The Descent of the US; the Rise of Latin America
The Descent of the US; the Rise of Latin America
By PHILIP AGEE
Havana.
Anyone following the news in recent times cannot be unaware of the wave of
progressive change sweeping Latin America and the Caribbean. For many lonely years
Cuba held high the torch through its exemplary programs to provide universal health
care and education, both gratis, along with world class cultural, sports and
scientific achievements. Although you won´t find a Cuban today who says things
are perfect, far from it, probably all would agree that compared with
pre-revolutionary Cuba there is a world of improvement. All this they did against
every effort by the United States to isolate them as an unacceptable example of
independence and self-determination, using every dirty method including infiltration,
sabotage, terrorism, assassination, economic and biological warfare and incessant
lies in the cooperating media of many countries. I know these methods too well,
having been a CIA officer in Latin America in the 1960´s. Altogether nearly
3500 Cubans have died from terrorist acts, and more than 2000 are permanently
disabled. No country has suffered terrorism as long and consistently as Cuba.
All through the years, beginning even before taking power in 1959, the Cuban
revolution has needed to have intelligence collection capabilities in the U.S. for
defensive purposes. Such was the fully justified mission of the Cuban Five, jailed
since 1998 with long sentences after conviction for various crimes in Miami where
they had no chance for a fair trial. Convictions were for conspiracy to commit
espionage to murder. Nevertheless their sights were exclusively set on criminal
terrorist planning in Miami for operations against Cuba, activities ignored by the
FBI and other law enforcement agencies. They neither sought nor received any
classified U.S. government information. Their cases are still on appeal, and will be
for years to come, but their completely biased convictions rank with the legal
lynching in the 1920's of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, the anarchist
immigrants, as among the most shameful injustices in U.S. history. Freedom for the
Cuban Five should be the cause of everyone for whom fairness, human rights and
justice are important, both in the United States and around the world, joining in the
activities of the 300 Free the Five solidarity committees in 90 countries.
Current U.S. policy with its means and goals can be found in the nearly 500-page
2004 report of the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba together with an update
published in 2006 that has a secret annex. A fundamental goal, the same in 2007 as I
remember it was in 1959, is isolation of Cuba to keep this bad example from
spreading, and the current policy if successful, would mean no less than Cuban
annexation to the U.S. and complete dependence, in fact if not in law, as Cubans
rightfully claim. Other fundamental goals from 1959 are still, nearly 50 years later,
to foment an internal political opposition and to cause economic hardship in Cuba
leading to desperation, hunger and despair. It is no exaggeration to call these goals
genocidal.
Yet, U.S. economic warfare of nearly 50 years against Cuba hasn't worked even
though the Cubans who keep book estimate its cost at more than $80 billion. After the
Cuban economy's free fall in the early 1990's, with the collapse of the Soviet Union,
it began to recover in 1995. By 2005 growth was 11.8% and in 2006 it was 12.5%, the
highest in Latin America. Some sectors have surpassed their development levels of the
late 80's, before the collapse, and others are nearly back. Cuba's exports of
services, nickel, pharmaceutical and other products are booming, and try as it may,
the U.S. has not been able to stop this.
In the end U.S. efforts to isolate Cuba have also totally failed. In September
2006 Cuba was elected, for the second time, to lead the Non-Aligned Movement of 118
countries, and two months later, for the 15th consecutive year, the United Nations
General Assembly voted to condemn the U.S. economic embargo of Cuba, this time 183 to
4. In 2007 Cuba has diplomatic or consular relations with 182 countries. Havana
meanwhile is the site of seemingly endless international conferences on every
imaginable theme with thousands of people from around the world attending. And not
least, Cuba in recent years has been hosting more than 2 million foreign tourists
annually at its world-class resorts. Far from isolating Cuba, the U.S. has isolated
itself.
More than 30,000 Cuban doctors and health workers are saving lives and preventing
disease in 69 countries, many in the most remote and difficult areas where few or no
local doctors will go. Meanwhile 30,000 young foreigners from dozens of countries are
studying medicine in Cuba on full scholarships. All were selected from areas lacking
doctors, and all are committed to return to these areas in their home countries to
practice.
In education the Cuban literacy program known as "Yes I can" has been adopted in
nearly 30 countries on five continents where thousands more Cuban volunteers are
teaching. Through this program, in Spanish, Portuguese, English, Creole, Quechua and
Aymara, some 2 million people have learned to read and write, most of whom continue
their education afterwards through a variety of other programs.
Thanks to these international assistance programs, Cuban prestige and influence,
and international solidarity with Cuba, have never been greater. It was to defend
these worthy programs that the five Cubans, unjustly convicted, went to Miami in the
1990's.
Then in 1999 came Hugo Chavez, the U.S.'s latest worst nightmare in the region,
admittedly following the Cuban example in Venezuela, with its enormous income from
petroleum, to establish what he calls a Socialism for the 21st Century with a foreign
policy of regional integration under his innovative Bolivarian Alternative for the
Americas, ALBA, excluding the United States altogether. The program is already
underway through institutions such as Mercosur in trade, Petrocaribe, Petroandino and
Petrosur in the energy sector, the Banco del Sur in finance, and Telesur in
electronic media.
Another program under ALBA is Operación Milagro (Operation Miracle)
for offering free eye surgery to people unable to afford it for cataracts, glaucoma,
diabetes and other vision problems. It began in 2004 as a joint Cuban-Venezuelan
effort to bring Venezuelans by air to Cuba cost free for operations. Within two years
28 countries of Latin America and the Caribbean were participating, and operations
restoring sight numbered 485,000 of whom 290,000 were Venezuelans. Jet liners loaded
with patients come and go from Havana everyday, but by early 2007 thirteen modern eye
clinics were being built in Venezuela, and several had already performed thousands of
operations there. Other clinics were being established in Bolivia, Ecuador,
Guatemala, Honduras and Haiti, all with Cuban planning and staffing. The ten-year
goal of Operación Milagro is to restore sight to 6 million people of
Latin America and the Caribbean, and the program is expanding to Africa.
The Cuban example of so many years, and now Venezuela, have also recently inspired
the peoples of Bolivia, Ecuador, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Nicaragua to elect
progressive leaders. Most have rejected the 1990´s "Washington Consensus" and
the neo-liberal model along with determined U.S. efforts to establish a hemispheric
free trade zone. All are developing grassroots social and economic programs, each in
its own way, aimed at improving the quality of life for all, especially the
long-excluded majorities of their populations where this injustice prevailed.
Although achievements in Cuba continue to shine, the torch of revolution in the
region has effectively passed from the towering figure of Fidel, ailing at eighty, to
Chavez, a military man and teacher inspired by Simón Bolívar and
José Martí.
Reflecting on these new hopes for hundreds of millions in such a vast region, one
cannot avoid recalling the old professor, Próspero, addressing his class for
the last time in Ariel, the classic essay by José Enrique Rodó,
still read by students in Latin America. In borrowing from The Tempest, and
urging his students to follow the soaring spirit of virtue and good, represented by
Ariel, and to reject the crass materialism of the U.S. personified by Calibán,
Próspero drew a contrast between Latin American idealism and the United States
that is as valid today as in 1900 when the essay first appeared.
While Latin America is fast moving in progressive directions, almost unimaginable
less than ten years ago, in contrast the United States, at least since the Reagan
era, has been moving step by step toward a Fascism for the 21st Century. And the pace
has quickened in the last six years of Republican government under George W. Bush
with passage of the Patriot Act under emergency circumstances just after the attacks
on the Twin Towers in September 2001, and then adoption in 2006 of the Military
Commissions Act, both with substantial support from Congressional Democrats. Other
legislation supports this trend.
The U.S. Federal Government now has legal powers to secretly monitor one´s
communications, whether by telephone, ordinary mail, e-mail, or fax, plus your bank
accounts, credit cards, the web sites you visit, and the books you buy or read in
libraries. Torture, secret prisons, kidnapping, and jailing indefinitely without
trial or recourse to courts through habeas corpus---all are now legal. So is
"extraordinary rendition" whereby U.S. captives are delivered to other governments
where they will likely be tortured and possibly assassinated. Investigations by the
European Parliament have identified around 1200 secret CIA flights carrying these
people through European airports to secret prisons. To qualify for this treatment,
anyone in the world, U.S. citizens and any others, only need be designated by the
government as an "illegal enemy combatant" whose only definition is someone who has
"purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States."
Hostilities or a hostile act can be interpreted as almost anything that opposes U.S.
policies, from a speech expressing solidarity with Cuba to a picket line protesting
the war in Iraq. If an "enemy combatant" ever gets a trial, it will not be by a jury
of peers but by a U.S. military court that can use hearsay and evidence obtained
under torture.
These powers reminiscent of the Nazi regime are not just a global U.S Sword of
Damocles waiting to fall on perceived enemies. The full range of repression has been
going on since the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 with plenty of evidence coming
from the prisons and concentration camps of Bagram, Abu Graib and Guantánamo
as well as from testimony of various released innocents swept up in the process. It
is an on-going worldwide application of fascist power in a non-defined, nebulous "war
on terrorism" that has no end or geographical limits. Since September 2001 the Bush
government has given one specious reason after another for what it believes are the
motives of Islamic terrorism, never admitting that it is a reaction and resistance to
U.S. imperial policies, starting with U.S. support for Israel's continued occupation
and colonization of Arab lands and Israel's refusal to return to its borders before
the Six-Day War in 1967.
By 2006 the U.S. had designated some 17,000 people around the world as "enemy
combatants," according to press reports. Combine this repression with gargantuan
contracts to private U.S. firms, as in Iraqi security and "reconstruction," along
with forcing the Iraqi government, always with eyes on the prize, to contract highly
prejudicial 30-year "production sharing agreements" to American and British oil
majors, excluded from Iraq before the invasion, plus historic lows in trade union
power, and you have the marriage of government and corporate power that Mussolini,
who invented the word in 1919, described as the essence of fascism. The one bright
spot are the recent indictments of 13 CIA people in Germany and 26 others in Italy
for kidnapping and other violations of their laws. They will never be brought to
trial, of course, but the indictments are refreshing developments.
Protection of terrorists who serve U.S. interests is still another feature of
American Fascism of the 21st Century. There are many examples, especially among Cuban
exiles, but two stand out from the others: Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles.
Both have long, well-documented pedigrees as international terrorists, but one of
their joint crimes was historic: the first bombing in flight of a civilian airliner
in the Western Hemisphere. It was Cubana flight 455 that on October 6th, 1976
exploded just after takeoff from Barbados killing all 73 people on board.
Bosch and Carriles, both of whose CIA careers began around 1960, planned the
bombing in Caracas and provided the explosives to two Venezuelans recruited by
Posada. These two were discovered, convicted, and sentenced to long prison terms. Not
so with Bosch and Posada who were protected by then-Venezuelan President Carlos
Andrés Pérez who has his own history of working with the CIA. Although
they were both arrested and tried separately in Venezuelan courts as the intellectual
authors of the crime, neither was convicted.
Bosch was found not guilty and released in 1988, returned to Miami but was
arrested for an old parole violation. The Justice Department then ordered his
deportation as an "undesirable" and as "the most dangerous terrorist" of the Western
Hemisphere. But Jeb Bush, son of then-President Bush, persuaded his father in 1990 to
quash Bosch´s deportation order. Since then Bosch has lived freely in Miami
where he gives television interviews in which he makes every effort to justify
terrorism against Cuba.
For his part Posada´s trial in Venezuela never ended because in 1985 he
escaped from prison, fled the country, and soon turned up in El Salvador working in
the CIA´s Contra terrorist operation against Nicaragua. When this ended he
stayed underground in Central America and from the early 1990´s organized more
terrorist operations against Cuba. In 2005 he was arrested in Miami for illegal entry
to the U.S., and although he admitted to the New York Times to terrorist bombings of
hotels and other tourist facilities in Cuba, in one of which an Italian tourist died,
he has only been indicted for lying to the FBI and in his request for naturalization.
The Bush administration refuses to certify him as a terrorist so that he can be tried
as such, at the same time ignoring Venezuela's extradition request as a fugitive from
justice, alleging absurdly that he might be tortured there. His treatment suggests
that he will eventually be pardoned by Bush, perhaps on Christmas Eve of 2008 just
before leaving the White House, just as his father on Christmas Eve of 1992 pardoned
former Defense Secretary Casper Weinberger and various CIA officers for crimes in the
1980´s Iran-Contra scandal, thus precluding their trials scheduled to begin the
following month.
One need not dwell on the obvious. The conviction of the Miami Cuban Five for
their anti-terrorist efforts, in contrast with the official protection of terrorists
like Bosch and Posada, speaks volumes on the U.S. as the pre-eminent state sponsor of
international terrorism.
The major disguise used to cloak this U.S. program of worldwide aggression from
the 1980´s to the present has been "promotion of democracy," a hypocritical
claim used ad nauseum by Presidents, Secretaries of State and others
that has never fooled anyone. It has always been clear that the "democracy promotion"
programs of the National Endowment for Democracy, the State Department, the Agency
for International Development and associated foundations and agencies are nothing
more that attempts to foment and strengthen internal political forces in countries
around the world that will be under U.S. control and will protect and cater to U.S.
interests. Their origins are in the CIA's political operations starting in the
1940´s, and they have included the overthrow of democratically elected
governments and the institution of unspeakable repression as in Brazil in 1964 and
Chile in 1973 to name only two of many examples.
To be sure there has been, and is, important and worthy resistance in the U.S. to
this developing fascism both within Congress and among private organizations and
individuals. But it has been mostly isolated attempts of a defensive and rear-guard
nature, with little mention in the corporate media. Bills have been introduced in
Congress to ease or end the economic blockade of Cuba, to amend the worst of the
repressive laws, even to impeach Bush and Cheney, but they seem unlikely ever to
prevail or become law. The two parties, actually competing branches of a one-party
state, have simply adopted ever more extreme measures to maintain their monopoly of
power.
Even the judicial system, once perhaps the last hope for enforcing the
Constitution, has been riddled with neo-conservatives who ignore it. Take only the
appeal of the Miami conviction by the Cuban Five. The original three appellate judges
of Atlanta´s 11th Circuit issued a compelling 93-page unanimous decision
upholding the defense position that no fair trial of self-admitted Cuban agents was
possible in Miami´s prevailing anti-Cuban atmosphere and that the trial venue
should have been moved. Nevertheless the other 10 judges of the Circuit voted to hear
another appeal en banc and then unanimously overturned the first decision with
only two of the original three judges voting against (the third had retired). That 10
of the 13 Circuit Court judges would uphold Miami as a place where Cuban agents could
get a fair trial is a good example of how morally and intellectually corrupt the
federal judiciary has become.
So these are grim days indeed for the United States and by extension for its
allies, starting with its junior partner, the U.K., and extending through NATO. There
have been other periods of shameful repression in the U.S., like the years following
World War I, but never with a global reach like this.
Predictably U.S. prestige around the world, what there ever was of it, has
disappeared, replaced by contempt and scorn. Testimony to this is the repudiation of
Bush and what he stands for expressed by so many thousands in the streets protesting
his presence as he traveled around Latin America attempting to lure five countries
away from regional integration. What a contrast with the enlightened, idealistic, and
progressive social and political movements now flowering in Latin America!
Philip Agee, 72, was a CIA secret operations officer in Latin American from
1960 to 1969. He is the author of the best-selling Inside the Company: CIA Diary
(Penguin Books, 1975) plus other books and articles. Deported in 1977 by the U.K and
four other NATO countries, he has lived since 1978 with his wife in Hamburg, Germany.
He travels frequently to Cuba and South America for solidarity and business
activities, and in 2000 he started an online travel service to Cuba: www.cubalinda.com.
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Disclaimer
David Duke Interviewed On CNN Slams Zionism
Dr. Duke Indicts Zionist Policies Delivers Withering Cannonade
Interview Conducted By Wolf Blitzer
December 13th, 2006
Wolf: Mr. Duke, thanks very much for coming in. What do you say
to those who say — who charge, and there are many, that you’re there in
Tehran at this Holocaust conference simply because you hate Jews?
David: Well, first off, Mr. Blitzer, I resent the introduction
you made of me. You mentioned the Ku Klux Klan 11 times. That was over 30 —
well, 30 years ago in my life, and since that time I got elected to the House of
Representatives, I became — and I received a full doctorate, I have been a
teacher, I have one of the best selling books in the world.
And you interview many former communists in governments all over the world and you
don’t introduce them by saying former communist and certainly not 11 times. I
think you’re biased because you’re a former lobbyist for AIPAC.
You’re a Jewish extremist, supporter of Israel, so you want to bias anyone who
criticizes Zionism.
Wolf: Well, do you hate Jews?
David: No, I don’t. Do you hate people who don’t want
to be controlled? Do you hate Americans who don’t want the Israeli lobby to
have Americans fight and die and thousands maimed because Israel wants it in the
Middle East? We have a war in Iraq because Israel wanted that war, not for American
interests.
They lied to us about weapons of mass destruction, and now they’re trying to
get America into war against Iran, and I think it would be a tragedy for this
country, a tragedy for the world. And you don’t like what I say against Zionism
so you want to talk about the Ku Klux Klan rather than the issues facing the
world……………………..
Wolf: Do you…
David: … the terrorism of the Israel state for
instance.
Wolf: Do you believe, Mr. Duke, that there was a Holocaust?
David: I’m sorry? I believe, sir, that the only way we can
know whether there was a Holocaust or the nature of it is freedom of speech. I
don’t think we should be locking people in prison in Europe, even elderly
people in their 80s, because they dare to have a different opinion about an
historical event.
The American government shouldn’t be saying that the Iran conference —
the Iran conference was a conference for freedom of speech. I heard many mainstream
Holocaust speakers at this conference, many. This conference allowed freedom of
speech on the issue.
The American government and Tony Blair and George Bush should be saying its a
disgrace that David Irving, a worldwide historian with books in almost every library
in the world, is in prison right now in Austria because he said something the
Zionists don’t like about the Second World War.
Wolf: Do believe in a two state solution to the Israeli-
Palestinian conflict, a new state of Palestine living side by side with the state of
Israel?
David: I think that’s probably the best solution. I think
you have to ask the people who live there, of both Israel and the Arab countries. But
I know one thing. You can’t impose a solution from the Zionist’s
domination of American foreign policy.
Pearl and people like Wolfowitz, Feith, Wurmser, Kristol, Abrams — we can go
on and on. It sounds like a Jewish wedding. They have set American policy and they
have hurt American interests in the Middle East. Just as I have said for years, as
Walt and Mearsheimer of Harvard have said, it’s a fact. And we are dying right
now in Iraq because we’re there for Israel’s interests. We’ve
gotten no oil out of this war. I said — I went around the world, around the
country before this war, and said there were no weapons of mass destruction.
Wolf: Well, let me interrupt for a moment, Mr. Duke. As far as I
know, the president of the United States, who is the commander in chief, is not
Jewish. The vice president of the United States is not Jewish. The secretary of
defense is not Jewish. The national security advisor to the president, not Jewish.
The director of the CIA, not Jewish. Are these people simply tools of the Zionist
conspiracy?
David: They’re not tools of a conspiracy, but they are
definitely tools of the Zionist media and political power. Even the “Washington
Post” said that 60 percent of the contributions for the Republican Party come
from Jewish sources. Plus, if any politician in America dares to criticize Israel,
millions will go to his opponents and he will be attacked in the media where Zionists
have incredible power.
Even the “Jewish Chronicle,” the “Jewish Los Angeles
Times” — excuse me, not the “Los Angeles Times,” the
“Jewish Times of Los Angeles” stated that four of the five conglomerates
of — the largest media conglomerates are owned by Jews, and the fifth is even
more pro- Israel than some of those conglomerates. We have a controlled media in the
United States, and that’s why we’re not hearing the truth about this
conference.
This conference is about the fact that there must be freedom of speech. And this
is insane that people are being criticized. This conference is being criticized when
there are people in prison right now for freedom of their conscience.
Wolf: If there’s a controlled…
David: Now, if you think that David Irving should be in prison
right now in Austria — I’m asking you a question, sir.
Wolf: Well, I’m the one who asks the questions in these
interviews…
David: Do you think David Irving should be in prison in Austria
for voicing an opinion?
Wolf: … and we invited you on. And the question
is…
David: Exactly.
Wolf: … if we invited you on, why is there a Zionist
conspiracy if we’re letting you on television right now? How do you explain
that?
David: How do I explain that? I think that you can’t affect
the news. You’ve got — I think you have to put some spin on what’s
happening in Iran.
Wolf: But we didn’t have to invite you on CNN.
David: And you want to — it’s an attack mode, always
an attack mode when people like myself come on there. But you thought you could
handle me with your 11 connotations of the Ku Klux Klan.
Wolf: All right, let me…
David: But you know something? You can’t handle me, and you
can’t handle the truth, and the fact is, you are an agent of Zionism. You work
for AIPAC…
Wolf: Listen — all right. Listen.
David: … the lobby in this country that controls Israeli
policy.
Wolf: Listen, Mr. Duke…
David: You’re not an honest broken on television.
Wolf: … I am going to read to you what Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
has said…
David: You’re an Israeli agent.
Wolf: All right. I’m going to read to you what Mr. Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran, has said and then you can respond if you agree of
disagree with him. “Israel must be wiped off the map and, God willing, with the
force of God behind it, we shall soon experience a world without the United States
and Zionism.”
That’s what he said on October 28th, 2005, according to Al- Jazeera.
David: All right, first off, that’s a complete misquote. He
never said wipe off the map, and he was talking about the Zionist control of the
United States. In fact, I heard his last speech, and I read articles all over the
world where he said Israel will be wiped off the map.
He said Israel would have a change in government just as the Soviet Union changed.
Obviously, the Russian people weren’t killed. Israel wasn’t wiped out,
and this was to garner hatred against Iran to support the Holocaust and maybe the
nuclear strike against Iran.
Wolf: Well, what about when he says we “shall experience a
world” — when he says we should “soon experience a world without
the United States”?
David: I’m sorry, sir. I couldn’t hear you.
Wolf: When he says we should “soon experience a world
without the United States and Zionism.”
David: I know what the translation was. He was referring to the
control — Israel uses the United States as its proxy. They use the — at
Mahaper (ph) said from Malaysia, Israel is able to dominate our policy through their
money, through their media control, and they’re leading us to disaster.
Richard Pearl and Paul Wolfowitz he were the formulators of the Iraq war. Pearl,
Wurmser and Feith wrote a paper for Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel calling for war
against Iraq, Iran, and Syria. And that’s exactly what we did. They made up the
lice of weapons of mass destruction because Americans were not willing to die in
thousands and spend billions of dollars for Israel’s strategic objectives.
That’s the reality.
Wolf: David Duke, we have to leave it there.
David: And there are so many lies that are going on right
now.
Wolf: The satellite is about to go down. So we have to leave it
right there. But you’re in Tehran.
David: Well, people can find information at DavidDuke.com —
DavidDuke.com.
Wolf: I’m sure they’ll have plenty of opportunities
to hear what you have to say. That’s it. David Duke joining us from Iran.
Source: CNN
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Disclaimer
Address to the United Nations: Rise Up Against the Empire
by Hugo Chavez Frias, President of Venezuela
Sep 20, 2006, 17:15
Representatives of the governments of the world, good morning to all of you. First of all, I would like to invite you, very respectfully, to those who have not read this book, to read it.
Noam Chomsky, one of the most prestigious American and world intellectuals, Noam Chomsky, and this is one of his most recent books, 'Hegemony or Survival: The Imperialist Strategy of the United States.'" [Holds up book, waves it in front of General Assembly.] "It's an excellent book to help us understand what has been happening in the world throughout the 20th century, and what's happening now, and the greatest threat looming over our planet.
The hegemonic pretensions of the American empire are placing at risk the very survival of the human species. We continue to warn you about this danger and we appeal to the people of the United States and the world to halt this threat, which is like a sword hanging over our heads. I had considered reading from this book, but, for the sake of time," [flips through the pages, which are numerous] "I will just leave it as a recommendation.
It reads easily, it is a very good book, I'm sure Madame [President] you are familiar with it. It appears in English, in Russian, in Arabic, in German. I think that the first people who should read this book are our brothers and sisters in the United States, because their threat is right in their own house.
The devil is right at home. The devil, the devil himself, is right in the house.
"And the devil came here yesterday. Yesterday the devil came here. Right here." [crosses himself] "And it smells of sulfur still today.
Yesterday, ladies and gentlemen, from this rostrum, the president of the United States, the gentleman to whom I refer as the devil, came here, talking as if he owned the world. Truly. As the owner of the world.
I think we could call a psychiatrist to analyze yesterday's statement made by the president of the United States. As the spokesman of imperialism, he came to share his nostrums, to try to preserve the current pattern of domination, exploitation and pillage of the peoples of the world.
An Alfred Hitchcock movie could use it as a scenario. I would even propose a title: "The Devil's Recipe."
As Chomsky says here, clearly and in depth, the American empire is doing all it can to consolidate its system of domination. And we cannot allow them to do that. We cannot allow world dictatorship to be consolidated.
The world parent's statement -- cynical, hypocritical, full of this imperial hypocrisy from the need they have to control everything.
They say they want to impose a democratic model. But that's their democratic model. It's the false democracy of elites, and, I would say, a very original democracy that's imposed by weapons and bombs and firing weapons.
What a strange democracy. Aristotle might not recognize it or others who are at the root of democracy.
What type of democracy do you impose with marines and bombs?
The president of the United States, yesterday, said to us, right here, in this room, and I'm quoting, "Anywhere you look, you hear extremists telling you can escape from poverty and recover your dignity through violence, terror and martyrdom."
Wherever he looks, he sees extremists. And you, my brother -- he looks at your color, and he says, oh, there's an extremist. Evo Morales, the worthy president of Bolivia, looks like an extremist to him.
The imperialists see extremists everywhere. It's not that we are extremists. It's that the world is waking up. It's waking up all over. And people are standing up.
I have the feeling, dear world dictator, that you are going to live the rest of your days as a nightmare because the rest of us are standing up, all those who are rising up against American imperialism, who are shouting for equality, for respect, for the sovereignty of nations.
Yes, you can call us extremists, but we are rising up against the empire, against the model of domination.
The president then -- and this he said himself, he said: "I have come to speak directly to the populations in the Middle East, to tell them that my country wants peace."
That's true. If we walk in the streets of the Bronx, if we walk around New York, Washington, San Diego, in any city, San Antonio, San Francisco, and we ask individuals, the citizens of the United States, what does this country want? Does it want peace? They'll say yes.
But the government doesn't want peace. The government of the United States doesn't want peace. It wants to exploit its system of exploitation, of pillage, of hegemony through war.
It wants peace. But what's happening in Iraq? What happened in Lebanon? In Palestine? What's happening? What's happened over the last 100 years in Latin America and in the world? And now threatening Venezuela -- new threats against Venezuela, against Iran?
He spoke to the people of Lebanon. Many of you, he said, have seen how your homes and communities were caught in the crossfire. How cynical can you get? What a capacity to lie shamefacedly. The bombs in Beirut with millimetric precision?
This is crossfire? He's thinking of a western, when people would shoot from the hip and somebody would be caught in the crossfire.
This is imperialist, fascist, assassin, genocidal, the empire and Israel firing on the people of Palestine and Lebanon. That is what happened. And now we hear, "We're suffering because we see homes destroyed.'
The president of the United States came to talk to the peoples -- to the peoples of the world. He came to say -- I brought some documents with me, because this morning I was reading some statements, and I see that he talked to the people of Afghanistan, the people of Lebanon, the people of Iran. And he addressed all these peoples directly.
And you can wonder, just as the president of the United States addresses those peoples of the world, what would those peoples of the world tell him if they were given the floor? What would they have to say?
And I think I have some inkling of what the peoples of the south, the oppressed people think. They would say, "Yankee imperialist, go home." I think that is what those people would say if they were given the microphone and if they could speak with one voice to the American imperialists.
And that is why, Madam President, my colleagues, my friends, last year we came here to this same hall as we have been doing for the past eight years, and we said something that has now been confirmed -- fully, fully confirmed.
I don't think anybody in this room could defend the system. Let's accept -- let's be honest. The U.N. system, born after the Second World War, collapsed. It's worthless.
Oh, yes, it's good to bring us together once a year, see each other, make statements and prepare all kinds of long documents, and listen to good speeches, like Abel's yesterday, or President Mullah's . Yes, it's good for that.
And there are a lot of speeches, and we've heard lots from the president of Sri Lanka, for instance, and the president of Chile.
But we, the assembly, have been turned into a merely deliberative organ. We have no power, no power to make any impact on the terrible situation in the world. And that is why Venezuela once again proposes, here, today, 20 September, that we re-establish the United Nations.
Last year, Madam, we made four modest proposals that we felt to be crucially important. We have to assume the responsibility our heads of state, our ambassadors, our representatives, and we have to discuss it.
The first is expansion, and Mullah talked about this yesterday right here. The Security Council, both as it has permanent and non-permanent categories, (inaudible) developing countries and LDCs must be given access as new permanent members. That's step one.
Second, effective methods to address and resolve world conflicts, transparent decisions.
Point three, the immediate suppression -- and that is something everyone's calling for -- of the anti-democratic mechanism known as the veto, the veto on decisions of the Security Council.
Let me give you a recent example. The immoral veto of the United States allowed the Israelis, with impunity, to destroy Lebanon. Right in front of all of us as we stood there watching, a resolution in the council was prevented.
Fourthly, we have to strengthen, as we've always said, the role and the powers of the secretary general of the United Nations.
Yesterday, the secretary general practically gave us his speech of farewell. And he recognized that over the last 10 years, things have just gotten more complicated; hunger, poverty, violence, human rights violations have just worsened. That is the tremendous consequence of the collapse of the United Nations system and American hegemonistic pretensions.
Madam, Venezuela a few years ago decided to wage this battle within the United Nations by recognizing the United Nations, as members of it that we are, and lending it our voice, our thinking.
Our voice is an independent voice to represent the dignity and the search for peace and the reformulation of the international system; to denounce persecution and aggression of hegemonistic forces on the planet.
This is how Venezuela has presented itself. Bolivar's home has sought a nonpermanent seat on the Security Council.
Let's see. Well, there's been an open attack by the U.S. government, an immoral attack, to try and prevent Venezuela from being freely elected to a post in the Security Council.
The imperium is afraid of truth, is afraid of independent voices. It calls us extremists, but they are the extremists.
And I would like to thank all the countries that have kindly announced their support for Venezuela, even though the ballot is a secret one and there's no need to announce things.
But since the imperium has attacked, openly, they strengthened the convictions of many countries. And their support strengthens us.
Mercosur, as a bloc, has expressed its support, our brothers in Mercosur. Venezuela, with Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, is a full member of Mercosur.
And many other Latin American countries, CARICOM, Bolivia have expressed their support for Venezuela. The Arab League, the full Arab League has voiced its support. And I am immensely grateful to the Arab world, to our Arab brothers, our Caribbean brothers, the African Union. Almost all of Africa has expressed its support for Venezuela and countries such as Russia or China and many others.
I thank you all warmly on behalf of Venezuela, on behalf of our people, and on behalf of the truth, because Venezuela, with a seat on the Security Council, will be expressing not only Venezuela's thoughts, but it will also be the voice of all the peoples of the world, and we will defend dignity and truth.
Over and above all of this, Madam President, I think there are reasons to be optimistic. A poet would have said "helplessly optimistic," because over and above the wars and the bombs and the aggressive and the preventive war and the destruction of entire peoples, one can see that a new era is dawning.
As Silvio Rodriguez says, the era is giving birth to a heart. There are alternative ways of thinking. There are young people who think differently. And this has already been seen within the space of a mere decade. It was shown that the end of history was a totally false assumption, and the same was shown about Pax Americana and the establishment of the capitalist neo-liberal world. It has been shown, this system, to generate mere poverty. Who believes in it now?
What we now have to do is define the future of the world. Dawn is breaking out all over. You can see it in Africa and Europe and Latin America and Oceanea. I want to emphasize that optimistic vision.
We have to strengthen ourselves, our will to do battle, our awareness. We have to build a new and better world.
Venezuela joins that struggle, and that's why we are threatened. The U.S. has already planned, financed and set in motion a coup in Venezuela, and it continues to support coup attempts in Venezuela and elsewhere.
President Michelle Bachelet reminded us just a moment ago of the horrendous assassination of the former foreign minister, Orlando Letelier.
And I would just add one thing: Those who perpetrated this crime are free. And that other event where an American citizen also died were American themselves. They were CIA killers, terrorists.
And we must recall in this room that in just a few days there will be another anniversary. Thirty years will have passed from this other horrendous terrorist attack on the Cuban plane, where 73 innocents died, a Cubana de Aviacion airliner.
And where is the biggest terrorist of this continent who took the responsibility for blowing up the plane? He spent a few years in jail in Venezuela. Thanks to CIA and then government officials, he was allowed to escape, and he lives here in this country, protected by the government.
And he was convicted. He has confessed to his crime. But the U.S. government has double standards. It protects terrorism when it wants to.
And this is to say that Venezuela is fully committed to combating terrorism and violence. And we are one of the people who are fighting for peace.
Luis Posada Carriles is the name of that terrorist who is protected here. And other tremendously corrupt people who escaped from Venezuela are also living here under protection: a group that bombed various embassies, that assassinated people during the coup. They kidnapped me and they were going to kill me, but I think God reached down and our people came out into the streets and the army was too, and so I'm here today.
But these people who led that coup are here today in this country protected by the American government. And I accuse the American government of protecting terrorists and of having a completely cynical discourse.
We mentioned Cuba. Yes, we were just there a few days ago. We just came from there happily.
And there you see another era born. The Summit of the 15, the Summit of the Nonaligned, adopted a historic resolution. This is the outcome document. Don't worry, I'm not going to read it.
But you have a whole set of resolutions here that were adopted after open debate in a transparent matter -- more than 50 heads of state. Havana was the capital of the south for a few weeks, and we have now launched, once again, the group of the nonaligned with new momentum.
And if there is anything I could ask all of you here, my companions, my brothers and sisters, it is to please lend your good will to lend momentum to the Nonaligned Movement for the birth of the new era, to prevent hegemony and prevent further advances of imperialism.
And as you know, Fidel Castro is the president of the nonaligned for the next three years, and we can trust him to lead the charge very efficiently.
Unfortunately they thought, "Oh, Fidel was going to die." But they're going to be disappointed because he didn't. And he's not only alive, he's back in his green fatigues, and he's now presiding the nonaligned.
So, my dear colleagues, Madam President, a new, strong movement has been born, a movement of the south. We are men and women of the south.
With this document, with these ideas, with these criticisms, I'm now closing my file. I'm taking the book with me. And, don't forget, I'm recommending it very warmly and very humbly to all of you.
We want ideas to save our planet, to save the planet from the imperialist threat. And hopefully in this very century, in not too long a time, we will see this, we will see this new era, and for our children and our grandchildren a world of peace based on the fundamental principles of the United Nations, but a renewed United Nations.
And maybe we have to change location. Maybe we have to put the United Nations somewhere else; maybe a city of the south. We've proposed Venezuela.
You know that my personal doctor had to stay in the plane. The chief of security had to be left in a locked plane. Neither of these gentlemen was allowed to arrive and attend the U.N. meeting. This is another abuse and another abuse of power on the part of the Devil. It smells of sulfur here, but God is with us and I embrace you all.
May God bless us all. Good day to you.
http://www.counterpunch.org/chavez09202006.html
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Viva Chavez
by Mike Whitney - Information Clearing House"
"We are facing the threat of global challenges stemming from the genocidal,
immoral, sick, and corrupt elite currently governing the United States, which
appear to have no limits"
- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez
Hugo Chavez is a self-made man. He wasn’t piggy-backed into Harvard on a
legacy grant (Affirmative Action for plutocrats) or shoehorned into the White House
by corporate gangsters. He grew up in a two-room thatched palm-leaf house with his
five siblings and dreamt of moving to New York to play baseball for the Yankees. At
age 18 he chose to make the most of his meager opportunities by enlisting in the
military.
For 17 years, Chavez served his country; gradually moving up the chain of command to
lieutenant colonel. Unlike his American counterpart, GW Bush, Chavez never went AWOL
during wartime or stumbled through years of idle profligacy peering at the world
through beer-goggles.
While Bush was busy driving three consecutive companies into insolvency and
fattening his bank account with the loot from insider-trading scams, Chavez was
putting together the Revolutionary Bolivarian Movement; a leftist political
organization which promoted redistribution and civil rights.
Chavez was lifted to the presidency on the backs of peasants and working-class
people while Bush was selected by 5 venal judges who repealed the democratic process
and suspended the counting of ballots.
The differences between the two men go on and on. It is an interesting study in
contrasts and one that is particularly relevant to the deteriorating state of world
affairs. So far, Bush’s views have carried the day; the global superpower is
free to act unilaterally and without concern for either international law or basic
standards of decency.
Chavez, however, has presented a competing vision of global integration, collective
action, and participatory democracy. His world-view is clearly ascendant.
"Capitalism is barbarism," Chavez says; a point that is persuasively driven home in
the daily accounts of butchery in Iraq, Afghanistan or Haiti. In Bush-world the
mounting death toll is simply the price of opening new markets like the cheerful
ringing of a cash register. Its no wonder the system is collapsing all around
him.
Chavez has taken the lead in denouncing Bush and the system that supports him:
"For the horror it has created around the world in the last century, the United
States’ war machine should be dismantled. It is a threat against all of
mankind, particularly against our children."
He has wisely taken aim at Bush, an indigent patrician without any identifiable
qualifications, as the foremost symbol of a system run amok:
"The worst genocidal leader in the history of humanity is the President of the
United States. Hitler would be like a suckling baby next to George W Bush… He
is a terrorist, a drunkard, and a donkey".
The stark contrast of the two men’s personalities has been a boon to Chavez.
Even the feeble attacks by the media have only enhanced his popularity and
strengthened his case for socialism:
"This model, the so called American way of life, the extreme capitalism, is not
sustainable, life on this planet will come to an end if we continue down this road,
that is why we are motivated to seek socialism and abandon capitalism, the
individualism, the selfish consumerism, the so called destructive development that is
destroying this planet, we are all in danger, and not so much us, our children and
grandchildren."
Chavez has been a thumb in the eye of the Bush Empire. His criticism of
America’s duplicitous foreign policy resonates with poor and working class
people alike.
Presently, he is meeting with leaders of Libya and Algeria (supposedly) to discuss
"increased cooperation on oil production" and to develop "social programs for the
poor based on oil revenues". Chavez has initiated similar programs at home, but he is
using his increased visibility to publicly denounce Bush and American foreign
policy:
"We are against America, the imperialist. We don’t accept its hegemony. The
whole world should unite against America."
Chavez’s trip comes at a time when there are renewed fears of an attack on
Iran. Could it be that the Venezuelan president is actually working behind the scenes
to stem the flow of oil if Iran is bombed? Or, maybe he is orchestrating a "run on
the dollar" (transfer to euros) which Russia and Venezuela have already threatened?
Whatever the plan, he has vehemently condemned the administration’s hostility
to Iran while other nations continue to cringe.
"The world needs to do everything possible to avoid the madness of a military attack
against Iran. We call upon the government of the United States to halt its
warmongering, which will throw the world into an abyss of more wars, more terrorism,
more death, and more desolation. Europe has a very important role to play in this,
and instead of supporting this war, it should help to stop it."
Chavez has been equally blunt in his criticism of the war in Iraq. In an interview
with British Channel 4 he was asked what he would do if he was living in occupied
Iraq. Chavez answered:
"If I was an Iraqi I would be resisting. I would be in the trenches; I would have a
rocket-launcher; I would be defending the holy sovereignty of my country against the
abuses and oppression of the empire."
His sense of moral clarity is a reprieve from the evasive gibberish of other world
leaders who try to soften their rhetoric so they don’t offend Washington.
In the same interview Chavez was asked (disdainfully) why people outside of his
country "think he is crazy"?
Chavez responded, "If those people think I’m crazy, well, God forgive them,
because they are victims of a media campaign. I am just a human being like you; no
more, no less. But, I am totally devoted to this cause of equality and justice to see
if we can save this planet….The great crazy guy is in Washington, not
here."
Chavez is slowly transforming Venezuelan politics and making significant headway in
areas of redistribution and social welfare. The country’s 25 million people now
have full access to free health care and illiteracy has been eliminated. Government
programs now provide15 million people with subsidized food, medicine and other
essentials. Medical clinics have sprung up in every barrio in Caracas and college
enrollment has increased exponentially.
Chavez has created a model of governance that is based on human needs rather than
rigid ideology. This has made it more difficult to discredit him as dogmatic or
authoritarian. His policies of income redistribution have created a burgeoning
Venezuelan middle class which is changing the political dynamic throughout Latin
America. He has become Washington’s "biggest nightmare" and a threat to
America’s economic dominance in the region.
"Let's consider socialism," Chavez said. "Let's debate it and build it. I believe
that mistakes were in the economic analysis, and there should be social praxis. 21st
century socialism should be based on solid human values."
No one has done more to reenergize the Left than Hugo Chavez. He has become the face
of anti-imperialism and the champion of progressive socialism. His views on
education, poverty-reduction, social justice, and the equitable distribution of oil
revenues are sweeping the hemisphere; brushing aside centuries of colonialism.
The politics of personal accumulation and perennial war are on the decline. Nothing
can stop an idea whose time has come. As Chavez says, "We must embrace a new type of
socialism, a humanist one, which puts humans, not machines and not the state, above
everything".
This century’s Enlightenment is coming from south of the border.
Viva Chavez.
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