Sticky Fingers: US Foreign Intervention’s Dirty Deals

(1PM EST – promoted by Nightprowlkitty)

Three unrelated tales, that are interwoven by the horrific way the US intervenes in autonomous people’s affairs. Brazil, Venezuela, Palestine…..

Tale One:

Peter Kornbluh has been busy.

You have to be quite forgiving of a man’s secrecy and unavailability when he works for the National Security Archives. Word on the street is that he will be home around Christmas, and should that happen, I will certainly cut an hour out of my Holiday time to speak to him On-Air, or at the very least visit him in Ann Arbor.

What he has been working on is huge.

On December 14, 2010, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights handed down a long-awaited decision in the case of Gomes Lund and others (Guerrilha do Araguaia) vs. Brazil. A landmark decision, this  119-page ruling forces the Brazilian government to publicly accept responsibility for grave human rights violations committed during the military regime, open its archives to the families of victims of repression, and pay millions of dollars in reparations.

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The case ~ Lund vs. Brazil ~ revolves around the military’s counterinsurgency campaign against Guerrilha do Araguaia-a resistance movement made up of young militants of the Brazilian Communist Party, between April 1972 and January 1975. Between 3 and 10,000 members of the Army, Navy, Air Force, and federal police launched a major offensive against members of the Guerrilha do Araguaia. Members of the group were detained; after being identified, they were killed and buried secretly in the rainforest. Some evidence indicates that many of their bodies were later unearthed and burned or thrown into rivers in the region. Approximately 62 insurgents remain disappeared.

In the context of the time line, by the 60’s Brazil had moved to a more leftist model, under Joao Goulart, seen as an abject failure for the intervention of the Chicago Boys. They resisted sending monies back to shareholders in NY and London, and made foreign investors reinvest in Brazil, demanding higher wages and land redistribution.

By 1964, Goulart was deposed in a coup by right-wing US-friendly interests, installing José Sarney, and hardened later by Emilio Garrastazu Médici, who created a brutal military regime, and what was deemed by the US a “miraculous” economic recovery. A recovery based on privatization, and the brutal murders of any Communist sympathetic resisters they encountered. By 1970, the average purchasing power of the Brazilian Citizen went down 50% from 1960, while an entire new crop of tycoons rose.

At the time, the CIA was fully engaged in trying to stop the “pink” movement in South America, often training, arming and actively helping brutalize populations to keep US business interests at the forefront of who was allowed to rule any country there.

Tale Two:

Wikileaks has exposed that the US is still actively engaged in trying to destabilize and South American Government who is not embracing a US-friendly Capitalist model.

Eva Golinger reports via Postcards from the Revolution.

A substantial portion of the more than 1600 State Department documents Wikileaks has published during the past two weeks refer to the ongoing efforts of US diplomacy to isolate and counter the Venezuelan government.

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In a secret document authored by current Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Craig Kelly, and sent by the US Embassy in Santiago in June 2007 to the Secretary of State, CIA and Southern Command of the Pentagon, along with a series of other US embassies in the region, Kelly proposed “six main areas of action for the US government (USG) to limit Chavez’s influence” and “reassert US leadership in the region”.

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One secret document from October 2009 referring to a meeting between Mexican President Felipe Calderon and US Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair tells of how Calderon confessed he was “trying to isolate Venezuela through the Rio Group”. The Mexican head of state also appealed to the US intelligence chief, “The region needs a visible US presence…the United States must be ready to engage the next Brazilian president. Brazil, he said, is key to restraining Chavez…The US needs to engage Brazil more and influence its outlook”.

I suggest you read the entire article.

So here is the United States, again, trying to interfere with a People’s elected Government, and use their puppet governments to try to pressure and create discord in a SA nation. Another document released by Wikileaks, shows that Venezuelan’s successful universal health care system must be framed as a failure to the American people.

We are still actively engaged in Imperialism and Hegemony against indigenous people’s wishes.

Tale Three.

In a unbelievable 24 hour perid between introduction and passing, the House voted against Palestinian Statehood Wednesday night.

(wed, the) House of Representatives passed a resolution, H.Res.1765, “condemning unilateral measures to declare or recognize a Palestinian state.”

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As are most “pro-Israel” resolutions, H.Res.1765 was brought to a vote under a procedure known as “suspension of the rules.” This procedure, which is supposed to be reserved for non-controversial resolutions such as the naming of a post office, prohibits the resolution from being amended and limits debate on it. In exchange for these restrictions, the resolution must get at least a 2/3 vote to pass rather than a simple majority.

However, unlike most “pro-Israel” resolutions, which often are not voted on for months after being introduced in order to give the Israel lobby time to marshal an overwhelming number of co-sponsors, H.Res.1765 was pushed through quickly with the co-sponsorship of only 53 Representatives.

The language on the floor was patently racist, claiming Palestinians don’t really want a state, and that they have a failed society compared to Israel, because they are incompetent as a people and have poor leaders.

This rush, in the dark of night does tend to lead credence to the fact that even the strongest Zionist members of Congress fear public debate on the topic.

The PLO responded:

The General Delegation of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to the United States issued a statement saying it “expresses its deep disappointment over the resolution passed yesterday by the House of Representatives condemning any attempt to gain recognition of an independent Palestinian state without the approval of the Israeli government.”

“The Palestinian right to freedom and self-determination is not contingent on the approval of the state of Israel, which has been militarily occupying and colonizing the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem for more than 43 years in violation of international law and the policies of the United States and the international community,” the statement added and stressed that the state of Israel came into being in 1948 as a unilateral step.

Within hours, there was a reaction, with more than 9,000 signatures decrying the resolution. There is a palpable movement under way, driven by the increasingly public nature of Israel’s human rights abuses against Palestinians.

The US plainly, as shown in South American intervention, and continued support of the right-wing Zionist leadership in Israel, cares not about self-determination, democracy nor human rights abuses. It cares only that it has trading partners that are entirely malleable to its economic interests and supremacy.

One can only HOPE that fighters for truth and information continue to shed blinding light on America’s sticky, bloody fingers as we ravage other people’s for the gains of our Wealthy Elites.

National Security Archives, Wikileaks and Mondoweiss are all fighters for truth and justice.