Colombia formally joins NATO: wtf? & woe to VZ and Bolivia

…and any other leftist/socialist nations that might unwind the recent putsches in Brazil, Argentina, and Central America to install US-approved neoliberal leaders with the consummate aid of CIA fronts USAID, NED, and new to me: the DNI (Instituto Democratico Nacional).

My guess is that this diary will be largely copy/paste, as there’s too much info to reinterpret in my limited time, an longish to boot.  I’ll add that the wtf? answer will ring as clear as crystal goblet tapped with a tuning fork by the end.

From Alex Gorka May 28, strategicculture.org:

“Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos announced on May 25 that his country had formally become a “global partner” of NATO — the first Latin American state to obtain an official status in the organization, which is to be formalized this week. Colombia joins Afghanistan, Australia, Iraq, Japan, South Korea, Mongolia, New Zealand, and Pakistan — other nations also listed as “partners across the globe” or “global partners,” but none of them in Latin America. The areas for cooperation include improvements to the combat capabilities of the Colombian military, good governance, military education and training, the security of sea lanes, cyber security, and ways to combat terrorism and organized crime.

The president’s statement came on the same day that the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said that Bogota would be officially invited to join — their reward for steering a pro-Western course.”

He writes that NATO/Bogata cooperation has been rising since 2013, and in 2016 Bogata signed a ‘military cooperation with the block.  Apparently in 2009 Bogata allowed NATO bases in Colombia as well, all of which are in violation of the principles of the Non-Aligned Movement.  He then mentions other examples of NATO expansion having ceased to be a European Group, but now it’s spreading to another continent, as seriously big deal.

While this formalizes Colombia’s status as a ‘global partner’, there have been US special ops in the country under the guise of fighting drug traffikers, as the UK does in the Falklands, and NATO bases in the Caribbean:

“…which is not exactly part of South America but rather a suboceanic basin of the western Atlantic Ocean, bordered by the coasts of two South American nations: Venezuela and Colombia (Panama is part of Central America). The report NATO 2020: Assured Security, Dynamic Engagement mentions the possibility of military operations in Latin America and the Caribbean. Colombia is an essential country for NATO’s global expansion, because it’s the only one in South America with coasts on both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. Status in NATO paves the way for the bloc’s bases on Colombian soil to be added to the US facilities already in place.

UNASUR and its military arm South American Defense Council were expressly created in 2009 to operate outside US influence, but it does include Venezuela and Boliva.  Noting that Argentina will host the August 2018 SADC conference, Colombia’s new status will ‘influence’ the proceedings. 

“Bogota may become a connecting link between NATO and South America, in an attempt to sideline the SADC as the entity that defines the continent’s defense policy.”

Gorka wants readers to know the backstory of the ‘announcement’ (and timing, more additions to that later):

“Last month, six South American states, including Brazil, Argentina, and Colombia, suspended their memberships in UNASUR, the anti-US bloc, to express their dissatisfaction with Bolivia’s leadership, thus rendering the SADC irrelevant. UNASUR sought to bypass the US-influenced Organization of American States (OAS). Colombia’s NATO status is part of a trend — the US is making efforts to boost its influence in Latin America while the continent is becoming increasingly divided.

It should be noted that the six countries that have left UNASUR are members of the Lima Group that was set up last August by twelve North and South American nations, including Canada, which are by and large friendly to the United States, especially after the left-wing leaders lost power in Argentina and Brazil. The group opposes the governments of Bolivia and Venezuela, which call for the continent’s independence from Washington.

And yes, that NATO now has a toehold in South America with access to the Pacific, we can look for increased meddling in South American politics and increase NATO memberships.  A list of NATO PARTNERS, besides the 29 ‘official ones’.

Here’s a link to NATO 2020: Assured Security, Dynamic Engagement, begun in 2009, and good gawd all-friday, can’t we get away from Miz ‘It was worth it’?

“At their Summit in Strasbourg/Kehl in April, 2009, Alliance leaders directed Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen to convene a broadly-based group of qualified experts to prepare the ground for a new NATO Strategic Concept. The Group of Experts, led by its chair Madeleine K. Albright (United States) and vice-chair Jeroen van der Veer (The Netherlands), began work in September 2009.”  Just scanning a few pages of the report reads almost like satire, and it’s hard to know if even the participants believe what they’ve written.

Now consider more of the timing: Nicolas Maduro, heir to Hugo Chavez’s Bolivarian presidency, was just re-elected as the leader of Venezuela.  If there are more than a dozen nations that have recognized his election, I can’t think of them.  Even before the election took place, Western media just blasted the hell out of its ‘illegitimacy’, ‘corruption’, ‘tyranny’, and what have you….repeatedly.  Now that he was re-elected, even though voter turnout was low due to the MUD opposition having pretty much boycotted the vote, cries of foul are ubiquitous and unanimous.  Here are the Cliffs Notes:

‘Media Delegitimize Venezuelan Elections Amid Complete Unanimity of Outlook’, Alan MacLeod, May 23, 2018, fair.org

“Nicolás Maduro was successfully re-elected president of Venezuela on Sunday, receiving 5.8 million of the 8.6 million ballots cast, on a turnout of 46 percent. His nearest challenger, Henri Falcon, received 1.8 million votes. The process was watched over by 150 international observers from over 30 countries, among them former Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, who said (Telesur, 5/20/18): “I do not have any doubt about the voting process. It is an advanced automatic voting system.”

Another election observer was former Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa, who announced via Twitter (5/20/18):

The Venezuelan elections are developing with absolute normalcy. I’ve attended four polling stations. There is a permanent flow of citizenship, with short waiting and voting times. Very modern system with double control. From what I’ve seen, [it’s] impeccable organization.”

He cites a long list of hair-curling freak out headlines and mentions some of the #FakeNews heaped onto the oil-laden, overly-sanctioned, fairly drowning in regime-change attempts (several times against Chavez), mainly because Hugo had nationalized the oil, and taken back some of the feudal lords back for the Campesino agriculturalists.

See: Sanction, Intervene: How US Works to Defy Venezuelan Democracy’, May 18, telesur english

“When Hugo Chavez assumed the presidency, the state oil company was restructured so that the nation’s vast wealth could be used to benefit the Venezuelan people. Under Chavez, huge strides were made to invest in education, healthcare and housing projects.

But not everyone was pleased. The United States, along with the Venezuelan classes who had long enriched themselves with oil rents on the backs of the majority, made it clear they would not tolerate the radical democracy of Chavismo.

The strategy of the North American empire and its local allies follows a pattern. To destroy a socialist, oil-rich country, one must lower oil prices, apply sanctions, ally with internal reactionary forces, destroy the economy and – when the moment is right – stage a coup.” [snip]

“Those who orchestrated the [2002] coup [against Chavez] were later revealed to have had close links to U.S. officials in the Bush administration, having been reported by the Organization of American States (OAS) to have held “a number of meetings” with Bush’s Latin America policy adviser, Otto Reich, a right-wing Cuban American who served as U.S. ambassador to Caracas in 1986.”

But holy smoke, how’s this for concerted timing?

OAS Expects Tougher Venezuela Sanctions After Criminal Report’, May 30, bloomberg.com (with Almagro video, naturally)

A report [pdf 405 pages, egad] charging Venezuela’s government with crimes against humanity will be sent to the International Criminal Court on Wednesday as the head of the Organization of American States (OAS) said he expects increasingly tougher sanctions to target President Nicolas Maduro’s regime soon.

Luis Almagro, the OAS secretary-general, said he expects at least one country to sponsor his organization’s report — which would trigger a formal investigation by the ICC — within a month. He declined to say which country would likely sponsor the effort, though he said four countries have signaled an interest in doing so.

An indictment by the ICC would put Maduro’s government on a par with regimes including Omar al-Bashir’s Sudan and Libya’s late Moammar Al Qaddafi.”

“If the government does fall, its successor will have to work hard to rebuild the oil industry, which has long been the linchpin of the country’s economy. Almagro said he expects the situation in Venezuela to deteriorate quickly in the next month.”

Then comes a long list of Maduro’s financial mismanagement and ‘crimes against humanity’…

“In a statement Late Tuesday, Venezuela’s permanent OAS mission “categorically rejected” the report, saying it was prepared by “anti-Venezuelan activists” and was based on the testimony of “criminal fugitives.”

The report is part of a “propaganda campaign against the Venezuelan state, whose sole objective is to overthrow the Constitutional Government of President Nicolas Maduro,” the diplomats said in a statement.” yada, yada, tra la la.

OMG: these are the OAS’s Cliffs Notes of their report on Maduro’s crimes against humanity, and even they look 2 L 2 read, much less abbreviate.  But not satire, sadly.  I’m not a fan of Max Blumenthal, but he has some scuttlebutt on the ‘who’s who’ of the OAS panel and his brave appearance there.

NATO’s essential and enduring purpose is to safeguard the freedom and security of all its members by political and military means. Collective defence is at the heart of the Alliance and creates a spirit of solidarity and cohesion among its members.”  Except:

Via RT June 3:
“NATO is not obliged to come to the rescue should a hypothetical war break out between Iran and Israel, Jens Stoltenberg has told Germany’s Der Spiegel, amid increased tensions between the bitter Middle East rivals.

“Israel is our partner, but not a member of NATO. The security guarantee of Article 5 does not apply to Israel,” Secretary General of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Jens Stoltenberg told the magazine. Article 5 of NATO’s treaty stipulates that an attack against one ally is considered as an attack against all allies, but it does not apply to those designated only as “partners” of the alliance.”  Or: only when we say so.

But fear not!  Poland is offering $2 billion for NATO to put a permanent military base there!

(cross-posted from Café Babylon)

Share
up
0 users have voted.

Comments

The Aspie Corner's picture

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2CQrKAcTPI]

Speaking of Colombia, here's an interesting interview between Abby Martin and a CIA backed right-wing asshole.

up
0 users have voted.

Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.

Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.

Pluto's Republic's picture

up
0 users have voted.

____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
wendy davis's picture

i love abby, and i'll try to save 18 minutes to listen. thanks for caring enough to read.

up
0 users have voted.
mimi's picture

this site's 'blockquote' feature?

I would love to really read your essays and dig into them, but you make it so difficult for the reader. If you like writing and informing us, why don't you care for the readers' needs to get it formatted in a way that is comfortably readable to them?

Please someone may help you getting from your procedure of writing text in your format to transform it into a format readable here. It would be really a shame to lose so much information embedded in your essays due to formal format issues.

No offense, just a plea from a reader. I hope you don't mind. Otherwise I will go over to your cafe and read it there ... Smile but I don't want to cheat on JtC. So, there is that too ...

Oh, NATO, I thought it's something with NORTH Atlantic Treaty Organization. Now people don't know anymore where is North and where is South? And these ... work in the military?
I guess they shoot always in the wrong directions then, heh ....

up
0 users have voted.

@mimi
uses the Wordpress CMS at her site. Wordpress formats their essays differently than the Drupal system so Wendy can't do a simple copy/paste from her site's editor into our editor, it wont work that way. So she uses a browser extension called EasyCopy that allows her to copy the HTML code directly from her essay page at cafe babylon and then paste it into our editor. It works great but the HTML that gets transferred is one huge continuous mass of code that is truly a massive undertaking searching through it all to figure out where the blockquote tags would go. Even myself, fairly good at reading code have a hard time deciphering the code that EasyCopy leaves in our editor. Therefore it is far easier for Wendy and myself to just let the code she copies to display as it does at her site. She can't use blockquotes at her site so she color codes the text she is quoting and that's how it copies here.

It is no fault of Wendy that she doesn't use blockquotes here as it's a monumental task to do so, even for me, and I don't have the time to do it for her. That is the only way that she can crosspost her essays here, it's either post them as they are or not crosspost at all. I know the colored text is a pain for some folks but it is what it is to have Wendy post here.

up
0 users have voted.
CS in AZ's picture

@JtC

Wendy’s essays are great, and once you see that color is used in her posts in place of blockqoute to set off quotations, I find it’s not really too difficult to follow along. I really appreciate her bringing her essays here. Thanks for the explanation.

up
0 users have voted.
mimi's picture

@JtC
my apologies to Wendy for my whining and complaining.

I will try to go through the moves and decipher the colored text. It's so strange as the colors show only when you move the cursor or something.

May be I should try other browsers. I am sorry, I was too tired to really figure it out.

up
0 users have voted.
mimi's picture

@mimi
because the colored text now shows permanently and consistently. When I read her essay this morning it wasn't the case. Now it's much better.

Really, coding correctly must be a nightmare. I have a lot of respect for people who can do that.

All is fine. Thank You.

up
0 users have voted.
wendy davis's picture

@mimi

exactly what JtC has kindly explained to you again once below. the only other thing i've explained to you, travelerxxx, snoopydawg, and a few others that even if i had the extra time that it would take to build a diary in this software rather than easycopy from the café version, i wouldn't, as i don't like the text boxes. i didn't even at a site i used to co-administer that featured them.

the other complaints by a number of you have been: too long, too many facts, i can't discern the colored text, i'm color blind, tra la la. so many recent diaries i made shorter, and have used this infernal dark royal blue ink (which when i have time, i go back to the café and change to deep teal, which doesn't harsh my mellow as this ink does). but do note that quotes are in color, and have er...quotation marks, to boot. my words have no quote marks, and are in black.

your thing about not wanting to cheat jtc by reading (hell, commenting?) at the café took me aback for several reasons, only one of which is that i sometimes note at the bottom of a diary that if after a couple, three days i forget to check for new comments, 'please come knock on my door at the café'.

hard to not want to just delete this whole mess, frankly. exactly ONE comment was on the content.

up
0 users have voted.
mimi's picture

@wendy davis
you even emotional pain leading toward being depressed,
As far as I can tell the way your essay's colored paragraph were showing up on my browser was not what others might have seen properly all along.

Now it is fixed and it's easy to follow. JtC must have done something that fixed it for me.
I can't explain it otherwise, because now I see the colored paragraphs permanently displayed and not just when I scrolled over them with the cursor.

Don't be angry at my humorously meant comment about 'reading over at the cafe' equals cheating on JtC. I was meant as a joke. And quite clearly a joke which you didn't need, one coming at you at the wrong time, in the wrong format and for the wrong reasons. I am very sorry for that.

Please forgive.

up
0 users have voted.
wendy davis's picture

@mimi

so i'll accept it, but that doesn't mean i'm not still pissed and depressed. and that's because we've had this discussion many times, and even when i kidded around in a couple titles: ('shorter, dark blue ink'), it hasn't helped a bit. when the sun rises tomorrow, i'll likely have most of my equanimity back.

peace to you, mimi.

up
0 users have voted.
mimi's picture

@wendy davis
and really have so much other stuff going on in my head and life I can't concentrate and focus on what was written by you and others before. I just don't remember things anymore easily. I really don't. In many other aspects of my real life as well.

I will try to be more thoughtful and less spontaenous in my venting frustrating comments in the future. Here is the only place on the whole internet I talk a little. It's my facebook, twitter, blog and news site all in one.

Please don't get down in depression. The whole site feels like it's going that way.
I just hope, you all come back fighting and swinging. If there is a will there is a way.
Cheesy, but I learned that from the Americans. So, it's true. /that's no snark/snark

up
0 users have voted.
Lookout's picture

our history in the Americas is sordid. The OAS is a sad story too.

Max Blumenthal went to a recent meeting (video or text)
https://therealnews.com/stories/exposing-the-oas-anti-venezuela-pro-us-b...

As you document the election in Venezuela was better than ours...
https://therealnews.com/stories/maduro-wins-the-presidency-in-venezuela-...

...and yet we refuse to recognize the result, but we do accept the obvious rigged Honduras elections. https://therealnews.com/stories/mweisbrot1201report

Things haven't changed since the days of Smedley...

Butler participated in a series of occupations, police actions, and interventions by the United States in Central America and the Caribbean, commonly called the Banana Wars because their goal was to protect American commercial interests in the region, particularly those of the United Fruit Company. This company had significant financial stakes in the production of bananas, tobacco, sugar cane, and other products throughout the Caribbean, Central America and the northern portions of South America. The U.S. was also trying to advance its own political interests by maintaining its influence in the region and especially its control of the Panama Canal. These interventions started with the Spanish–American War in 1898 and ended with the withdrawal of troops from Haiti and President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Good Neighbor Policy in 1934.[12] After his retirement, Butler became an outspoken critic of the business interests in the Caribbean, criticizing the ways in which U.S. businesses and Wall Street bankers imposed their agenda on United States foreign policy during this period.

http://military.wikia.com/wiki/Smedley_Butler

Any country which challenges US/global corporate rule is to be crushed. Columbia has been our ally in that pursuit for awhile - from wiki...

The relationship between the two states evolved from mutual cordiality during most of the 19th and early 20th centuries[citation needed] to a recent partnership that links the governments of both nations around several key issues; this includes fighting communism, the War on Drugs, and the threat of terrorism due to the September 11 attacks in 2001. During the last fifty years, different American governments and their representatives have become involved in Colombian affairs through the implementation of policies concerned with the issues already stated. Some critics of current US policies in Colombia, such as Law Professor John Barry, claim that US influences have catalyzed internal conflicts and substantially expanded the scope and nature of human rights abuses in Colombia.

Using the NATO label just adds to the weight of the club we swing in South America.

Thanks again, and I hope you continue to cross post here.

up
0 users have voted.

“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

wendy davis's picture

@Lookout

in the OP. had to laugh at your smedley butler quotes, which of course reminded me of 1985 iran-contra affair, and selling arms to iran partially to topple the socialist sandanistas in nicaragua. hovering over it all is also the monroe doctrine, as well.

but: long live alba (Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America)! well, except ecuador, as lenin moreno has signed some military accord with amerika, whether that pressure on assange is about genuflecting before the western hegemon or a combination of reasons.

i checked in on ajamu baraka on twitter, and apparenlty he took a lot of grief at left forum, perhaps for not being 'anti-assad' enough, but:

up
0 users have voted.
Pluto's Republic's picture

...this all cries "China" to me. There is no other geopolitical dynamic. Central and South America are nothing more than private bombing grounds and killing fields for US sport, with a couple of cocktail umbrellas sticking out here and there to mark the oil fields. It's an indigenous population. 'Nuff said.

But the US is in a fearful cold sweat from imagining that China is penetrating South America. (They are.) What's more, China seems to be involved in a love triangle with the US's former Nafta partners. So, how did this happen? The US obsession with "socialist" oil in Venezuela has given the Superpower erectile dysfunction on the World Stage:

Allies are pointedly ignoring US sanctions against Iran and retaliating against US tariffs. Russia and Germany won't stop building that damned pipeline across the Arctic. Both Korea's are yanking the Neocon's chain, and Kim Jong-un is more popular than the US President.

The simple fact is, all of this is connected to China, which is financing Venezuela and backdooring the PetroYuan to facilitate oil trades on Venezuela's sanction-free oil bourse. It didn't start out this way. The US's disastrous interventions and mad quest for Empire destabilized the world and pushed these unique alliances into existence.

Donald Trump dialed the chaos up to a ten after he arrived at the White House and began filling his cabinet with Neocon psychopaths and military misfits and rogues. John Bolton’s appointment to Security Advisor, along with the nomination of Iran-deal critic Mike Pompeo as secretary of state, alarmed the diplomatic world. Selecting Gina Haskel, the Mistress of Torture, to head the CIA, trumpeted the art for the deal. Trita Parsi, leader of the National Iranian American Council wrote on Twitter:

“People, let this be very clear: The appointment of Bolton is essentially a declaration of war with Iran. With Pompeo and Bolton, Trump is assembling a WAR CABINET.”

With that, the Mad Hatter's tea party was commenced — fittingly with a Tea Party Republican leading the way. Mike Pompeo likes to serve his foreign policy with belligerence, bombast, and bellicosity. He makes it clear he has little respect for the sovereignty of foreign nations, especially when they do not obey US demands. Between Pompeo at the State Department and Nikki Haley at the UN, global disgust with the US was on the rise.

While at the CIA, Pompeo suggested he was actively working on regime change in Venezuela, bringing US chaos to South America. Venezuela sits atop the largest oil field in the world. Sounds like an invasion will be sold to Congress as a good way to secure that oil while we privatize it. Congress thought of the parade of oil industry lobbyists that would come calling.

“Our intelligence makes very clear that the Maduro regime continues to put snipers in towers and do things that are horrible, repressive and the American policy is to work with our Latin American partners to try and restore democracy,” Pompeo weaseled.

When asked why Venezuela would be the US’s problem, Pompeo responded:

“Venezuela could very much become a risk for the United States of America. The Cubans are there; the Russians are there, the Iranians, Hezbollah are there. This is something that has a risk of getting to a very very bad place, so America needs to take this very seriously.”

The point of this entire exercise is to block China's oil trade with Venezuela and the rest of South America. That NATO base in Columbia has China's name on it.

up
0 users have voted.

____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
wendy davis's picture

@Pluto's Republic

in many respects, i’d add that the indigenous have been colononized and neo-colonized in so many upheavals in latin america, including w/ NAFTA that birthed the zapatista movement under pena nieto’s rule, dissolving the ejido system once again. even ahead of the great orange tweeter, obomba’s state dept. had sanctioned VZ up the wazoo for being ‘a direct threat to amerikan national security’. and of course under Rexxon’s rule, it all got more serious, including the fact that chavez had nationalized HIS oil, and HIS company was suing VZ for the offshore oil pools in contention...as Exxon was drilling, iirc.

i utterly agree with your formula about china and the petroyuan, and in fact in his ‘‘Will Iran Follow in the Footsteps of Venezuela – a Vanguard of a New World?’, june 4, peter koenig mentions some of the other realignments, and reminds readers of this:

“There are other reasons why Venezuela has become a vanguard of a new emerging world – a world that is separating itself gradually from the west. Other than China and Russia, Venezuela is among the first countries to abandon the US dollar as trading currency. Caracas has been selling its hydrocarbons to China for gold-convertible Yuan. Venezuela is also the world’s first country to introduce a government controlled, petrol backed cryptocurrency, the Petro which will soon be enhanced by the Petro-Oro, another government-controlled cryptocurrency, based on gold and other minerals.

None of the other, privately launched blockchain currencies, like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Monero, Ripple – and literally more than 3,000 digital blockchain currencies, have any backing. They can be considered similar to fiat money, highly speculative, lending themselves to money-laundering and other fraud.

When the Petro was launched in March 2018 it attracted presale interests from 133 countries of US$ 5 billion equivalent. The first day presale raised US$ 735 equivalent; impressive record figures indicating a huge interest of the world at large to find an alternative to the US currency dominated western monetary system – the one and only tailored to hand out sanctions, block international monetary transfers and confiscate foreign funds abroad. And this is because all international dollar transactions have to transit through a US bank either in London or in New York.”

Similar approaches are already happening large-scale by other nations, subject to Washington’s sanctions regime, i.e. Iran, Cuba, North Korea and of course China. Independence from the western economy also means moving away from globalization and especially the globalized US-dollar hegemony. – Venezuela is the vanguard of a slowly growing movement of countries that have already abandoned the use of the US-dollar for international trade, like India, Pakistan, Iran.”

and of course, the opposition in VZ had declared maduruo’s selling petro-backed crypto currency illegal.

but factor in the recent putsches against leftist leaders in argentina, brazil, honduras and installing US neoliberal puppets...it also looks like stopping the pink tide to me, which is why so many media hit pieces on maduro and chavismo have declared the bolivarian ‘experiment’ is...dead. cain't have no fucking socialists in our backyard, nossir! well, anyhoo, gotta scoot, and thank you.

up
0 users have voted.
Pluto's Republic's picture

@wendy davis

...that is, when I checked up on UNASUR, Google crammed a propaganda narrative at the top of my results. It's some kind of hit piece passing itself off as a news source. Disturbing stuff. Is this one of those subversive NGOs? I can spot the sabotage because I know what UNASUR stands for. But it looks like Google has weaponized its search results for certain users and is dishing filth to US inquiries.

That's bad news. That probably means the US is planning a false flag to invade Venezuela very soon, asset-strip its resources, and provide arms and training for the slaughter of its people. I bet they figure a way to cast some blame on Hamas, killing two birds with one stone.

The Chinese will deal with it pragmatically, but they will know exactly what they are looking at.

It's depressing, but it's not over. I read today that the US demanded that the Saudis flood the market with oil again. Push the price down. China, Saudi Arabia's biggest customer, has a better and more lucrative idea for them. All the Saudis have to do is accept the Yuan for oil. The moment that happens, OPEC follows and the game is over. The US is always laying the groundwork for its own doom, with unintended consequences.

up
0 users have voted.

____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
wendy davis's picture

@Pluto's Republic

well, it was created in aid of the opposition, of course, it reads like henrique caprilles and leopoldo lopez dictation to media scribes to the Imperial Project; even da wiki says so:

"David Frum said at The Daily Beast that Chavismo was not sustainable, and that when oil prices declined, Caracas Chronicles "will be the essential guide" and The Associated Press says that the website's English-language musings are a must-read for foreign journalists, academics and political junkies".

i admit i couldn't suss out exactly what that op-ed was posting, but i did love some of the other titles: 'With an Executive Order signed yesterday by Donald Trump, the U.S. government limits Maduro’s abilities to save himself and the rest of chavismo from the financial crisis they’re in.'

'HBO’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver focused on the Venezuelan crisis. Far from perfect, at least it’s a good introduction to Maduro and his government.' well, fuck john oliver then, and i do mean that in the most polite way possible.

but sure it's all down to VZ (even if boliva) that six SA nations Brazil, Argentina, and Colombia, have fled unasur, and have now created the Lima group "that was set up last August by twelve North and South American nations, including Canada, which are by and large friendly to the United States, especially after the left-wing leaders lost power in Argentina and Brazil. The group opposes the governments of Bolivia and Venezuela, which call for the continent’s independence from Washington.”
(gorka)

tell me what they'd written to indicate a coming false flag, please, as i'd said to a café commenter who'd hope that colombia 'offishull) joining nato would galvanize other nation to fight the trend...
that given who all has left unasur, and with the advent of Lima group: "and remember when the subtext of a more open putsch on maduro was that there would be false flag border disputes by colombia and other unfriendly neighbors then…some sort of r2p rescue ‘the poor venezuelans’ scenario? now the west has increased ability to put such plans in motion. ay yi yi." and i may have been remembering my thoughts on my 'PSA from ajamu baraka' on the coming war on VZ' (or close). seemed written in the stars even then.

one of the links i didn't include was Zbig weighing in at FP mag on the birthing of the report NATO 2020: Assured Security, Dynamic Engagement

optimal quote: 'NATO IS NOT A COLD-WAR RELIC!'

but anyway, i may be gettin' myself into the weeds here by now, arrrggh. and i'll try to read your caracas testicles chronicles testicles link again.

up
0 users have voted.
thanatokephaloides's picture

@Pluto's Republic

The point of this entire exercise is to block China's oil trade with Venezuela and the rest of South America. That NATO base in Columbia has China's name on it.

All on the path to the Sino-American War of 2025, which I've been predicting for longer than c99 has existed.

Our next all-out war will be against China. With Russia and Iran being Chinese allies.

Be very afraid!

Bad

up
0 users have voted.

"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

Pluto's Republic's picture

@thanatokephaloides

I've been anticipating this for a long while, too.

What frightens me most is that with each passing day, China grows stronger and the US grows weaker. The US has every incentive to start a war as soon as possible.

up
0 users have voted.

____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
thanatokephaloides's picture

@Pluto's Republic

..... then you're not paying attention!

I am afraid.

I've been anticipating this for a long while, too.

What frightens me most is that with each passing day, China grows stronger and the US grows weaker. The US has every incentive to start a war as soon as possible.

I think my original estimate was 2035 or 2040. As you see, I've moved it back a decade or so.

up
0 users have voted.

"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

Pluto's Republic's picture

@thanatokephaloides

They have no incentive to do so. Nothing to gain.

Nor does Iran. Ironically, both China and Iran are not invader nations or warmongers, historically. Russia certain has no desire to war with the US, and nothing to gain from it.

The US is the clear and present danger to the world. Insanity abounds.

The fact that those three nations are essentially pacifists more than imperialists gives me some hope. The US would lose badly it attempted to take them on.

up
0 users have voted.

____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
wendy davis's picture

@thanatokephaloides

up
0 users have voted.
wendy davis's picture

diary for now. after a bit i'll likely get my depression and pique under control.

i'd worked my ass off for this longish 3-stories in one concerted effort diary...

up
0 users have voted.

@wendy davis I admit I had to read some last night and then re-read it again now.

Sickening what "we" do in this world and just terrifying that the rest of the world sees "us" for exactly what we are while "we" here at home have not one damned clue. There are days I think bombing us would be the only way to stop us.

up
0 users have voted.

Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur

wendy davis's picture

@lizzyh7

diary's word document that i hadn't brought! the font size here is far larger and bolder than that at the café, and i dunno but what it's an easier read over there. feel free, of course, and gasp! feel free to comment there, even. while the movie angel michael said he'd invented standing in line, i'm pretty sure i invented commenting at more than one website (smile). on edit: here's the link.

but your last sentence reminded me of café commenter shoot that arrow often reflecting: 'it didn't have to be this way', and 'who will stop us (meaning amerika)?: those who can...and will'. but then, war by other means, and all that. the alba nations were also in search of a multi-polar world. but yeah, it's hard to say how many USians know what their gummint is even about, isn't it? but then, many of who have some glimmers are just chattel for the machine. a brilliant homeless café and e-friend wrote this morning (i don't think he'd mind being quoted:

"in imperialist schemes, in capitalism, the poor serve the same function as the soil, the earth, the air: to be used for some agenda they can have no agency in, or to be discarded, killed, b/c we are in the way of The Plan. they breed like flowers, despite the best efforts to immiserate that capacity out of them. and so 8 billion of 'em have bred in the hopes that some will survive when they *really* start ramping up the killing machine (you know, beyond meth, diabetes, prison, mass psychosis, opioids, wargames, etc.) which machine will be revved up in order to save mother earth from all her wretched."

sigh.

up
0 users have voted.
magiamma's picture

I read every one of them and often reread bits and pieces and follow the links and have learned a lot. They fit in very well with my own research and save me a bunch of time. I look forward to your next diaries with, seriously, eager anticipation. So there. Thank you very much for you efforts and dedication.

up
0 users have voted.

Stop Climate Change Silence - Start the Conversation

Hot Air Website, Twitter, Facebook

wendy davis's picture

@magiamma

i don't even read most of them (smile). but srsly, this is awesome: 'So there.'
'Take that!', iow? welcome and thanks so much for reading and anticipating, and bless your ♥.

p.s. on edit: what's a magiamma?

up
0 users have voted.
magiamma's picture

@wendy davis
since you asked.

c'est moi. magiamma@magiamma.com. Just finished watching (again) the first hour of "The Century of the Self - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s. This first hour, speaks to Edward Bernays' use of 'propaganda' and consumerism to control 'the public'. His ideas of crowd control/manipulation combined with Tim Flannery's concept of 'civilized imbecility' (p 126 'Here on Earth') stating that hunter-gathers (and goats, pigs, cats and dogs) lose brain mass when they join 'society' has got me wondering if there is a way to leverage a sea change. To stop global warming. For peace. All of the above. Just thinking. lol.

up
0 users have voted.

Stop Climate Change Silence - Start the Conversation

Hot Air Website, Twitter, Facebook

wendy davis's picture

@magiamma

bernays was indeed the originator of psyops, and oy, they're almost all that one sees in nato/US FP. but if i take your meaning of consumerism as providing false choices to satisfy a mostly asleep citizenry, and duopoly voting as the same thing, i'll agree w/ you. but i may mistake your meaning. now i'm unfamiliar w. flannery, but i like the concept of 'civilized imbecility', and i've seen folks say that past the optimum group size of a particular tribe...hell happens. i've not thought about it a lot, really.

but as to leveraging a sea change, it seems that many c99ers are cheering on mark from queens' essay on the same. maybe i've become too cynical after all these too many decades, but it seems the next fix is always just around the corner, but amount once again to...baby steps.

stop global warming is one of my gadflies, and i get emails on the same every day in the popular resistance newsletter. yep, stopping pipelines and pollution locally is valiant, but the only way to 'stop climate change', imo, was to have done it forty years ago, 20 years ago, even in rio in 2012, for crissake. cripes, back when my brain was able to yanno, kinda write... but srsly, it was the indigenous who taught me the evils of capitalism and 'green capitalism'. too much to read, but...

https://shadowproof.com/2012/06/14/green-capitalism-and-the-%E2%80%98peo...

https://shadowproof.com/2012/06/21/this-is-what-indigenous-activism-for-...

myself, i also fault the great white climate leaders like mckibben and klein and the various cop conferences, but that's a whole 'nother story... but i'm afraid there's no stopping climate chaos as it's totally baked in now (410ppm) barring some sort of miracle, and not a tech fix like geo-engineering, bill gates style. but as i say, i'm a cynic, so....

but peace? zounds, imagine away, magiamma. and yes, i snagged your address, thinking at first it was your twitter account, lol.

up
0 users have voted.
magiamma's picture

@wendy davis
of all evil. Well, maybe not, but a lot of it. Consumerism was created by Bernays and the then government as a panacea for the perceived madness of the masses. They were terrified of the 'publics' after the first world war and planned the campaign to sedate the crowds. Shop 'til you drop. Be that as it may, we no longer have the resources to support it, not that we ever did really or ever should have used them in that way.

The problem with green capitalism is the same problem as with capitalism. Rent seekers seek.

And, yes, we absolutely have front row seats for the coming climate catastrophe. Woohoo! Sea change? (Lol - no pun intended.) Maybe not possible. It would have to happen in moment of heightened shock. imho. Like after the election. Had there been a campaign ready to role out at that very moment - then maybe the 'publics' could be moved en masse to turn on a dime at mach 9. I dunno. But it's not likely to happen by committee. That I know.

up
0 users have voted.

Stop Climate Change Silence - Start the Conversation

Hot Air Website, Twitter, Facebook

wendy davis's picture

@magiamma

quite bernaysian, isn't it? he knew from uncle (iirc) zigmund that sex (and competition for same) is at the center of all human behavior, so ads that feature slightly covert sexuality sell pricey things, from luxury cars to diamonds to plastic surgery, etc. political ads are somewhat the same, but the appeals are to emotions, yes?

schools are geared toward teaching students to be cogs in the vast capitalist machine by colonized minds factory interchangeable parts, PorpOrNot? rules in these days of ever-more controlled information by media scribes to the western imperium, Google censors news, as does facebook/atlantic council, and then along with that are the many democrat party gatekeepers (i have a whole category w/ that designation at the café. competition>>cooperation, cuz 'dialing for dollars is trying to find you'...work less for more, become head of a corporation, or a gaggle of them! money is power! $$>>love!

a comment at the café last night had reference 'the left', and i went on a short polemic about that responding this a.m, lol, but as i'd been looking for bansky art, i told him that this image is utterly emblematic of my politics. guess you can interpret them easily.

and did you know that she's still alive? the napalm never touched her face, oh, my.

up
0 users have voted.
magiamma's picture

@wendy davis
Bernays is known as the father of Public Relations (iirc). Yes, Siggy was all about covert sexuality and primal animal instincts. One of Bernays’ first successful campaigns, after he returned from the Paris Accords with Wilson, was to create a campaign to encourage women to smoke. He met with a psychiatrist who told him cigarettes were, yes, wait for it, a symbol of the penis and he should show women that they own it. He then asked about thirty debutantes to march in the New York Easter Parade and on a cue from him they lit up their hidden cigarettes. Of course, the press was all over it as cigarettes were taboo at that point. He ‘spun’ the women as suffragettes and the cigarettes as torches of freedom as in the statues of liberty’s. Newspapers across the country went nuts and cigarette sales to women went up.

I love the Bansky piece. It’s so perfectly right on. The piece below is one I threw together in a fit of laughter because they went together so well. The bodies are antiques bullet molds and the figures are standing on cigar boxes (illegal at the time).

Bullet Dolls.jpg

up
0 users have voted.

Stop Climate Change Silence - Start the Conversation

Hot Air Website, Twitter, Facebook

wendy davis's picture

@magiamma

but now that you've recounted that history, i do remember reading about it. and great chuckle-worthy artwork of your own, magiamma.

now i do hope that you read the 'colombia, death squads, etc.' exposé below; horrific as it is to read, but "bearing witness" in these dark days has its own virtue, i think. kovalik was in colombia and did a lot of interviews.

i'm sure a lot of the earlier hits on VZ were exposed by wikileaks, but i finally found this one from 2006 as it at the café among the zillion VZ diaries:

'New WikiLeaks cable reveals US embassy strategy to destabilize Chavez government’, 4 Apr, 2013

Dispatched in November of 2006 by Brownfield -- now an Assistant Secretary of State -- the document outlined his embassy’s five core objectives in Venezuela since 2004, which included: “penetrating Chavez’ political base,” “dividing Chavismo,” “protecting vital US business” and “isolating Chavez internationally.”

The memo, which appears to be totally un-redacted, is plain in its language of involvement in these core objectives by the US embassy, as well as the US Agency for International Development (USAID) [read: CIA] and the Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI), two of the most prestigious agencies working abroad on behalf of the US.

According to Brownfield, who prepared the cable specifically for US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), the “majority” of both USAID and OTI activities in Venezuela were concerned with assisting the embassy in accomplishing its core objectives of infiltrating and subduing Chavez’ political party:

“This strategic objective represents the majority of USAID/OTI work in Venezuela. Organized civil society is an increasingly important pillar of democracy, one where President Chavez has not yet been able to assert full control.”

In total, USAID spent some one million dollars in organizing 3,000 forums that sought to essentially reconcile Chavez supporters and the political opposition, in the hopes of slowly weaning them away from the Bolivarian side.”, etc.

up
0 users have voted.
wendy davis's picture

Venezuela Scores Victory as US Fails to Secure Votes for OAS Suspension’ june 4 telesur

“The resolution was proposed by the U.S. and backed by the 14 countries that make up the so-called Lima Group: Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guyana, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and Saint Lucia. The Dominican Republic, Bahamas, Jamaica and Barbados also voted in favor of the resolution.

The 11 countries that abstained were Surinam, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Trinidad and Tobago, Belize, Uruguay, Antigua and Barbuda, Ecuador, El Salvador, Grenada, Haiti and Nicaragua. Meanwhile, Venezuela, Bolivia, Dominica and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines voted against.
Only two times in OAS's history has a state been suspended: Honduras, in 2009, after a coup ousted President Manuel Zelaya; and Cuba after the revolution announced its Marxist-Leninist inclinations in 1962.

But while the U.S. and its allies have failed for the second time to suspend Venezuela from the organization, the Bolivarian government had already announced in 2017 it was leaving it on its own will, but due to official procedures, it won't stop being a member state until 2019.”

On her part, the President of the National Constituent Assembly (ANC) Delcy Rodriguez also tweeted: “Bolivar's sword devastated the imperial circus against Venezuela!”

long live ALBA!

and via VZ analysis on twitter: Elephants in the Room: It’s Time for a Coup in Venezuela; Only nationalists in the military can restore a legitimate constitutional democracy, foreignpolicy.com (absolutely grrrreaaat internal links)

NATO virus is spreading, aggressive & immune to any antibiotic of logic’; george galloway, RT June 6, 2018 he sees this part as i do, even without the OAS report to the ICC: (well of course there's logic. as Zbig said in 2009: 'NATO is not a cold war relic!!) but yeah, even w/o mention of the OAS report maduro's crimes against humanity, he sees it like i do:

“When the Colombian President announced a Co-operation Agreement with NATO in 2013 and expressed hope that his country would eventually join the US-led alliance, it was met with opposition in his own country and embarrassed chortles at NATO HQ. Jungle fighting against the FARC guerrillas or a confrontation with the Chavez revolution in neighboring Venezuela were clearly "out of area" - even for the mission-creepers in Brussels.

But with the sharpening of US hostilities towards Venezuela, holder of the world’s largest proven oil reserves, and now officially an enemy of Washington subject to the usual spectrum of regime-change bombardment, NATO-Colombian relations have suddenly been cranked up dramatically.

It is likely that the US will soon turn to a Contra-style physical confrontation with the tenacious Chavistas in Venezuela, in which case a maritime and even ground force presence for the US will be necessary. When the Venezuelans fight back, this could be deemed to be an attack on a "NATO-partner and candidate member". Vietnam 2 could then be fought by, not only the US, but Britain, France, Belgium and Uncle Tom Cobley.”

“NATO poses a real threat to democratic control of foreign and defense policy in member countries. It is for these reasons I will shortly relaunch my No2NATO campaign. Before it is too late to do so.” better hurry, then, george... and thanks.

up
0 users have voted.
Alligator Ed's picture

When you do a job (essay), you sure do load it up with lots of good stuff. Somewhere along, I have to stop and think (difficult as that may be). One resonant idea is "skewered semantics", a comment made to a previous wd essay. Just define something the way you like, and it becomes so. Like Colombia being a North Atlantic Treaty Organization "partner" (sounds like your non-voting shares of stock). Okay, Colombia has coast on the Atlantic--and technically it's the North Atlantic because Equador is South of Colombia.

So after all that fine reportage, please answer this question with the wisdom which I have come to expect: Who goes first: Iran or Venezuela?

up
0 users have voted.
wendy davis's picture

@Alligator Ed
commenter V over yonder said: 'The acronym NATO has lost all meaning; it should be replaced with: HANSUSVS; Hegemonic Alliance of Non Sovereign U.S. Vassal States, or something on that order' i said i'd been trying to come up w/ something, but i reckoned it'd have to have a P for Pacific.

ye, it's a loaded up w/ info diary, but then it's really about the convergence (open conspiracy) of several pieces of Big News. and oh, my, thanks for the monarch; butterflies and bees have gotten so scarce here, although we spotted one gorgeous swallowtail on the pink peonies a couple days ago, yum.

now as to iran or VZ first, i'd have to bet on VZ since jens stoletnberg told bibi that NATO would not aid israel in an attack on iran. but who knows? that may have been for public consumption.

sorry for the raggedy-ass reply, but a neighbor came while i was composing and stayed...er...a bit too long, even after i'd told him on the phone that yeppers, you can bring our dishes back, but my tit's in a total time-wringer today, lol. and by the by, the neighbor loved your monarch.

up
0 users have voted.
wendy davis's picture

whoosh, gawd's blood, if even half of this is so... it's almost unbearable to read, much less fathom the hypocrisy of the US, and the evils committed in its name an those it supports.

Colombia, the death squads & the US’ human rights double standard'; dan kovalik for RT, 7 Jun, 2018 just two short outtakes:

“Of course, the US has a large responsibility to bear for this awful situation in Colombia, as it has been the intellectual author behind Colombia’s brutal, decades-long war against its own people and has provided billions of dollars of material aid to this war effort. Indeed, since 2000, the US has given Colombia $10 billion in mostly military assistance as part of its counter-insurgency program known as ‘Plan Colombia.’ During the Plan Colombia years, the Colombian military attempted to boost US military assistance by murdering civilians in cold blood and passing them off as left-wing guerillas. It is now believed that the military killed 10,000 civilians in this grisly “false positive” operation.”

“Of course, as Father Giraldo has explained on numerous occasions, the ostensible “sympathizers of communism” targeted by the paramilitaries are trade union leaders, human rights defenders, peasant leaders, and Catholic priests who advocate on behalf of the poor. As for Catholic priests, over 80 have been murdered since 1984 for the crime of advocating on behalf of the poor.”

bless them all, including those who've been assassinated (may they rest in power) and their loved ones.

up
0 users have voted.