faith in the establishment may account for why
so many prominent reporters see no problem with maintaining
close relationships with the intelligence services. The
Guardian’s Luke Harding has frequently, openly and proudly
advertised his warm bond with British spying agencies
in articles and books — and equally frequently been
condemned for uncritically running stories of questionable
probity potentially provided to him by agency staff. 
In
a September article
 he
claimed Russian diplomats had held secret talks in London
with associates of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, in an
attempt to assist in his escape from the UK. The
covert action would’ve allegedly seen Assange smuggled out of
the Ecuadorian embassy in Knightsbridge under cover
of Christmas Eve in a diplomatic vehicle and transported
to Moscow.

The
story was entirely based on the testimony of anonymous
sources, the identity of which Harding didn’t even hint at in
the piece. In response, Craig Murray, former UK Ambassador
to Uzbekistan, slammed the article, calling it a “quite
extraordinary set of deliberate lies” and “entirely black
propaganda” published by an “MI6 tool”.

I
was closely involved with Julian and with Fidel Narvaez
of the Ecuadorean Embassy at the end of last year
in discussing possible future destinations for Julian. It
is not only the case Russia did not figure in those plans, it is
a fact Julian directly ruled out the possibility as undesirable.
The entire story is a complete and utter fabrication. It is very
serious indeed when a newspaper like the Guardian prints a
tissue of deliberate lies in order to spread fake news
on behalf of the security services. I cannot find words
eloquent enough to express the depth of my contempt
for Harding and Katherine Viner, who have betrayed completely
the values of journalism,” Murray wrote.

Similarly,
in 2007 the Campaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention
in Iran 
published
an analysis
 of
44 articles written by Daily Telegraph Defence Editor Con
Couglin on Iran — including stories suggesting North
Korea was helping Tehran prepare a nuclear weapons test, and the
country was grooming Bin Laden’s successor. They found the pieces
almost invariably were based on “unnamed or untraceable” sources
in intelligence agencies or the UK Foreign Office and “published
at sensitive and delicate times” when there’d been
“relatively positive diplomatic moves” towards Iran, and
contained ‘exclusive revelations’ about Iran combined
with eye-catchingly controversial headlines, which were
typically based on a single sentence in the wider article.

PRISON
BREAK

Despite
his bleak analysis, TJ does not view the elite monopoly
on information as insurmountable, or invincible —
there’s much individuals and groups can do to shatter the
stranglehold.

People
should keep a keen eye on sources that analyse news reporting
and misreporting, such as 
Glasgow
University Media Group
 and MediaLens,
which offer alternative information and tell you what media coverage
is actively omitting from the real story. However, change must
come from within too — people should divorce themselves
from preconceptions, and question their beliefs wherever and
whenever possible. When presented with information that doesn’t
conform to our predispositions, we should ask ourselves whether
it’s true, rather than reflexively dismissing it outright,”
TJ says.

While
having less trust in the media more generally is a must, the
academic also warns against placing too much faith
in alternative news outlets and social networks, despite them
being valuable resources with a significant positive potential.

Independent
media is growing in size and strength, but its overall
reach is still relatively tiny — while print circulation is
obviously down, people still get the vast bulk of their
information from mainstream outlets. Similarly, social media
could’ve democratized the spread of information, but it
hasn’t — and in fact any such potential has probably
been neutered by the proliferation of ‘fact-checking’
resources, which are anything but unbiased and disinterested
arbiters of truth,” TJ notes.

One-such
‘fact-checker’ is the Atlantic Council, a NATO-offshoot
with a 
board
of directors
 comprised
of a ‘who’s who’ of contentious US political figures,
including Henry Kissinger, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, Robert
Gates, Michael Hayden and David Petraeus, among others.

It
partnered with Facebook in May to “independently monitor
disinformation and other vulnerabilities” and combat the spread
of fake news on the platform. 
To
date
,
the collaboration has resulted in untold hundreds of pages
and personal accounts being shut down — rather than being
promulgators of propaganda though, the overwhelming bulk of the
banished were alternative news sources, political organizations and
individuals, highlighting issues and events the mainstream media
downplays or ignores, such as US interventionism, drug
legalization and police brutality.

Moreover,
that elites exploit social media’s information-sharing capabilities
to suit their own objectives is well-established.

The
US State Department has used major social networks to recruit
revolutionaries on several occasions, most notably during the
‘Arab Spring’, connecting ‘moderate rebels’ — actually
violent jihadist lunatics — in select countries.
Washington wanted Assad, Gaddafi and Mubarak gone, because they
weren’t following orders — but there were no
Twitter or Facebook ‘revolutions’ in the Gulf states,
because the American empire wanted their rulers to remain
in place. In Cuba, the CIA even went as far as creating
a social network for the same purpose,” TJ concludes.

The
views and opinions expressed by the contributors do not
necessarily reflect those of Sputnik

This
report prepared by 
Kit
Klarenberg
 for Sputnik

=========================================

Zie ook:

New York Times: eerste Israëlische inval in Gazastrook sinds 2014 >> fake news!

Noord-Koreaans ‘bedrog met nucleaire deal’ is fake news o.a. gebracht door de New York Times

‘Fake News’ misbruikt door dictaturen en de reguliere (massa-) media

Twitter weert waarheid: Paul Craig Roberts in de ban, Roberts >> de grote criticus van de illegale oorlogen die de VS voert

Russiagate sprookje ondermijnt VS democratie en de midterm verkiezingen

Bolsonaro, de fascistische nieuwe president van Brazilië, werd volgens Avaaz en fake news brengers als de NYT gekozen door manipulatie via WhatsApp

Facebooks zuivering van de alternatieve (nieuws) media staat nog in de kinderschoenen

Politico rapport bevestigt: Russiagate is een hoax‘ (Russiagate, de enorme leugen op basis waaraan we de huidige censuurgolf te danken hebben……)

The US military’s vision for state censorship

Israël en VS werken samen in tegenwerken van critici op beleid t.a.v. Palestijnen

Facebook censureert de waarheid over Columbus en de verovering van de Amerika’s…….

Facebook censuur gestuurd door het westers militair-industrieel complex en de NAVO in het bijzonder……….

Why the Coordinated Alternative Media Purge Should Terrify Everyone‘ (Tyler Durden op Zero Hedge)

First They Came for Alex Jones — We Told You We Were Next — We Were‘ (Matt Agorist op The Free Thought Project)

CNN, de grote brenger van ‘fake news!!!’

Facebook en Twitter verwijderen nu volledige accounts………

Facebook (en Twitter) onderdrukt meningsvorming door het verwijderen van (echt) onafhankelijke media

Wie het nieuws controleert, controleert de wereld……

Facebook en Twitter verwijderen de eerlijke journalistiek en oprechte opinie >> censuur…..

Facebook verlaat ‘tranding news’ voor ‘brekend nieuws’ van 80 reguliere mediaorganen, ofwel nog meer ‘fake news…..’

Facebook komt met nieuwsshows van betrouwbare media als CNN en Fox News…. ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!

Censuur op het internet met vliegende start in de VS, ‘het land van het vrije woord….’

Facebook en NAVO werken samen in censuur op niet welgevallig nieuws……

Facebook helpt Saoedi-Arabië: doodstraf door onthoofding van vrouw die het waagde kritiek te uiten…..

Aanval op alternatieve media ‘succesvol’: meer en meer sites worden van het net geweerd………

ThinkProgress eiste censuur van Facebook en werd inderdaad gecensureerd…. ha! ha! ha! ha!

VS staatscensuur op Facebook (ook in de EU)

Facebook stelt perstituee van New York Times aan als censuur-agent…… ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!

Het echte Facebook schandaal: manipulatie van de gebruikers en gratis diensten voor eertijds presidentskandidaat Obama…….

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook doneerde aan de politici die hem in de VS aan de tand voelden >> in het EU parlement maakte hij gebruik van megalomane EU politici…..

Facebook wil samen met door Saoedi-Arabië gesubsidieerde denktank censureren…. ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!

Media Too Busy Defending John McCain to Report the News That Actually Affects You‘ Onder andere aandacht voor PRISM.

Westerse massa misleiding in aanloop naar WOIII……

VS gebruikt sociale media om ‘fake comment’ te verspreiden en de bevolking te hersenspoelen met leugens, ofwel ‘fake news….’

Eis een nee tegen censuur op het internet!‘ 

Facebook e.a. hebben lak aan AVG (GDPR), misbruik persoonsgegevens gaat gewoon door…….

Jeremy Corbyn wordt gedemoniseerd als antisemiet…….

VS gebruikt sociale media om ‘fake comment’ te verspreiden en de bevolking te hersenspoelen met leugens, ofwel ‘fake news….’

Facebook: verrijking van oliemaatschappijen en andere grote bedrijven, plus wereldwijde corruptie…….

Rusland krijgt alweer de schuld van hacken, nu van oplichters Symantec en Facebook……. ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!

Facebook Purges Independent Media for “Political Disinformation”

Facebook Blocks Links to Free Speech Competitor ‘Minds’

Neil deGrasse Tyson, de populaire astrofisicus, is grootlobbyist van het militair-industrieel complex

Neil
deGrasse Tyson is de astrofisicus die vaak te zien is in programma’s
over het buitenaardse en is een goede verteller, kan niet anders
zeggen. Helaas heeft deze wetenschapper een heel vuil randje, zo is
hij voorstander van Trump’s militarisering van ‘de aardse ruimte’ en mocht
het de VS lukken hier de dominante factor te worden, kunnen we pas
echt onze borst natmaken.

Als
de VS inderdaad de aardse ruimte kan domineren, domineert het ook het
leven op aarde, iets waar deze grootste terreurentiteit op aarde nu al ‘goed’ in
is………

Lees
het volgende artikel van T.J. Coles, overgenomen van CounterPunch en
je haar zal rechtovereind gaan staan :

SEPTEMBER
14, 2018

Neil
deGrasse Tyson: A Celebrity Salesman for the
Military-Industrial-Complex

byT.J.
COLES

Photo
Source Tricia McKinney | 
CC
BY 2.0

The
idea for this article came from one of those annoying “Recommended
for you” thumbnails on YouTube. The title was: “Neil deGrasse
Tyson: Trump’s Space Force (USSF) Is Not a Crazy Idea.” Having written
about and researched space weapons for over a decade, I was intrigued
as to why a seemingly intelligent man (Tyson) would want to help
promote an agenda that will literally imperil us all, namely the
weaponization of space: the end-game of which is global domination in
the interests of economic neoliberalism. So I clicked. Tyson was
talking to host Stephen Colbert about the wonders of space
militarization (by the US, of course, not its enemies).

It
turns out that Tyson is promoting a new, co-authored book, 
Accessory
to War: the Unspoken Alliance Between Astrophysics and the
Military
 (W.W.
Norton, released, tastelessly, on 11 September), which is all about
the history of science militarization. The book is a disgraceful
attempt to use history as an excuse to justify the continuation and
expansion of taxpayer-funded R&D into hi-technology via military
budgets. By now, the hi-tech sector dominates the top US
corporations: Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft. Much of
the innovations used by these companies were initiated in the
military.

Tyson
is doing the rounds on national media, including Colbert and 
CBS
This Morning,
 to
promote the book and more broadly continued public expenditure on the
Pentagon. After a little digging, I found that America’s favourite
astrophysicist is a glorified salesman for the
military-industrial-complex.

TYSON’S
MILITARY-SCIENCE BACKGROUND

Having
graduated from the Bronx High School of Science, Tyson went on to
earn a PhD in astrophysics from Columbia University in 1991. From
1996, Tyson has been Frederick P. Rose director of the 
Hayden
Planetarium
 at
the American Museum of Natural History.

Pretty
soon, the George W. Bush administration was calling on Tyson’s
talents for all things space-related. Under President Bill Clinton,
the Space Command (later Air Force Space Command [USAFSC]) announced plans to
dominate the entire world by force, 
“Full
Spectrum Dominance”
 as
the successors continue to call it. In 2001, under Bush, the 
Rumsfeld
Space Commission,
 sought
ways to expand the  weaponization of space to reinforce US-led
corporate globalization and the architecture — satellites, GPS, the
internet, etc. — that supports it. In the same year, Tyson became a
formal employee of the Bush administration. One of his biographical
webpages 
states:

In
2001, Tyson was appointed by President Bush to serve on a 12-member
commission that studied the Future of the US Aerospace Industry. The
final report was published in 2002 and contained recommendations (for
Congress and for the major agencies of the government) that would
promote a thriving future of transportation, space exploration, and
national security.”

The
Final Report of the Commission on the Future of the United
StatesAerospace Industry,
 
 on
which Tyson worked, makes for an interesting read. It starts from an
elite-nationalistic viewpoint, namely that of maintaining US
supremacy in innovation before, discussing in Appendix G:
“Astronautical research and development, including resources,
personnel, equipment, and facilities; Outer space exploration and
control.” “Control,” no less. Controlling space is a core part
of “Full Spectrum Dominance.” Tyson’s biography
also 
states that
in 2004, he:

was
once again appointed by President Bush to serve on a 9-member
commission on the Implementation of the United States Space
Exploration Policy, dubbed the ‘Moon, Mars, and Beyond’
commission. This group navigated a path by which the new space vision
can become a successful part of the American agenda.”

The
follow-up Tyson-co-authored report,
 A
Journey to Inspire, Innovate, and Discover
,
also makes interesting reading. It states:

Of
particular importance to the space exploration vision is a strong
partnership between NASA and the Department of Defense, where
research, technical assistance, and operational assets are often
shared. The Commission believes that the role of the existing
Partnership Council – wherein NASA, the Air Force, and National
Reconnaissance Office (NRO) coordinate mutual work and interests – should
also focus actively on supporting the new vision.”

The
report says the US should “DARPA-ize” (my phrase) NASA. DARPA is
the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency which uses taxpayer
money to innovate the hi-technology which now dominates the top-ten
list of US corporations. DARPA famously brought us the internet, for
instance. The 
report says:

we
suggest that the Administration and Congress create within NASA an
organization drawing upon lessons learned from the Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency (DARPA). DARPA is a highly successful
organization that is chartered to fund high-risk/high return basic
research in support of national defense priorities.”

R&D
SALESMAN

The
high-risk is paid for by the taxpayer who then buy back the given
product on the consumer market. For example: touch-screen technology
now used by Apple, for instance, came out of technology 
developed
for the Air Force
.

Disturbingly,
the report recommends that NASA integrate a contract system like the
US Missile “Defense” program, which is so  essential to the
overall goal of “Full Spectrum Dominance” (on his recent CBS
piece, Tyson doesn’t challenge the erroneous assumption  that
the system is for “defense”), The 
report says:
“In the case of U.S. Missile Defense, for example, the integrator
is responsible for the overall system of systems architecture, and
for integrating the space, air, land, and sea elements of the
architecture.”

The
goal of a successful propaganda system is to sell science designed
and applied for military use (itself serving the dual-functions of
ensuring US global corporate supremacy and innovation in the hi-tech
economy) to the public as “cool” and fun. Enter Tyson. Since
working for the federal government on these schemes, he has 
hosted the
PBS-NOVA series, Origins; worked on The Pluto Files documentary;
appeared on ScienceNOW; and has hosted StarTalk (funded in part by
the taxpayer-funded National Science Foundation [NSF]), which features
comedians who attract laypeople to science.

Tyson
joined the US military’s 15-member Defense Innovation Board (DIB),
launched in 2016. The board advises the Defense Secretary on numerous
issues. DIB continues the all-American tradition of ripping off
taxpayers by using their money to invest in hi-tech innovation under
the cover of a “defense” budget. DIB 
says:

Some
of the foremost topics the DIB is exploring include artificial
intelligence, machine learning, workforce capacity, organizational
structure, hiring and retention strategies, acquisition reform,
electronic and drone warfare, software capabilities, and IT
infrastructure.”

FLEECING
THE PUBLIC

So,
with this background, it’s not surprising that Tyson would appear
on national television and talk up the Defense Department. But it’s
crucial for any successful propaganda campaign that his record with
the federal government be suppressed, minimized or justified. Hence,
the failure (refusal?) of host Stephen Colbert to mention any of this
to the casual viewer. The show gives the impression that Tyson is
just a fun and intelligent man with no vested interests. In fact,
Tyson lies and tells both Colbert and CBS: “I have no dog in this
fight” in relation to Trump’s (read: the Pentagon’s) creation
of a “Space Force.”

As
noted, Tyson has been a government advisor and at the time of
appearing on the shows was a member of a DoD board. In addition, we
all have a “dog in the fight” of space weaponization because
fragile and complex space systems could result in catastrophic
failures, including miscommunications which can escalate into
near-terminal catastrophe, as has happened many times in the past in
relation to nuclear weapons (see, for instance, Daniel Ellsberg’s
chilling book, 
The
Doomsday
 
Machine).
Adding a space dimension to fraught and dangerous geopolitical
situations only adds to the risk.

Last
month, US Defense Secretary and war criminal, James 
“it’s
fun to shoot some people”
 Mattis,
told reporters that the Pentagon was advocating for a separate US
Space Command in response to the Defense Policy Bill’s plan to
integrate space systems under the Strategic Command (which also
oversees nuclear strategy). Mattis was initially against this,
says 
Space
News,
 but
has changed his mind in light of Trump’s (read: the Pentagon’s)
insistence on having a “Space Force”.

With
the new “Space Force” (as yet a nickname) potentially going
ahead, the friendly faces of US imperialism are rolled out to justify
expanding the militarization of space. Luckily, Tyson has a new book
on the same topic to promote. In addition, Trump’s undeserved
reputation as a moron (see my book 
President
Trump, Inc.
)
required the media presence of a respected professional (i.e., Tyson)
to promote the “Space Force.”

AN
AMORAL BOOK

In Accessory
to War
,
the authors write:

A
vibrant economy … depends on at least one of the following: the
profit motive,  war on the ground, or war in space … Must war
and profit be what drive both civilization on Earth and the
investigation of other worlds? History … makes it hard to answer no
… Star charts, calendars, chronometers, telescopes, maps,
compasses, rockets, satellites, drones–these war not inspirational
civilian endeavors. Dominance was their goal; increase of knowledge
was incidental.

The
first few years after 9/11 were a fine time to be mercenary, a
military engineering firm, or a giant aerospace company.”

Recall
that Tyson worked to promote the aeroindustry. Tyson acknowledges
that “the space research my colleagues and I conduct plugs firmly
and fundamentally into the nation’s military might.” At a
conference involving military brass, Tyson was directly exposed via
live-feed to the realities of blowing women and children apart with
hi-tech weapons in Iraq in 2003 from high-ground platforms. He
writes, self-pityingly:

Blinking
back tears and fighting to keep my composure, I thought about leaving
the conference. I began to choreograph my resignation from the board
of the Space Foundation. But at the same time I felt I couldn’t
just walk out of the sanctum of war…

[W]ithout
the power sought by its participants … and without the tandem
investments in  technology fostered by that quest for power,
there would be no astronomy, no astrophysics, no astronauts, no
exploration of the solar system, and barely any comprehension of the
cosmos.”

That’s
alright then. Tyson told CBS This Morning that he found a
psychological trick to avoid feeling responsible, namely to blame
everyone else: “I had to re-direct the causes and effects of this
violence, and say, ‘No. It’s us, the electorate’ ” — they
voted Bush in late-2000 (yeah, right). “If you have access to
weaponry that can achieve a geopolitical goal that is noble then, I’m
not there to stand in judgement of it,” he also told CBS.

MEANWHILE,
IN THE REAL WORLD…

Tyson
is careful to avoid mentioning that both China and Russia have
repeatedly advocated for signing a peace treaty with the US, both
for 
space and cyber
warfare

not because Russia and China are “good guys,” but because as much
weaker military powers it is in their interests to constrain US
military actions and not provoke the superpower by engaging in the
same, unless the US does it first. In fact, on the Colbert show,
Tyson even mentions the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 and ridicules it
as an equivalent of singing “Cumbayá.”

Meanwhile,
groups are actively thinking up ways to transform military spending
into peaceful R&D for a green- and other hi-tech economy.

report by
the German-based institute IFSH notes that military R&D is not an
inevitability. Following the end of the Cold War, military R&D
declined. But, “[e]ven in the US, civilian spending is now
substantially larger than military spending.” Why, then, place
emphasis on  military R&D, as Tyson does? In most countries,
says the author, “There has been a major shift towards military use
of technologies driven by civilian r&d, particularly in
electronics.”

In
terms of practical alternatives, Campaign Against the Arms
Trade 
notes that
skills shortages in the UK (the same applies to the US) means that
renewable energy sectors would be glad to employ people previously
skilled in the arms industry. Doing so lacks political will only. In
addition, the Campaign Against Climate Change 
reckons that
the UK could become a carbon neutral economy, employing one million
people, for £19bn a year, which is about half the current military
budget. This would also involve the kind of technological innovations
currently privileged by the military sector.

The
US transformed itself into a war economy during WWII and has remained
that ever since. But, with enough public pressure, it can be
transformed into a peace- and renewables economy. Don’t let
intellectuals fool you into thinking there are no alternatives to war
— and in this case, potentially terminal war.

More
articles by:
T.J.
COLES

Dr.
T. J. Coles
 is
director of the Plymouth Institute for Peace Research and the author
of several books, including 
Voices
for Peace
 (with
Noam Chomsky and others) and the forthcoming 
Fire
and Fury: How the US Isolates North Korea, Encircles China and Risks
Nuclear War in Asia
 (both
Clairview Books).

======================================

Zie ook:

Star Wars 2.0: Trump wil een ‘raketafweersysteem’ in de ruimte

Trump zag onlangs alle afleveringen van Star Wars en wil de VS nu ook militair overwicht geven in de ruimte…….

CDA wil Nederlands ‘space force’ in de ruimte……. ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!