Turkey's Labor Secretary Blames the US

You have to admit there's a good chance of it. And even if not, how can you blame anyone for thinking that?  The US has instigated more coups in history than any other country or agency.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Back in Iraq

Yes, you're right. We never really left.

U.S. jet fighters hit artillery being used by the militant group called the Islamic State in northern Iraq on Friday, the first of what is expected to be a series of American strikes meant to halt the Sunni extremist advance on the Kurdish capital of Erbil, the Pentagon said.

  WSJ

So, it wasn’t true when Iraqi officials claimed it yesterday, but now it is today. Friday. First US airstrikes. According to the Pentagon.

Officials said it was too soon to tell if the current campaign would last weeks or days, but said they expect more strikes by U.S. fighter jets, as early as this weekend.

[...]

"The enemy gets a vote," said a senior defense official. "If they stop, we stop. If they attack we bring down the hammer."

Give me a second.

I’m back.  Sorry, I had to turn away from my keyboard to puke.

Mr. Obama authorized the targeted airstrikes and emergency-assistance missions, saying the U.S. must act to protect American personnel and prevent a humanitarian catastrophe.

Targeted strikes against ISIS is obviously not remotely the same as a full-scale invasion of Iraq, but whatever else is true, and whatever one’s opinions are on this latest bombing, it is self-evidently significant that, as the NYT’s Peter Baker wrote today, “Mr. Obama became the fourth president in a row to order military action in that graveyard of American ambition” known as Iraq.

[...]

The above-documented parade of “Saddam-is-worse-than-Hitler” campaigns [ed: see the article for list of US interventions in Iraq] was surrounded by stints of U.S. arming and funding of the very same Saddam (the same, of course, was true of the Taliban precursors, Gadhaffi, Iran, Manuel Noriega, and virtually every other Latest Villain who needed to be bombed; the US was roughly allied with ISIS allies in Syria and American allies fund ISIS itself).

[...]

It is simply mystifying how anyone can look at U.S. actions in the Middle East and still believe that the goal of its military deployments is humanitarianism. The U.S. government does not oppose tyranny and violent oppression in the Middle East. To the contrary, it is and long has been American policy to do everything possible to subjugate the populations of that region with brutal force – as conclusively demonstrated by stalwart U.S. support for the region’s worst oppressors. Or, as Hillary Clinton so memorably put it in 2009: “I really consider President and Mrs. Mubarak to be friends of my family.”

[...]

[H]as the hideous aftermath of the NATO intervention in Libya – hailed as a grand success for “humanitarian interventions” – not taught the crucial lessons that (a) bombing for ostensibly “humanitarian” ends virtually never fulfills the claimed goals but rather almost always makes the situation worse; (b) the U.S. military is not designed, and is not deployed, for “humanitarian” purposes?; and (c) the U.S. military is not always capable of “doing something” positive about every humanitarian crisis even if that were really the goal of U.S. officials?

[...]

“Humanitarianism” is the pretty packaging in which all wars – even the most blatantly aggressive ones – are wrapped, but it is almost never the actual purpose. There are often numerous steps the U.S. could take to advance actually humanitarian goals, but those take persistence and resources, and entail little means of control, and are thus usually ignored in favor of blowing things and people up with Freedom Bombs.

  Glenn Greenwald

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Like a Circle in a Spyral

Like a circle in a spiral
Like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning
On an ever spinning reel

Like a tunnel that you follow
To a tunnel of it's own
Down a hollow to a cavern
Where the sun has never shone

--Alan and Marilyn Bergman

March 18, 2013: "I call on President Obama – Roger Noriega, Otto Reich, officials at the Pentagon and at the CIA are behind a plan to assassinate the right-wing presidential candidate to create chaos," Maduro said in a TV interview broadcast on Sunday.

The acting president first mentioned the alleged plot to kill his rival, Henrique Capriles, last week. Former Bush administration diplomats Noriega and Reich both dismissed the claim as defamatory and untrue.

  RT

It would be hard to defame the US, seeing as how the CIA has been intervening all around the globe for decades in the politics of other nations, including kidnapping, assassinations and assassination attempts.

August 1, 2013: Venezuelan officials warned of an alleged plot to assassinate the country’s President and launch a paramilitary invasion of the country. A former CIA agent, Cuban exiles living in the US and Latin American leaders were fingered in the conspiracy.

  RT

Well, that sounds a little far-fetched unless you remember the Bay of Pigs.

The suspected plot to overthrow the government in Caracas was allegedly funded by Cuban exiles living in Miami, the head of the Venezuela’s parliament [and former vice president to Hugo Chavez] Diosdado Cabello told legislators on Wednesday. They raised some $2.5 million and recruited about 400 mercenaries, who would enter Venezuela’s Zulia state from Columbia as part of the plan.

And, Fox News reporter James Rosen is at it again – asking for trouble. Here are excerpts from a July 25 report of his:

The [1962] initiative, code named "Operation Mongoose," drew on the brainpower and energies of the U.S. government's most senior officials and ranged from balloon drops of anti-Castro pamphlets and cartoons to covert sabotage of Cuban industry and infrastructure. In time, it would even include active plotting to assassinate the Cuban dictator, with the Central Intelligence Agency clandestinely enlisting the aid of the era's reigning Mafia chieftains.

But the row with Kruschev over missiles in Cuba caused a change in plans.

"It was agreed that all plans for dispatch [of saboteurs] should be suspended," declared a Top Secret memorandum of the session, adding that "instructions were issued during the course of the meeting designed to recall the three teams already on the way" to Cuba. "No major acts of sabotage should be undertaken at this time."

[...]

These deliberations were among the revelations tucked away in some 7,500 pages of files amassed by the younger Kennedy and withheld from public view until now. The unsealing of RFK's confidential files on Wednesday, a half-century after the events they chronicled, drew a handful of researchers and historians to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston.

While an estimated 5,000 to 10,000 pages of RFK's files remain classified -- the documents released by the library were peppered with redactions and withdrawn items -- those that were unsealed provided fresh insight into the extraordinary influence that their owner wielded in the Kennedy White House.

You'd think there'd be more than a "handful" of researchers interested in the RFK files.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

American Diplomacy

President #Compromise (who won’t answer to that name now that it’s campaign season, by the way) recently said that we are in lockstep with Israel on the issue of Iran, which he hopes to keep peaceful by means of diplomacy. He wasn’t talking about “normal” diplomacy. Like Condi Rice’s illucidation of the issue of exporting democracy to the Middle East when she couched it in terms of “American democracy”, I have to assume he’s talking about American diplomacy.

For an example of American diplomacy, here it is in action in Russia.

[W]hen the new US Ambassador to the Kremlin, Michael McFaul, arrived in Moscow, he met with leaders of the Russian opposition on his second day in town. As Eric Kraus, a Moscow-based fund manager, put it:

“One should first ask what the reaction would have been in the United States if the British ambassador to Washington began his mandate by throwing an open house for ‘Occupy Wall Street’ – it would have been considered a hostile act. Why is Russia any different? Russia is a sovereign state, not a protectorate, and the job of any ambassador is to facilitate state-to-state relations, not to become a player in domestic politics.”

  Justin Raimondo

I believe the answer is “American Exceptionalism.”

But of course the US is indeed involved in the domestic politics of practically every nation on earth, and it even has an official agency in charge of such meddling. The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is a “public-private” institution that receives direct grants of US tax dollars, which it then funnels abroad via its four main constituent parts: the National Democratic Institute (NDI), affiliated with the Democratic party, the International Republican Institute (IRI), a division of the GOP, the American Center for International Labor Solidarity (ACILS), sponsored and partially funded by the AFL-CIO, and the Center for International Private Enterprise, affiliated with the US Chamber of Commerce. Founded in 1984, NED played a key role in undermining the Nicaraguan government at a time when the US government was illegally funding the so-called “contras,” who were carrying out a terrorist campaign against the authorities in Managua.

[...]

In 1989, when Nicaragua’s Sandinista government was being challenged by the opposition — led by newspaper publisher Violeta Chamorro, and her United Nicaraguan Opposition (UNO) — Congress passed a $9 million appropriation for the NED to get involved in the Nicaraguan election. It passed with one restriction, however: none of the money was to be used to help one particular party. In reality, however, almost all the funding went to the UNO. In tandem with the flood of millions of dollars into the opposition, the US unleashed the contras, inflicting unprecedented violence on civilians and wrecking the economy.

Forgive me if I don’t think the desire to fund the Contras was completely coincidental to the formation of NED.

US funding via NED [in 1985 to two French groups] – to the tune of $830,000 – was seen as an attempt to undermine Francois Mitterand’s socialist government.

Hmmmm….I think I can see why that might have been. After all, NED is the National Endowment for Democracy. Did France not have a democracy in 1985?

On the occasion of the NED’s twentieth anniversary, President George W. Bush proclaimed the US was launching a “global democratic revolution” – and there was no doubt its main target was the Middle East.

[...]

Gen. Wesley Clark related in an interview with Amy Goodman how, ten days after 9/11, a top General revealed to him how the decision to invade Iraq was made bereft of any link to al-Qaeda. Coming back to his informant a few weeks later, Clark said:

“’Are we still going to war with Iraq?’ And the General said ‘Oh, its worse than that.’ He reached over on his desk and picked up a piece of paper. He said, ‘I just got this … from upstairs from the Secretary of Defense’s office today. This is a memo that describes how we are going to take out 7 countries in 5 years. Starting with Iraq, then Syria and Lebanon. Then Libya, Somalia and Sudan. Then finishing off Iran.’”

[...]

Egypt figures prominently in all this: it is “the prize,” as neocon theoretician and former LaRouchie Laurent Murawiec put it in an infamous presentation to the Defense Policy Board, in which he and his fellow neocons pushed not only the invasion of Iraq but also a US takeover of the Saudi oil fields and – eventually — “regime change” in Egypt. “The pivot of the Arab world is the most important one to transform in depth. Iraq may be described as the tactical pivot, the point of entry; Saudi Arabia as the strategic pivot; but Egypt, with its mass, its history, its prestige and its potential, is where the future of the Arab world will be decided. Egypt, then, in the new Middle Eastern environment created by our war, can start being reshaped.”

[...]

[NED is] a conduit for funding the “color revolutions” that were sparked by US-funded activists in Serbia, Ukraine, Georgia, and the former Soviet republics of Central Asia. It is, in short, a weapon in the US arsenal designed to effect “regime change” in countries deemed insufficiently enthusiastic about becoming – or staying – a US protectorate.

[...]

It appears, though, that the Egyptian government – which has just elected a majority Muslim Brotherhood parliament – is having none of it: Cairo recently put NED activists, including the son of the US Secretary of Labor, on a “no fly” list, and announced it will prosecute a number of individuals, including 19 Americans, for engaging in illegal activities. Washington is outraged, and its amen corner is already mobilizing in support of the “Cairo 19.”

These are the people Hillary Clinton recently claimed did “nothing wrong.” They were “just trying to promote democracy.”

By the way, before we elevate Sam Lahood, son of US Labor Secretary and former GOP congressman Ray Lahood, to the status of a martyr for “democracy” and “liberalism,” let’s note that his former gig was serving as a censor for the US Occupation Authority in Iraq.

[...]

The penalty [in the US] for violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) [which foreign contributions to electoral activities on American soil] is five years in prison and a $10,000 fine – roughly equivalent (except for the fine) to the penalty faced by the “Cairo 19.”

[...]

That’s the Americans’ signature stance in the world: one standard for me, and another for thee….

American Exceptionalism.

In this post, Raimondo offers a different take on the “Arab Spring” than I’ve heard elsewhere – elsewhere viewing it consistently as a bid for democracy by the citizens of dictatorships. When I think about the recent history of the US activities in the Middle East, it dawns on me that Raimondo may just be right, to wit:

In each and every instance, the target of the crowds in the streets has been a regime sporting the West’s imprimatur. Even Gadhafi had finally made his peace with those he once denounced as “imperialists,” and gained a degree of legitimacy in Western circles.

The Arab world has essentially been under occupation by the West since the fall of the Ottomans in the aftermath of World War I. The “anti-colonial” revolutions of the 1950s and 1960s ended in the consolidation of sclerotic regimes that oppressed their own people and – as the cold war petered out – wound up in the Western orbit. Indeed, as Mubarak and Gadhafi prepared their sons to succeed them, these regimes became indistinguishable from the monarchies traditionally backed by Washington and London.

Monarchies and dictatorships, which by the way, are sometimes quite frankly bought outright, circumventing the need for NED.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Intervention's Pitfalls

America has a long history of intervening secretly in what the Soviet Union used to call the "internal affairs" of other countries. A lot of times those interventions seemed to work out well at the time, but ended up backfiring (see Iran). At other times they simply went badly awry, as in the Bay of Pigs.

[...]

Today the National Endowment for Democracy represents an attempt to get away from the seamier side of such interventions and to support civic organizations abroad. But today the Washington Post reports, on the basis of leaked classified cables, that America has secretly been backing the Syrian opposition. Apparently the State Department has financed Syrian groups and television programs attacking the Assad regime. U.S. diplomatic cables, the  v says, reveal that the State Department has disbursed at least $6 million to a group called the Movement for Justice and Development--a grouping of Syrian exiles living in London.

The import of this move seems clear: President Obama is supporting, much as his predecessor, George W. Bush did, regime change in Syria.

  National Interest

Secret or not, I doubt there is anyone not willfully ignorant who didn’t imagine it was happening.

[One] problem is that by intruding into Syrian domestic politics, the administration legitimizes the regime's claims that it is fighting foreign enemies intent on subverting the home land.

[...]

[The] GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] created an Arab League group to monitor what's going on in Syria. The Syrian National Council - based in North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) member countries Turkey and France - enthusiastically supported it.

[...]

The report is adamant. There was no organized, lethal repression by the Syrian government against peaceful protesters. Instead, the report points to shady armed gangs as responsible for hundreds of deaths among Syrian civilians, and over one thousand among the Syrian army, using lethal tactics such as bombing of civilian buses, bombing of trains carrying diesel oil, bombing of police buses and bombing of bridges and pipelines.

Once again, the official NATOGCC version of Syria is of a popular uprising smashed by bullets and tanks. Instead, BRICS members Russia and China, and large swathes of the developing world see it as the Syrian government fighting heavily armed foreign mercenaries. The report largely confirms these suspicions.

  Asia Times

Admittedly, I only scanned the leaked report, but I’m not sure it should be interpreted precisely that way. It does indeed mention an “armed entity” that is responsible for much of the loss of life of innocent Syrians, but, while noting that the Syrian government has been cooperative with the GCC, at the same time, it indicates that this “armed entity” is a reaction to the Syrian government’s "excessive use of force" against protestors, and admits that Syrian citizens have also taken up arms against the government. We do not know whether they were encouraged by any outside entity, but one can easily imagine that they didn't need to be and are driven by the same forces that have been propelling what is being called "the Arab Spring".  It doesn't seem likely that any outside forces are entirely to blame (or credit) for that, since outside forces have been working toward fomenting public uprisings for decades.

The Mission determined that there is an armed entity that is not mentioned in the protocol. This development on the ground can undoubtedly be attributed to the excessive use of force by Syrian Government forces in response to protests [...] demanding the fall of the regime. In some zones, this armed entity reacted by attacking Syrian security forces and citizens, causing the Government to respond with further violence. In the end, innocent citizens pay the price for those actions with life and limb.


[...]


The Mission noted that the Government strived to help it succeed in its task and remove any barriers that might stand in its way. The Government also facilitated meetings with all parties. No restrictions were placed on the movement of the Mission and its ability to interview Syrian citizens, both those who opposed the Government and those loyal to it.


In some cities, the Mission sensed the extreme tension, oppression and injustice from which the Syrian people are suffering. However, the citizens believe the crisis should be resolved peacefully through Arab mediation alone, without international intervention. Doing so would allow them to live in peace and complete the reform process and bring about the change they desire. The Mission was informed by the opposition, particularly in Dar‘a, Homs, Hama and Idlib, that some of its members had taken up arms in response to the suffering of the Syrian people as a result of the regime’s oppression and tyranny; corruption, which affects all sectors of society; the use of torture by the security agencies; and human rights violations.


Recently, there have been incidents that could widen the gap and increase bitterness between the parties. These incidents can have grave consequences and lead to the loss of life and property. Such incidents include the bombing of buildings, trains carrying fuel, vehicles carrying diesel oil and explosions targeting the police, members of the media and fuel pipelines. Some of those attacks have been carried out by the Free Syrian Army and some by other armed opposition groups.


[...]


The Mission arrived in Syria after the imposition of sanctions aimed at compelling to implement what was agreed to in the Protocol. Despite that, the Mission was welcomed by the opposition, loyalists and the Government. Nonetheless, questions remain as to how the Mission should fulfill its mandate. It should be noted that the mandate established for the Mission in the Protocol was changed in response to developments on the ground and the reactions thereto. Some of those were violent reactions by entities that were not mentioned in the Protocol.

But, back to the Asia Times article:

GCC leaders House of Saud and Qatar bluntly dismissed their own report and went straight to the meat of the matter; impose a NATOGCC regime change via the UN Security Council. So the current "Arab-led drive to secure a peaceful end to the 10-month crackdown" in Syria at the UN is no less than a crude regime change drive. Usual suspects Washington, London and Paris have been forced to fall over themselves to assure the real international community this is not another mandate for NATO bombing - a la Libya.

Which, of course, is its ultimate goal if the unnamed “entities” cannot effect the regime change on their own. The only thing standing in the way of NATO’s military intervention – and it’s a big thing – is the block of Russia and China which does not support intervention. In fact, they don’t even support a condemnation of the Syrian government’s crackdown.

"Russia and China will, I think, come to regret this decision which has aligned them with a dying dictator, whose days are numbered, and put them at odds with the Syrian people and the entire region," [UN envoy Susan] Rice told CNN television.

[...]

China and Russia "have, by their actions, by their veto, dramatically increased the risk of greater violence and we've seen the manifestations of that and indeed increase the risk of civil conflict," the UN envoy said.

  Hindustan Times

Ah, yes. Everyone GOOD is aligning against the EVIL DICTATOR, while everyone BAD can be identified by support of same.

"Whose days are numbered."  "The risk of greater violence." Gee, where have we heard that before?

US President Barack Obama on Saturday accused Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government of murdering civilians in an "unspeakable assault" in Homs, and demanded that Assad step down.

"Assad must halt his campaign of killing and crimes against his own people now. He must step aside and allow a democratic transition to proceed immediately," Obama said in a statement.

Rice vowed on Monday that the international effort to reach a common stand on the Syria crisis would go forward.

"The United Nations will continue on this issue," she said.

So now Assad has the same “offer” that Qadafi turned down. And we know what happened to him.

She added that the vote on Saturday, which came just hours after Syrian forces bombed the city of Homs, killing hundreds of civilians, "put a stake in the heart of efforts to resolve this conflict peacefully."

Peacefully by means of supporting unnamed armed entities.

The Libyan “National Transitional Council” announced its support to the Syrian rebels, and sent 600 fighters to the Turkish border. Financed and supported by Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, the “Free Syrian Army” is intent on sparking a sectarian war, pitting Sunnis against Alawites and Christians. Their “Abu Bakr Brigade [...] originated in Libya, and is said to be recruited from Al Qaeda.

  Justin Raimondo

I don’t know how much finance might be involved but the US and, indeed, the entire UN have pledged support to the NTC, which at least by extension considering the 600 fighters, means supporting the Syrian rebels.

The Egyptians see what is going on in Syria, and are trying to prevent the US-sponsored chaos from spreading.

[...]

The arrest and pending trial of foreign “democracy activists” in Egypt on charges they violated laws prohibiting funding by foreign governments of NGOs has caused an uproar in Washington. Secretary of state Hillary Clinton has publicly warned Cairo this endangers the $1.55 billion in aid the US is supposed to shell out this year, but the Egyptians don’t seem all that impressed.

[...]

“Democracy promotion” sets the stage for military intervention by first providing the rationale for regime-change and secondly providing the personnel. The Syrian rebel radio station, headquartered in London, has received millions of our tax dollars, while our spooks have been training and arming them.

And it’s difficult to think of any pro-democracy groups in foreign countries without thinking of how al Qaeda got its start.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.