Civilians Support Venezuelan National Guard amid Media False Claims
By Tamara Pearson | Venezuelanalysis | March 17, 2014
Merida – On the weekend civilians marched with National Bolivarian Guard (GNB) soldiers, and today the government declared part of Caracas “free” from violent protests. The march came as private media heightened its false statements about GNB actions.
GNB march
On Saturday in Caracas there was a large civic-military march in support of “peace and life” and the GNB soldiers.
In his speech to those present President Nicolas Maduro accused the “government of the United States” of trying to “implement a plan to assassinate [him]”. He said in such a case, “the people should stay in the streets, making the revolution, united with the armed forces”.
Since 12 February, he said, over 20,000 GNB soldiers have been in the street, carrying out “some 16,000 operations to re-establish order and avoid confrontations, on average almost 500 operations per day. However, of the 29 deaths [since 12 February], there is only one under investigation attributed to a GNB soldier, [but] the opposition has carried out a campaign… writing them [the GNB] off as killers”.
The majority of deaths have been caused by violent barricades, two of them were allegedly caused by SEBIN (the national intelligence service) agents, and one by the Chacao police. Chacao police take orders from the opposition Chacao mayor.
Maduro himself is Commander in Chief of the National Bolivarian Armed Forces. He stressed that there had never been any orders to repress. “If the national guard or the national police had gone out in a repressive blind rage or with a an order to repress, in the face of [almost 500] violent actions per day [by the opposition], the death statistics would be different,” he said.
According to a recent survey by private firm, Hinterlaces, of 1200 Venezuelans, 87% reject the violent barricades “as an instrument of protest”, and 11% support their continuation. 79% express “doubt” that the violence could improve the situation in the country.
GNB death, Chacao operation
Sunday night, Aragua governor Tareck El Aissami reported that a GNB captain was injured in Maracay by “criminal groups”. El Aissami said the captain was shot in the head. He explained that when a “violent group” tried to close Avenue Jose Casanova Godoy and the GNB arrived, the GNB were shot at.
Yesterday Maracay also held a Peace Conference, as part of a national government initiative being held in various states around the country.
This morning El Aissami reported that Captain Jose Guillen Araque had died from the injury. This is the second GNB captain killed in less than a week. Captain Ramzor Bracho, was killed last Wednesday in Valencia, allegedly by opposition groups.
Meanwhile, the government announced today that the upper class area of Chacao had been made a “peace zone”. Over the last five weeks the area has been one of many zones around the country subject to constant road blockades, rubbish burning, destruction of public property, harassment, aggression, and vandalism, by violent groups calling for Maduro’s resignation.
Last Monday GNB soldiers dismantled a clandestine storage area in Chacao used by the violent groups. They confiscated guns, knives, C4 explosives, drugs, and fuel.
In his speech on Saturday, Maduro said the government was willing to use “force” to “restore peace” to Chacao. “We’ll capture all the violent people, the terrorists, the murderers, we’ll do it…respecting all human rights. The first human right we’ll respect is the right to free transit, the right of the children to go to school,” he said.
That night, VTV reported that the violent groups “voluntarily withdrew” from Altamira plaza in Chacao.
Early this morning the minister for internal affairs, Miguel Rodriguez Torres announced the “liberation and pacifying” of the area, a few hours after 661 GNB soldiers were deployed there. He said the guards will patrol 24 hours a day “in order to guarantee citizen safety”.
Rodriguez Torres said that authorities were waiting on the mayor of the area, Ramon Muchacho, in order to “hand over control and that he take charge of maintaining the area”.
Resident of Chacao, Susana Saavedra told Correo del Orinoco that she congratulated the GNB, “for taking this initiative, because it was lawless here”. She accused local opposition authorities of “collaborating with the barricaders… we couldn’t leave our houses or send our children to school”.
While the number of violent barricades around the country has been reduced, both voluntarily and because of the GNB, in Merida this morning the science museum was attacked for a second time, high school Fray Juan Ramos de Lora was attacked, and a main city intersection was blocked by a burning truck.
Manipulation by Venezuelan private media
Venezuelan private media however, have blamed much of the violence on the GNB. El Nacional headlined on 15 March, “GNB and collectives attack universities around the country”. Though colectivos is a term used in Venezuela for a range of social and productive organisations, the private media in February began using it to denote supposedly armed, pro-government groups. The El Nacional article accused the GNB and “collectives” of “repressing student protests”.
In Carora, Lara state on Friday, the media reported “repression by GNB and collectives”. Opposition state governor, Henri Falcon said “anarchic groups supported by the GNB caused damage, panic, and commotion” in the National Poli-technical Experimental University (Unexpo).
Video footage of the event however shows the violence by the opposition groups, the GNB cleaning up the area, verbal abuse by groups towards the GNB, and the GNB responding politely. The GNB then sat the groups down and gave them a workshop on human rights, then let them all go, the footage shows.
Further, today El Nacional quoted opposition leader Maria Corina Machado accusing the GNB of “creating the chaos in Altamira to justify militarisation”.
Machado also called for a march against so called “Cuban interference” on Sunday. According to AFP, only “hundreds” turned up to the march. The AFP article stated that “protests… against the government of Nicolas Maduro… have seen a total of 28 deaths”, implying that the deaths were all opposition “protestors”.
La Patilla and social networks have also circulated a photo, which they claim was GNB soldiers “repressing, beating, and arresting a special youth”. However, on Saturday, Alejandro Cegarra, an AP photographer who has been critical of the government claimed to have taken the photo and stated the “GN official was helping the protestor to breathe… the guy started to faint and was choking”.
Further, the AP caption for the photo described the National Guard helping the man to breathe, but according to Cegarra, those who reposted the photo “decided to ignore the caption”. A video by photographer, Cristian Dubo also makes it clear the GNB were trying to help the man. While he was not beaten, it does appear he was taken to hospital, and also detained and is awaiting trial, after being involved in confrontations in Altamira.
Other press went further, using a different photo to claim the man had Down syndrome, and he was “brutally beaten by the GNB”. However the man in this second photo, according to RT, was beaten by Miami police last year. The man photographed by Dubo did not have Down syndrome.
The GNB forms part of the National Bolivarian Armed Forces. It is responsible for public order. President Hugo Chavez, over his three terms, aimed to transform the GNB from what was previously a repressive institution into one geared towards promoting development. He increased the role of the GNB in civil affairs, including involving soldiers in implementing social programs such as the Mercal food program. The majority of GNB soldiers come from the poorer sectors of Venezuela, and Chavez often referred to the Armed Forces as “the people in arms”.
The Banality Of The Guardian Of Judea
By Gilad Atzmon | March 17, 2014
The once well-respected Guardian has been reduced in recent years into a lame Zionist mouthpiece – a light Jewish Chronicle for Gentiles consumption. Last week, the paper launched an attack on Martin Heidegger, the 20th century’s most influential philosopher.
“Heidegger’s ‘black notebooks’ reveal antisemitism at core of his philosophy” the paper’s headline read. But what does that mean? Was Heidegger really a Jew hater? Did he oppose people for being ethnically or ‘racially’ Jewish or was he, instead, critical of Jewish politics, culture, ideology and spirit?
According to the ‘progressive’ British Guardian, the newly published Black Notebooks reveals that Heidegger saw ‘world Judaism’ as the driver of “dehumanising modernity”.
Needless to mention that we didn’t need a ‘new publication’ to assert that this was Heidegger’s view of Jewish culture and politics. The German thinker, like many of his contemporaries, saw “Jerusalem” as a suppressive and corrupted spiritual, cultural and intellectual influence as opposed to “Athens”, which portrayed in his eyes, the birth of humanism, universalism, aesthetics, ethics and pluralism.
Let’s examine what makes a prominent thinker into an Anti Semite in the eyes of The Guardian. “While distancing himself from the racial theories pursued by Nazi intellectuals, Heidegger argues that Weltjudentum (“world Judaism”) is one of the main drivers of western modernity, which he viewed critically.”
But aren’t we entitled to criticize religion, culture or Ideology? Aren’t we allowed to disapprove of modernity or technology and to try to identify its cultural and ideological roots? For some reason, I can’t recall The Guardian taking Max Weber to task for suggesting that Protestant ethics was the driving force behind Capitalism. Embarrassingly enough, the same Guardian that clumsily and shamelessly smears the greatest continental thinker, provides a platform to a long list of Neocons, pro-war advocates such as Nick Cohen who constantly and relentlessly criticize the so-called ‘Islamo-Fascists’ – a code name for Islamic political culture. I guess that for The Guardian of Judea, it is only Jewish culture, religion and ideology that must remain beyond criticism.
“World Judaism”, Heidegger writes in the notebooks, “is ungraspable everywhere and doesn’t need to get involved in military action while continuing to unfurl its influence, whereas we are left to sacrifice the best blood of the best of our people”. But is the above observation anti Semitic? Can an honest observation be anti Semitic, or shall we say a form of ‘hatred’, or should it be more appropriately tagged as an uncomfortable truth?
Heidegger was a German patriot. As such he knew very well that it was Zionist leadership and German Jewish bankers in America that facilitated the entry of the USA into the first world war (in return in part for the 1917’s Belfour Declaration that promised a national home for Jews in Palestine). In that regard, Heidegger, like his contemporaries, had good reason to believe that Germany was betrayed by its Jewish elite.
When Heidegger published his monumental Being And Time (1927), certainly the 20th century’s most important philosophical text, the Frankfurt School, dominated by Jewish academics, had already been in operation for more than four years, gaining ground in its attempt to subvert German culture in the name of communism. As a German nationalist, Heidegger had more than just one reason to oppose Jewish culture, politics and ideology.
Heidegger was a philosopher as opposed to a politician or an ‘activist’. His understanding of the world was driven by the search for an essential and categorical comprehension. For Heidegger it wasn’t the ‘Jew’ nor was it ethnicity that posed danger, it was an ideology and culture that was set to undermine his Athenian West and its value system as he saw it. Such an approach has nothing to do with racial hatred.
Let’s examine Heidegger’s above statement regarding ‘world Judaism’, its ‘ungraspable’ impact and its unwillingness to ‘sacrifice.’ Heidegger basically suggests that the Jewish elite is launching wars by proxy. At first, this may sound like a vile criticism of Jewish culture and power within politics. But a deeper look into this statement reveals that Heidegger was highly observant. Let’s face it, Heidegger certainly didn’t know about the cabal of Zionist neocons who pushed Britain and the USA into an illegal war in Iraq five decades after his death. Heidegger, most definitely didn’t know about the Jewish Lobby Groups: AIPAC, LFI, CFI and the CRIF. He certainly didn’t know of Bernard Henri Levy or Jewish Chronicle writers David Aaronovitch and Nick Cohen, who have been advocating Zionist immoral interventionist campaigns for years. Furthermore, as Heidegger predicted, not many young Jews followed the Zionised Neocon militant enthusiasm and rushed to join the US Army Special Forces or The Royal Marines. Heidegger somehow foresaw that Jews wouldn’t be overrepresented in the list of dead British and American soldiers that emerged out of this chain of futile conflicts.
When Heidegger writes, “we (the Germans) are left to sacrifice the best blood of the best of our people,” it is Zionist proxy wars he has in his mind – those Zionist wars that are fought by everyone except the Zionists themselves. But how could the philosopher predict the Zionist’s political apparatus so precisely? Was he a prophet?
To philosophize is to dig into the true essence. The philosopher’s quest is a search for the essential meaning, whether it is being, beauty, knowledge, science and so on. Heidegger, the philosopher, saw in Jewish culture something most Jews either fail to see in themselves or conceal very well and for a good reason. It is hardly surprising that The Guardian that has systematically failed to confront the Jewish Lobby and its relentless war advocacy, would denounce the great mind who accurately listed the exact conditions in which such bellicosity takes place.
Tragically, annihilating intelligencia and deep critical thought has become an obsession of the New Left. This may explain the deterioration of the progressive discourse into an intellectual desert. The Guardian, in its current form and under its current leadership, has a major role in that process.
“In another passage”, the Guardian continues, “the philosopher writes that the Jewish people, with their ‘talent for calculation’, were so vehemently opposed to the Nazi’s racial theories because ‘they themselves have lived according to the race principle for longest’”.
But is this really a lie? Not at all. The German philosopher obviously hits the nail on the head. Heidegger, who didn’t approve of the Nazi racist doctrine, properly noted that Nazi racial supremacy was, in fact, Kosher by nature.
It is hardly a secret that Jewish culture is ethno-centric and racially driven. Israel defines itself as the ‘Jewish State’. Far more embarrassing is the fact that Israel’s Jewish opponents also follow the same racially supremacist methodology and, in most cases, operate within ‘Jews only’ political cells (such as JVP, IJAN, Jewish Socialist Group etc.).
Heidegger, was obviously ahead of his time in observing the similarity between Jewish political exclusiveness and Nazi ideology. Does that make Heidegger an anti Semite? Quite the opposite, it affirms that the German philosopher is a timeless precious intellectual asset. Yet, The Guardian doesn’t posses the minimal integrity to admit that Heidegger was actually spot on. Instead, the British paper is desperate to undermine the work of the great philosopher by means of inept and vague association.
By tagging Heidegger as an anti Semite The Guardian basically advises his readers not to read the greatest Germano–Greco philosopher and certainly not to evaluate the content of his writing. This is ‘Newspeak’ as observed by Orwell, which minimizes the possible content of intellectual exchange by means of ‘correctness’.
It is no secret that the contemporary politically correct observer adheres to the rule that truth better be inoffensive. As such, he or she contributes to the suppression of the truth and the transformation of knowledge into a system of selective concealment. Interestingly, it was Heidegger who was there to turn the floodlight onto ‘concealment’ and the ‘forgetfulness of Being’, something the Guardian has made into an art from.
Heidegger, the truth teller has come to represent everything the Jerusalemite ‘Guardian of Judea’ is there to suppress. I guess that the time is ripe for The Guardian to wake up. It would do well to reinstate its position as The Guardian of the truth rather than The Guardian of Zion. We could use a quality Left paper driven by true humanist and universal concerns, instead of just another ignorant and banal Zionist mouthpiece.
Related article
Venezuela: Who You Gonna Believe, the New York Times or Your Lying Eyes?
By Mark Weisbrot | CEPR Americas Blog | March 15, 2014
Today’s report from the New York Times trashes the government for “combative tactics” and “cracking down” on protesters, but if you watch the accompanying video, all you see are protesters attacking police, and the police – without venturing forward, defending themselves with water cannon and tear gas.
One can criticize the decision of the government to block the march from going to hostile territory, but given the continuous presence of violent elements among the protestors, and that Venezuela is a country with a very high homicide rate and many armed civilians, it could have been the prudent thing to do. The government also believes, with some justification, that these protests seek to provoke violence in order to de-legitimize the government. Their stated goal is to overthrow the democratically elected government, and given that the vast majority of the country is against the protests, this really is their only chance of getting anywhere. And the government also knows that the media (both national private and international) will generally blame them for any violence.
In the United States, and especially here in Washington DC, you have to get a permit for marches like this, and they are often denied or re-routed; and if you try to defy this the police will generally beat you and throw you in jail. And these are actually peaceful protests here.
As for the violence so far associated with the protests since they started on February 12, the statistics show that more people have died at the hands of protesters than security forces:
Of the 29 people killed (full details here),
— 3 appear to be protesters allegedly killed by security forces; 1 other was killed by security forces but it’s not clear if he was a protester.
— 3 appear to be protesters allegedly killed by civilians (the opposition always alleges that these civilians are somehow taking orders from the government, but there has not been any evidence linking the government to any killings by armed civilians; and in a country where there are on average more than 65 homicides per day, it is most likely that these armed civilians are acting on their own).
— 11 civilians appear to have died at the hands of protestors: three of them shot, and the rest killed by various barricades or other obstructions (e.g. motorcyclist beheaded by wire allegedly strung by protesters).
— 3 national guard appear to have been killed by protesters
— 1 pro-government activist appears to have been killed by security forces
— 6 have died in circumstances that are too unclear to determine if they were really related to protests, but they are often included in press reports.
At least 14 security officers have been arrested and remain in jail for alleged violence against protesters, including the incidents described above.
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U.S. Propaganda
By Margaret Kimberley | Black Agenda Report | March 12, 2014
German chancellor Angela Merkel said that Russian president Vladimir Putin was not “in touch with reality” and was “in another world.” At least that is how the New York Times quotes an unnamed source. Those words have been repeated by reporters, bloggers, pundits and late night talk show hosts numerous times over the past week. Unfortunately there are a few problems with this often repeated quote. There is no proof that Merkel said such a thing at all, and if she did that she meant he was unstable, as many Americans happily and ignorantly assert. Logic and real reporting show that such a statement was highly unlikely. No matter. It has endlessly been reported as fact. Welcome to American style propaganda.
It is impossible for most Americans to think that their country and their government are not beloved around the world. That attitude is due to the relentless propaganda we are subject to our entire lives. We are told our nation is the best, richest, most just, and most deserving. After years of brain washing we are subject to a cynical collaboration between politicians and big business, the same big businesses who run our media outlets and determine what we’ll see and what we should think about what they choose to reveal.
This perversity has many negative consequences. Among them is the public acceptance and approval of nearly every crime committed by our government. If an American president decides that the elected head of state in other country must go, then go he must. The president of Haiti was literally kidnapped by the United States and taken out of his country, with hardly any outcry from Americans. If the Venezuelan people vote for a leftist government and make the same choice in election after election, we are told to ignore the will of that population and join our government in opposing another people’s choice.
The current target of government and media propaganda is Russian president Vladimir Putin. When George W. Bush was president he bestowed the silly moniker Putey Pute and the press followed right along in declaring Putin an A OK kind of guy. He was a friend of our president who knew how to do a deal when called upon and who wouldn’t rock America’s boat.
Fast forward another ten years or so. When the United States and NATO nations set their sights on making Ukraine a puppet fiefdom, the president of the superpower next door said not so fast. Suddenly he was no longer Putey Pute, but an enemy to be hated, feared or derided as a figure of fun. The Obama administration is determined to make good on neo-con fantasies of United States world domination, and anyone who stands in the way is the next target of propaganda from within the government and without.
Photos taken on one day five years ago showing a shirtless Putin are shown again and again. One gets the impression that he rarely wears any clothing. The same media who considered Putin good copy because he hunts, fishes, pilots planes, swims with dolphins and drives formula one race cars now use the same information to convince Americans that he is either a brute or a fool who can and should be bent to their country’s will.
The anti-Putin hysteria and joke telling began in earnest when he put a stop to Obama’s plan to attack Syria, Russia’s ally. Even the recent Winter Olympics became a victim of the United States propaganda machine. In truth, every Olympics is an opportunity for corruption, theft, and displacement of thousands of people. The Sochi games were no worse in those regards but tales of mismanagement and possible terror attacks were magnified because Uncle Sam’s enemy du jour was on worldwide display. When the United States and NATO attempt to make Ukraine a puppet fiefdom met resistance, no stone was left unturned in the anti-Putin propaganda fest.
Like good little scribes the media follow the White House line that German chancellor Angela Merkel would assist in bolstering the United States position vis a vis Putin. The networks and newspapers were so eager to curry favor that they omitted any mention of reports that the NSA tapped Merkel’s personal cell phone for a period of ten years. Of course bringing up that story would force coverage of whistle blower Edward Snowden’s revelations. That is a sore subject for the White House and has of course been relegated away from the front pages now that public compliance is so urgently needed.
The media also omitted the fact that Putin speaks German. The two leaders literally speak the same language and both are targets of United States efforts to control the world and turn everyone into a subject of domination or an enemy. It may be Obama administration wishful thinking that Merkel will carry America’s water but there is no reason for anyone else to believe such nonsense.
The New York Times happily picked up the bone left by the Obama White House but didn’t bother telling readers that Merkel’s staff disputed the account. The German newspaper Die Welt reported that “The chancellery was not pleased with the reporting on the conversation. They claim that what the chancellor said was that Putin has a different perception on Crimea, which is why she is pushing for a fact finding mission on the matter.”
We will never know her exact words but we do know the most important fact of all. The United States government creates and disseminates propaganda to assist in having its way with the world. They have ready and willing compatriots in the corporate media and an apathetic or uniformed public. That mixture is a recipe for lying to be undisputed and for wrongs to go on without protest. Propaganda is not a word meant just for other countries but for ours too. There is official propaganda right here in America and pretending it doesn’t exist only strengthens a system which will put itself and the rest of the world on a course of ultimate destruction.
Gaza missile seizure, Netanyahu’s latest anti-Iran joke
By Finian Cunningham | Press TV | March 11, 2014
Comedians say that the art of telling jokes relies on “timing.” Israeli’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the world’s top comic politician, seemed to be proving the point with his “timely” claims about seizing Iranian rockets aboard a cargo ship in the Red Sea.
Standing in front of 40 pointed missiles, each carefully displayed on props (you sense the stilted exhibitionism here), the Israeli leader said the seized cache “showed the true face of Iran” in its support for terrorism. Netanyahu lashed out at Western leaders who are “shaking hands with Iran” and preparing to finalize a political settlement to the long-running nuclear dispute.
Iran swiftly denounced the Israeli allegations as orchestrated, indicating that the capture of munitions on a Panamanian-registered vessel was a set-up.
Even some of the Israeli media have grown weary of such “propaganda stunts,” as the newspaper Haaretz described Netanyahu’s melodramatic display of Iran’s alleged clandestine cargo in the port of Eilat at the weekend. Netanyahu’s corny sensationalist manner, standing in front of the green-colored rockets, was reminiscent of his previous presentation to the United Nations using a cartoon bomb in which he claimed then that Iran was “only months away from building a nuclear weapon.”
Netanyahu’s record of failure over the past 20 years in predicting “imminent” Iranian nuclear arms capability makes him a laughing stock. Some people watching the latest televised stunt of displaying “captured” Iranian rockets may have wished that one of the devices could have accidentally fired off during the Israeli premier’s speech.
The buffoonish Netanyahu cannot be taken seriously on anything he says. Nevertheless it is worthwhile defusing the latest Israeli propaganda hoax to reveal the mindset of those in Tel Aviv and their backers in Washington and the Western mainstream media who shamefully never fail to lend credibility to such reprehensible smear jobs. “Israeli forces seize rockets ‘destined for Gaza’ in raid on Iranian ship in Red Sea,” read a headline in the British Guardian.
It is amazing how much credence is afforded to baseless Israeli and Western government claims against Iran. In recent years, the Western public has been fed with tall tales of Iranian plots to assassinate diplomats in Washington, and involvement in bombings or attempted bombings in Argentina, Thailand, India, Georgia, Bulgaria and Kenya. Tellingly, none of these stories – always initially reported with ubiquitous fanfare in the Western media – are ever followed up or substantiated.
Yet the same absurd story line, with dramatic plot variations, is peddled over and over again. This systematic regurgitation shows that the Western media is nothing but an instrument of state propaganda.
Of course, Zionist lobby groups, sympathetic Zionist media owners, reporters, pundits are a big part of the charade. So too is the political agenda of Washington and its European allies who slavishly indulge Israel for geopolitical reasons, and who are only too glad to undermine Iran with regard to their support for Israel and the despotic Arab oil sheikhdoms, as well as in their covert war against Tehran’s ally, Syria.
The latest stunt may be also a pretext for the Western governments to procrastinate on the P5+1 settlement – and to subject Iran to further torturous illegal sanctions.
Let’s look at some of the claims in the latest smear job against Iran, which has seen US defense secretary Chuck Hagel also weighing in to accuse Iran of “destabilizing the region”.
The Israelis claim that Syrian-made M-302 rockets, with a firing range of 160km, were first flown by air cargo to Iran. Then Iran moved the ordnance to the port of Bandar Abbas, where it was loaded on to a ship, the KLOS-C. As mentioned, the ship is reportedly registered in Panama with an owner in the Marshall Islands. So what connection Iran has to the vessel is right away tenuous.
Next, the ship is said to have sailed north to the port of Umm Qasr in Iraq, where it was loaded with bags of cement conveniently bearing Iranian trademarks. The KLOS-C made its way out of the Persian Gulf and into the Red Sea, where Israeli Special Forces raided the ship last week off the coast of Sudan.
The Israelis claim – and Western media gave full vent to the claims – that the rockets were to be shipped over land from Sudan via Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula and delivered to Hamas in Gaza. Hamas, as well as Tehran, denies any involvement. It was even speculated in some Western media that the shipment of rockets could also have been intended by Iran for al-Qaeda groups based in Sinai.
This circuitous route, involving weeks of transport time over one of the most intensely surveyed sea-lanes in the world, does not bear serious scrutiny. The risk of such a smuggling plot being uncovered is so high as to make it implausible. Put another way, the chances of it being part of a stage-managed set-up are all the more plausible.
The destination aspect of the alleged plot does not hold water either. Egypt, under the military junta led by General Abdel al Sisi, has stepped up its collusion with Israel to seal off the Sinai Peninsula and all land crossings into Gaza. The notion of trucks carrying dozens of medium-sized surface-to-surface missiles driving into Gaza, undetected, is inconceivable to the point of ridicule.
So too is the Israeli-inspired sub-plot that Iran may have been trying to send the weapons to al-Qaeda in Sinai. This group is waging a Western-backed covert terrorist campaign against Syria and against Shia Muslims in particular. The idea that Shia Iran or its ally Syria would supply Syrian-made rockets to such enemies illustrates how moronic the thesis for this Israeli propaganda stunt is.
The Israeli seizure, by the way, was given the ever-so contrived title of “Full Exposure.” The give-away to this being a stunt is the timing. It came just as Netanyahu was in Washington trying to tell the world that the failure of Mid-East “peace talks” was all the fault of the Palestinians – not anything to do with the genocidal policies of Israel. In other words, it serves as a handy foil to shield Israel from international opprobrium. As Netanyahu was speaking in the White House, Israeli warplanes killed two Palestinians in air strikes on Gaza.
The second timed factor is that Iran is scheduled to complete the P5+1 negotiations for a final settlement over the nuclear dispute. EU foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, was in Tehran at the weekend when Netanyahu fired off rhetorical salvos about “Western hypocrisy in the face of Iranian support for international terrorism.” Israel is livid at the prospect of any nuclear deal being reached. And no doubt there are political forces in Washington and Europe that would relish an accord being sabotaged.
Netanyahu went on to warn about Iranian “armed nuclear suitcases” being sent to every port in the world.
Who needs imaginary nuclear-armed suitcases when we already have a nuclear-armed nutcase – Netanyahu and his apartheid regime?
Comic Netanyahu may have a dubious skill at timing, but his tedious jokes have by now become just stupidly bad. The latest one about “Full Exposure” of Iranian rockets has backfired.
Witnesses at Crimea base: ‘No fighting or shooting like reported on TV’
RT | March 11, 2014
Recent reports from Western media say Russian troops have allegedly seized control of the naval base near the Crimean city of Bakhchisaray on Monday, with “shots being fired in the air.” However, the sailors at the base deny all these reports.
“We were never ambushed or beaten. That’s just nonsense,” Aleksandr Gubenko, a seaman at the Crimean naval base, told Crimea-based journalist Ryan O’Neill.
According to Gubenko, the sailors at the base were told to come to the security checkpoints because “someone was trying to get in.”
“When we got there, these men asked us who we want to align ourselves with,” said Gubenko, “I am leaning towards Crimea because that’s where I’m from, same as 80 percent of other people at this base, and they all know they won’t go fighting their own people.”
It’s not only sailors that have denied the reports of an ambush. The members of the Crimean self-defense squads also say there was “no fighting or shooting” at the Bakhchisaray base “like they are reporting it on TV.”
“A group of Crimean self-defense forces just came in,” Sergey Yurchenko, from the Crimean self-defense squad, told O’Neill, “Their leader is currently negotiating with the commander of the base.”
“I don’t know what exactly they’re talking about there. There is definitely no fighting and no conflict,” he adds.
On Monday many Western media outlets have run reports that “masked troops of unidentified armed men fired in the air at the base near Bakhchisaray.” Some said that it was “Russian forces” which “took over a military hospital and a missile unit” in the naval base.
According to some reports these “masked pro-Russian troops” on Sunday kidnapped the base commander Vladimir Sadovnik. However, later it turned out that Sadovnik had never been kidnapped. On Monday he arrived at the Bakhchisaray base along with self-defense squads.
The Autonomous Republic of Crimea will hold a referendum for March 16 where its people – about 60 percent of whom are ethnic Russians – will decide whether they want the Crimea to remain part of Ukraine, or join Russia.
The situation on the Crimean Peninsula is tense and the authorities fear possible provocations from the coup-imposed Kiev government. On Monday radicals backed by the Kiev authorities made provocations in the village of Chinghar in northern Crimea, said a source from the Crimean self-defense squads. Over 30 cars with nearly 70 people, apparently intending to organize a coup, demanded the self-defense groups let them pass into the territory of Crimea.
Despite all these attempts to disrupt the upcoming the referendum, the Crimean government is controlling the situation on the peninsula, according to the speaker of the Supreme Council of Crimea, Vladimir Konstantinov. He added that “No provocations will be staged before or during the referendum as the region has enough self-defense forces to protect itself.”
The US and EU authorities do not recognize the legitimacy of the Crimean authorities, nor the March 16 referendum, despite the Crimean parliament welcoming a mission from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to observe the ballot.
Meanwhile, Crimean authorities are preparing for the Sunday poll. The government of the autonomous republic will issue up to US$2 million for ballot printing and providing technical support. Overall 1,550,000 ballots will be printed.
Over 1,500 Crimean troops will be deployed at polling stations, according to Crimean Prime Minister Aksyonov.
Related article
Witnesses at Crimea base: ‘No fighting or shooting like reported on TV’
RT | March 11, 2014
Recent reports from Western media say Russian troops have allegedly seized control of the naval base near the Crimean city of Bakhchisaray on Monday, with “shots being fired in the air.” However, the sailors at the base deny all these reports.
“We were never ambushed or beaten. That’s just nonsense,” Aleksandr Gubenko, a seaman at the Crimean naval base, told Crimea-based journalist Ryan O’Neill.
According to Gubenko, the sailors at the base were told to come to the security checkpoints because “someone was trying to get in.”
“When we got there, these men asked us who we want to align ourselves with,” said Gubenko, “I am leaning towards Crimea because that’s where I’m from, same as 80 percent of other people at this base, and they all know they won’t go fighting their own people.”
It’s not only sailors that have denied the reports of an ambush. The members of the Crimean self-defense squads also say there was “no fighting or shooting” at the Bakhchisaray base “like they are reporting it on TV.”
“A group of Crimean self-defense forces just came in,” Sergey Yurchenko, from the Crimean self-defense squad, told O’Neill, “Their leader is currently negotiating with the commander of the base.”
“I don’t know what exactly they’re talking about there. There is definitely no fighting and no conflict,” he adds.
On Monday many Western media outlets have run reports that “masked troops of unidentified armed men fired in the air at the base near Bakhchisaray.” Some said that it was “Russian forces” which “took over a military hospital and a missile unit” in the naval base.
According to some reports these “masked pro-Russian troops” on Sunday kidnapped the base commander Vladimir Sadovnik. However, later it turned out that Sadovnik had never been kidnapped. On Monday he arrived at the Bakhchisaray base along with self-defense squads.
The Autonomous Republic of Crimea will hold a referendum for March 16 where its people – about 60 percent of whom are ethnic Russians – will decide whether they want the Crimea to remain part of Ukraine, or join Russia.
The situation on the Crimean Peninsula is tense and the authorities fear possible provocations from the coup-imposed Kiev government. On Monday radicals backed by the Kiev authorities made provocations in the village of Chinghar in northern Crimea, said a source from the Crimean self-defense squads. Over 30 cars with nearly 70 people, apparently intending to organize a coup, demanded the self-defense groups let them pass into the territory of Crimea.
Despite all these attempts to disrupt the upcoming the referendum, the Crimean government is controlling the situation on the peninsula, according to the speaker of the Supreme Council of Crimea, Vladimir Konstantinov. He added that “No provocations will be staged before or during the referendum as the region has enough self-defense forces to protect itself.”
The US and EU authorities do not recognize the legitimacy of the Crimean authorities, nor the March 16 referendum, despite the Crimean parliament welcoming a mission from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to observe the ballot.
Meanwhile, Crimean authorities are preparing for the Sunday poll. The government of the autonomous republic will issue up to US$2 million for ballot printing and providing technical support. Overall 1,550,000 ballots will be printed.
Over 1,500 Crimean troops will be deployed at polling stations, according to Crimean Prime Minister Aksyonov.
Related article
The Process of Dehumanization
The extent to which 21st Century American culture is imbued by anti-Arab racism
By Ernest A. Canning – 8/21/2009
Excerpts
As revealed [in an] Egypt Today review, Jack Shaheen’s study of early 20th Century films exposed Hollywood’s application of “the generic ‘Ali Baba kit’ comprising of lecherous, barbaric Arab men flanked by erotic belly dancers.” Just as African American men were cast as lusting after white women in the Jim Crow era, these early films depicted the “prize of every Sheikh’s harem” as “the abducted American woman who bravely fights off her sinister master’s sexual advances.”
These disparaging images morphed into an even more sinister caricature of Arabs in the post World War II era — images that coincided with the advent of the Arab/Israeli conflict, the early 70s oil embargo and the Iranian hostage crisis. Against a backdrop of a reality in which intelligent Arab women today are “succeeding in all professions,” Sheehan laments, Hollywood replaced the erotic image of the belly dancer with projections of the Arab woman “as a bomber, a terrorist.” Added to this is what Shaheen calls “’bundles in black,’ veiled women in the background, in the shadows, submissive.”
The threat of Arab/Muslim terrorists finds its ultimate embodiment in Rules of Engagement, a film which was written by former Secretary of the Navy and now U.S. Senator James Webb (D-VA); a film Shaheen describes as “the most racist.”
Shaheen described the action, which takes place in Yemen:
There are violent demonstrations at the American embassy, and the Marines, led by Samuel L. Jackson…open fire on the crowd and kill scores of Yemeni, including women and children. And in the investigation that follows, Tommy Lee Jones, the lawyer who represents the Samuel L. Jackson character, goes to Yemen to investigate….He follows [a one-legged little girl to a hospital ward where he discovers a videotape which when translated states that it is the duty of every Muslim to kill Americans.] We discover that the Yemeni civilians aren’t so innocent after all. It turns out they fired on the Marines first. And in a moment that will live in Hollywood infamy, we suddenly learn that the little girl we’ve been sympathizing with, the very girl whose humanity and innocence may have broken down our stereotypes, well, she’s no better than those other Yemeni terrorists. As a result, when Samuel L. Jackson delivers the key line — [“Waste the mother fuckers”] — we’re now on his side.
“Why does it matter? Shaheen asks. “Because in the end, the massacre of even women and children has been justified….It’s a slaughter, but it’s a righteous slaughter.” […]
Neil Simon’s Chapter Two underscores the disparity between the presently dehumanized Arab and the formerly dehumanized African-American. The film begins with the protagonist, George Schneider, returning from London. “How was London?” his brother asks. “Full of Arabs,” Schneider replies.
“Imagine,” Shaheen states, “”if he had said, ‘Full of blacks,’ ‘Full of Jews’….”
As the Don Imus story reveals, one does not have to imagine. If Beck had openly questioned Barack Obama’s loyalty because he was an African American in the same manner that he questioned Keith Ellison’s loyalty because Ellison is a Muslim, Beck’s career would have been over.
Beck is hardly alone in his dehumanized conception of Muslims. Consider some of the words of America’s Eva Braun, aka Ann Coulter.
Writing about Muslims on Sept. 12, 2001 for the National Review, Coulter said, “We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.” In a Dec. 21, 2005 column, Coulter wrote: :” “I think the government should be spying on all Arabs, engaging in torture as a televised spectator sport, dropping daisy cutters wantonly throughout the Middle East and sending liberals to Guantanamo.”
When her use of the words “camel jockeys” was challenged during an October 1, 2006 appearance on Fox News’s Hannity & Colmes, Coulter responded with sarcasm: “Oh. Yeah. No. They killed 3,000 Americans. I’ll be very careful with my language.”
In her November 30, 2006 column Coulter took the NAACP to task for speaking up for Muslims who had been subjected to racial profiling at airports. Coulter wrote:
The only reason Americans feel guilty about ‘racial profiling’ against blacks is because of the history of discrimination against blacks in this country. What did we do to the Arabs? I believe Americans are the victims in that relationship. After the attacks of 9/11, profiling Muslims is more like profiling the Klan.
The extent to which American culture is imbued with anti-Muslim racism helps to explain the ease with which the Bush administration succeeded in falsely linking Iraq to al Qaeda and 9/11. While the administration doctored intelligence, lied about WMD and links to al Qaeda, Bush and Cheney never flat-out accused Saddam Hussein of complicity in 9/11. They didn’t have to. Against a backdrop of the televised images of burning towers, grainy photos of hijackers, and black-garbed, gun-wielding terrorists in training camps, Bush and Cheney laced their pre-invasion speeches with references to terrorists, 9/11 and WMD. The terrorists attacked us on 9/11. We don’t want the “smoking gun” to come in the form of “a mushroom” cloud.
Hillary Clinton: Playing a Dog-Eared “Hitler” Card
By Norman Solomon | War is a Crime | March 7, 2014
The frontrunner to become the next president of the United States is playing an old and dangerous political game — comparing a foreign leader to Adolf Hitler.
At a private charity event on Tuesday, in comments preserved on audio, Hillary Clinton talked about actions by Russia’s President Vladimir Putin in the Crimea. “Now if this sounds familiar, it’s what Hitler did back in the ’30s,” she said.
The next day, Clinton gave the inflammatory story more oxygen when speaking at UCLA. She “largely stood by the remarks,” the Washington Post reported. Clinton “said she was merely noting parallels between Putin’s claim that he was protecting Russian-speaking minorities in Crimea and Hitler’s moves into Poland, Czechoslovakia and other parts of Europe to protect German minorities.”
Clinton denied that she was comparing Putin with Hitler even while she persisted in comparing Putin with Hitler. “I just want people to have a little historic perspective,” she said. “I’m not making a comparison certainly, but I am recommending that we perhaps can learn from this tactic that has been used before.”
Yes indeed. Let’s learn from this tactic that has been used before — the tactic of comparing overseas adversaries to Hitler. Such comparisons by U.S. political leaders have a long history of fueling momentum for war.
“Surrender in Vietnam” would not bring peace, President Lyndon Johnson said at a news conference on July 28, 1965 as he tried to justify escalating the war, “because we learned from Hitler at Munich that success only feeds the appetite of aggression.”
After Ho Chi Minh was gone, the Hitler analogy went to other leaders of countries in U.S. crosshairs. The tag was also useful when attached to governments facing U.S.-backed armies.
Three decades ago, while Washington funded the contra forces in Nicaragua, absurd efforts to smear the elected left-wing Sandinistas knew no rhetorical bounds. Secretary of State George Shultz said on February 15, 1984, at a speech in Boston: “I’ve had good friends who experienced Germany in the 1930s go there and come back and say, ‘I’ve visited many communist countries, but Nicaragua doesn’t feel like that. It feels like Nazi Germany.’”
Washington embraced Panama’s Gen. Manuel Noriega as an ally, and for a while he was a CIA collaborator. But there was a falling out, and tension spiked in the summer of 1989. Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger said that drug trafficking by Noriega “is aggression as surely as Adolf Hitler’s invasion of Poland 50 years ago was aggression.” A U.S. invasion overthrew Noriega in December 1989.
In early August 1990, the sudden Iraqi invasion of Kuwait abruptly ended cordial relations between Washington and Baghdad. The two governments had a history of close cooperation during the 1980s. But President George H. W. Bush proclaimed that Saddam Hussein was “a little Hitler.” In January 1991, the U.S. government launched the Gulf War.
Near the end of the decade, Hillary Clinton got a close look at how useful it can be to conflate a foreign leader with Hitler, as President Bill Clinton and top aides repeatedly drew the parallel against Serbia’s president, Slobodan Milosevic. In late March 1999, the day before the bombing of Kosovo and Serbia began, President Clinton said in a speech: “And so I want to talk to you about Kosovo today but just remember this — it’s about our values. What if someone had listened to Winston Churchill and stood up to Adolf Hitler earlier?”
As the U.S.-led NATO bombing intensified, so did efforts to justify it with references to Hitler. “Clinton and his senior advisers harked repeatedly back to images of World War II and Nazism to give moral weight to the bombing,” the Washington Post reported. Vice President Al Gore chimed in for the war chorus, calling Milosevic “one of these junior-league Hitler types.”
Just a few years later, the George W. Bush administration cranked up a revival of Saddam-Hitler comparisons. They became commonplace.
Five months before the invasion of Iraq, it was nothing extraordinary when a leading congressional Democrat pulled out all the stops. “Had Hitler’s regime been taken out in a timely fashion,” said Rep. Tom Lantos, “the 51 million innocent people who lost their lives during the Second World War would have been able to finish their normal life cycles. Mr. Chairman, if we appease Saddam Hussein, we will stand humiliated before both humanity and history.”
From the Vietnam War to the Iraq War, facile and wildly inaccurate comparisons between foreign adversaries and Adolf Hitler have served the interests of politicians hell-bent on propelling the United States into war. Often, those politicians succeeded. The carnage and the endless suffering have been vast.
Now, Hillary Clinton is ratcheting up her own Hitler analogies. She knows as well as anyone the power they can generate for demonizing a targeted leader.
With the largest nuclear arsenals on the planet, the United States and Russia have the entire world on a horrific knife’s edge. Nuclear saber-rattling is implicit in what the prospective President Hillary Clinton has done in recent days, going out of her way to tar Russia’s president with a Hitler brush. Her eagerness to heighten tensions with Russia indicates that she is willing to risk war — and even nuclear holocaust — for the benefit of her political ambitions.
Violence in Venezuela: The Myths Versus Facts
By Federico Fuentes | Green Left Weekly | March 5, 2014
Below, Australia Venezuela Solidarity Network activist Federico Fuentes, provides answers to common questions about recent events in Venezuela. Key facts are referenced, largely from media outlets that could not be identified as pro-government.
***
Is recent unrest in Venezuela due to government repression against peaceful protests?
No. This version of events, widely disseminated by the media, ignores the fact that security forces only acted after groups within the protests initiated violent actions. In the case of the first of the current round of protests that gained media attention, in Tachira on February 6, police only moved in after small groups of protesters attacked local governorship offices and home of the local governor.http://www.eluniversal.com/nacional-y-politica/140206/maduro-quieren-apl…
When protests took place in Merida the next day, security forces intervened only after armed protesters had carried out actions such as hijacking trucks carrying food and medicine.http://www.eluniversal.com/nacional-y-politica/140207/herido-estudiante-…
During protests in Caracas on February 12, which gained international media attention due to deaths on the day, there is clear evidence security forces only moved into action after a small group of protesters had them, destroyed the attorney-general’s office and burned five police trucks.http://www.elsoldemargarita.com.ve/posts/post/id:128117
None of this is to deny there were incidents of heavy-handed action by security forces, or to excuse the death of protesters. One fact the media has studious ignored is that 11 members of Venezuela’s security forces and three Bolivarian National Guard soldiers have been arrested and charged after evidence of wrongdoing.
In relation to the two deaths on February 12 (an opposition student and government supporter), eight SEBIN (intelligence) officers who violated strict orders to not confront protesters were arrested. The head of SEBIN has been replaced.http://www.ultimasnoticias.com.ve/noticias/actualidad/sucesos/ocho-funci…
The pattern is clear: small groups of protesters have consciously tried to incite violence and provoke security forces.
The pattern is all the more obvious when we look at the death toll.
As of March 5, there had been 19 deaths that could be directly attributed to the protests. Of these, three have been attributed to state security forces (including that of a government supporter). http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/the-americas-blog/venezuela-who-are-…
In comparison, opposition protesters have shot death two National Guard soldiers and a brother of a national assembly deputy.
A further six have been killed as a result of the opposition road blockades (including two motorbike riders nearly decapitated by barbed wire strung across roadways by protesters).
At least 30 people have indirectly died due to the roadblocks blocking access to emergency medical treatment or other vital services.
It is important to recall that far-right opposition force have continuous used violence against pro-government supporters. In the wake of presidential elections in April last year, 11 people — all government supporters — were killed during days of violent protest. None received the media coverage we see today.
Are these protests in response to legitimate grievances?
Not even President Nicolas Maduro’s government denies Venezuela faces crucial challenges regarding crime and the economy. But it is clear these protests have been organised by right-wing forces who, unable to defeat socialist candidates in elections, are seeking to depose the government via violent means.
Just two months before the recent unrest began, pro-government candidates won 54% of the vote in nation-wide municipal elections recognised as legitimate by the opposition. http://www.americaeconomia.com/analisis-opinion/elecciones-municipales-e…
That is why key opposition leaders, such as Leopoldo Lopez from the Popular Will party, have said repeatedly that the only way to get rid of Maduro’s government is via the streets. http://www.eluniversal.com/nacional-y-politica/140124/dirigentes-invitan…
On February 2, four days before the student protests began in Tachira, Lopez and the opposition-aligned student federation president at the Central University of Venezuela held a public rally.
Lopez called for opposition supporters to take to the streets of Caracas on February 12, National Youth Day, by saying: “The problem is not just Maduro, it is the heads of all the public powers … all of the have to go”. http://www.laverdad.com/politica/45606-la-oposicion-retoma-las-calles-co…
With this in mind, student leaders aligned with Popular Will instigated protests on February 4 in Tachira. They provoked confrontations with police and used images of “repression” to build momentum for the February 12 rally.
Far from being spontaneous protests over social or economic issues, these protests represented a bid by opposition forces to by-pass the democratic process to bring down the elected government.
Who is Leopoldo Lopez?
Lopez is a former mayor of Chacao, a municipality that covers some of the wealthiest suburbs of Caracas and where most of the recent protests have taken place. As mayor, he actively supported the 2002 military coup that briefly ousted president Hugo Chavez and led the arrest of then-interior minister Ramon Rodriguez Chacin. http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/02/20/280207441/5-things-to-kno…
Lopez was found guilty of charges of corruption dating back to his time as an employee of the state oil company PDVSA, when he siphoned money towards starting up a new political party.
Despite this, it is clear Lopez and other opposition figures have received financial support from the US to help their campaign to get rid of first Chavez and now Maduro.
US embassy cables made public by WikiLeaks describe Lopez as “a divisive figure within the opposition … He is often described as arrogant, vindictive, and power-hungry …” http://www.cablegatesearch.net/cable.php?id=09CARACAS1408&q=leopoldo-lopez
Nevertheless, the cables reveal a concerted campaign by Washington to promote and maintain unity among opposition spokespeople, including Lopez. http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/10388
Embassy cables also reveal US government funding of opposition parties, including Lopez’s. Just this year, the US government earmarked a further US$5 million towards opposition groups. http://www.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/04CARACAS2224_a.html
Does the Venezuela government control all the media?
No. More than 70% of the media in Venezuela is privately owned, with 25% being in community hands and only about 5% being controlled by the state. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-19368807
Moreover, 40% of households have cable TV — giving access to Fox and CNN en Espanol.
Almost all private media have shown bias towards the opposition. A study of the three main private TV stations conducted by the Carter Centre during the 2013 presidential elections, found they dedicated 79% of their election coverage to opposition candidate Capriles.https://www.cartercenter.org/news/pr/venezuela-070313.html
These same media outlets have ran constant coverage of the recent protests and statements made by opposition leaders.http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/the-americas-blog/does-venezuelan-te…
There have been many cases of media outlets deliberately misreporting what is occurring in Venezuela. One example is the continued misrepresentation of media ownership in Venezuela. http://www.fair.org/blog/2014/02/27/nyt-corrects-venezuela-tv-falsehood/
The more brazen example is the continued claim by media outlets in Venezuela and internationally (such as El Universal and the New York Times , to give two examples) that a young man was killed as a result of police actions in Tachira.
http://www.eluniversal.com/nacional-y-politica/140228/fallecidos-durante…
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/25/world/americas/in-venezuela-middle-cla…
This is despite video evidence showing that he had fallen off a building. No correction has been issued by any of these outlets.http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/10410
But is the Maduro government a dictatorship? How is it possible to bring him down if not via street protests?
Maduro is democratically elected. The political movement he represents has won 17 out of 18 national elections since Chavez was first elected in 1998.
Despite some opposition claims, Venezuela’s electoral system has been described by former US president Jimmy Carter, whose Cater Center observes elections in many countries, as “the best in the world”. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBwQ40TtCFA
Since October 2012 alone, Venezuelans have gone to the polls four times. Each time the election results have been verified by numerous international election observer teams.
Opposition forces claimed fraud after Maduro narrowly won elections last April, but no actual evidence of fraud was ever presented. A recount demonstrated the results were accurate. Moreover, opposition candidates made no complaints when the same voting system was used in the December municipal council elections.
What elections have repeatedly shown is that the “Chavista” movement remains the largest political force in the country.
It is precisely because the right-wing opposition has failed to win elections that they have turned towards violence, just as they did in 2002 with the failed coup against Chavez.
Protests to bring down an illegitimate government is one thing. Violent protests aimed at imposing a government against the will of the majority are another.
How serious is the economic crisis facing the country?
Few, least of all the Maduro government, deny Venezuela is facing some serious economic problems. However, they are nothing like what the private media portrays.
For example, despite problems with inflation and shortages, Venezuela registered a decline in its poverty rate (from 21.6% in 2012 to 19.6% last year) and unemployment rate (from 5.9% to 5.6%). http://www.ciudadccs.info/?p=521684
Last June, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization praised Venezuela for making great strides in lowering malnutrition. Venezuela’s daily rate of calories consumption per person is almost 60% above the FAO’s proposed minimum intake (3182 calories per day in Venezuela, as compared to 1800 calories). http://www.rlc.fao.org/es/paises/venezuela/noticias/venezuela-sera-recon…
Last year, inflation was a very high 56, compared with 23.4% average during the time of Chavez’s presidency (1999-2012). But inflation is not a new problem in Venezuela.
Media outlets have not noted that in the decade prior to Chavez’s elections, the average inflation rate was 52%, with peaks of 81% (1989) and 103% (1996). http://www.elmundo.com.ve/firmas/blagdimir-labrador/la-inflacion-en-vene…
These and many other figures indicate that the picture is far more complex than media portrayals suggest.
Rather than shed light on the situation, the media prefers to highlight selective facts and blame the government for problems. This enables the media to accomplish two things.
First, it conceals the real role that Venezuela’s rich elites are playing in provoking economic problems. In November last year, the Venezuelan government carried out an audit of thousands of private-owned stores and found almost all of them were involved in marking-up prices by 500%-10,000%.
Since then, the government has enacted a new law that would set a 15%-30% limit on profit margins. This law came into effect around the same time the recent unrest began.
Second, the media’s role is to reinforce the idea that any attempt to change the status quo will result in disaster.
From his first days in office, Chavez was vilified by the media and opposed by the elite. They rejected his proposal that the Venezuelan state should control the country’s oil riches and redistribute its wealth n order to more equitably.
Such policies led to a dramatic fall in poverty and contributed to record economic growth rates. It funded a huge expansion of free, accessible public services (health, education, etc) and community empowerment via funding for grassroots neighbourhood committees.
This is why the Maduro government continues to enjoy popular support — as shown in elections and large pro-government demonstrations.
This is also why the rich elites, and the media outlets they own, are continuously working to bring down the government. Part of this campaign involves discrediting the very idea that people’s needs could take priority over the market.
That is also why it’s not a question of defending a government versus protesters. It’s about defending a political movement of the poor against the violent reaction of the old elites.
US Administration Considering Targeted Sanctions against Members of Venezuelan Government
By Jake Johnston | CEPR Americas Blog | March 4, 2014
Members of Congress and the Obama administration have consistently placed the blame for the violence stemming from protests on the Venezuelan government, while overlooking or ignoring violent incidents by opposition protesters, including the decapitation of motorcycle riders, the burning of government buildings and metro stations, attacks against state media companies, and the killing of individuals seeking to dismantle barricades, including a National Guard officer. Officials have referred instead to “systematic” human rights abuses and government repression, without citing evidence.
Based on these assertions, momentum is building to implement sanctions on members of the Venezuelan government. U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) told the press on Monday that, “There should be sanctions on individuals. … The administration is looking at those.” Wasserman Schultz, the Democratic National Committee chairwoman, cited a “high-level” State Department official that she had recently spoken to.
That the administration is considering sanctions comes on the heels of demands from members of congress that the Obama administration go further in its application of pressure on the Venezuelan government. After introducing legislation “supporting the people of Venezuela as they protest peacefully for democracy,” Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) stated that:
“But this resolution can only be the first step to hold Maduro and his fellow regime thugs accountable for their violent response and their abuses of the Venezuelan people’s liberties and human rights. I have already begun circulating a letter amongst my colleagues in the House, addressed to President Obama, asking him to take immediate actions against Maduro and other Venezuelan officials who are responsible for violations of their people’s human rights. We are calling for the President to enact immediate sanctions against these officials, under authorities granted to him under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), including denying them visas to enter the United States, blocking their property and freezing their assets in the U.S., as well as prohibiting them from making any financial transactions in the U.S.”
Ros-Lehtinen also plans to introduce a bill that would require the administration to take these steps. The moves from the House of Representatives have been echoed in the Senate, where the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and U.S. Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL), Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Ted Cruz (R-TX) have introduced a resolution calling for sanctions. Menendez stated:
“Now is the time to pursue a course of targeted sanctions by denying and revoking visas, and freezing the assets of Venezuelan officials complicit in the deaths of peaceful protestors. Human rights violators should be held accountable for the crimes they committed and their presence should not be welcome in our nation. Venezuelans today are denied basic rights, freedoms, and the ability to peacefully protest the dire economic circumstances caused by President Maduro and his government. We stand with the Venezuelan people and the brave opposition leaders in their pursuit to build a more hopeful Venezuela that embraces a bright future while discarding a failed past.”
Marco Rubio even made the case for sanctions on NBC News’ “Meet The Press,” telling host David Gregory that, “I would like to see specific U.S. sanctions against individuals in the Maduro government that are systematically participating in the violation of human rights and anti-democratic actions.” Florida Governor Rick Scott has also called for sanctions. Although neither the House nor the Senate have passed these resolutions calling for sanctions, Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters last week that, “with respect to Venezuela, Congress has urged sanctions.”
The call for sanctions has also been trumpeted by the press, with Miami Herald columnist Andres Oppenheimer saying that if Venezuela does not respond to “international diplomatic pressures,” then the Congress “should revoke the U.S. visas of Venezuelan government and military leaders.” Further, Otto Reich, the former U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela and Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs at the time of the U.S.-backed coup of 2002, wrote an opinion piece for the National Review titled “It’s Time for Sanctions in Venezuela.”
None of the members of congress nor any of the resolutions mention the fact that of the 18 tragic deaths in Venezuela since the protests began, many were not protestors, but individuals removing barricades and motorcyclists killed by wires strung across streets, or by crashing into barricades. In one case, a member of the Venezuelan National Guard was shot and killed. The Senate resolution makes no call for both sides to refrain from violence nor does it condemn the violent actions of some from the protest movement, however it does deplore “the use of excessive and unlawful force against peaceful demonstrators in Venezuela and the inexcusable use of violence…to intimidate the country’s political opposition.”
While, undoubtedly, excessive force has been used by members of the Venezuelan security forces, over 10 individuals have been arrested for these actions and further investigations are under way. According to the Attorney General (AG) of Venezuela, there are currently 27 investigations into violations of human rights. The AG, Luisa Ortega Diaz, stated that her office “will not tolerate violations of human rights under any circumstance and that any official turns out to be responsible will be sanctioned as established by the laws of Venezuela.” Far from censoring information or trying to hide the extent of the arrests or of those killed in the last few weeks, Diaz has provided regular updates to the press and has kept the public informed about the status of investigations.
Russia’s 25,000-troop allowance & other facts you may not know about Crimea
RT | March 4, 2014
Ukraine’s statement at the UN that ‘16,000 Russian soldiers had been deployed’ across Crimea sparked a MSM feeding frenzy that steadfastly ignored any hard facts that got in their way.
Especially unwelcome is the fact that the so-called ‘invasion force’ has been there for 15 years already.
The media many trust described in hysterical tones how the Autonomous Republic of Crimea was under a full-scale Russian invasion with headlines like: “Ukraine says Russia sent 16,000 troops to Crimea”, “Ukraine crisis deepens as Russia sends more troops into Crimea,” as well as “What can Obama do about Russia’s invasion of Crimea?”
Facts, and ardent statements by top Russian diplomats were totally ignored by the western ‘war press.’
Russian UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin pointed to the longstanding 25,000 troop allowance while FM Sergey Lavrov stressed the Russian military “strictly executes the agreements which stipulate the Russian fleet’s presence in Ukraine, and follows the stance and claims coming from the legitimate authority in Ukraine and in this case the legitimate authority of the Autonomous Republic Crimea as well.”
So here they are, the facts:
1) A Russian naval presence in Crimea dates to 1783 when the port city of Sevastopol was founded by Russian Prince Grigory Potemkin. Crimea was part of Russia until Nikita Khruschev gave it to Ukraine in 1954.
2) In 1997, amid the wreckage of the USSR, Russia & Ukraine signed a Partition Treaty determining the fate of the military bases and vessels in Crimea. The deal sparked widespread officer ‘defections’ to Russia and was ratified by the Russian & Ukrainian parliaments in 1999. Russia received 81.7 percent of the fleet’s ships after paying the Ukrainian government US$526.5 million.
3) The deal allowed the Russian Black Sea Fleet to stay in Crimea until 2017. This was extended by another 25 years to 2042 with a 5-year extension option in 2010.
4) Moscow annually writes off $97.75 million of Kiev’s debt for the right to use Ukrainian waters and radio frequencies, and to compensate for the Black Sea Fleet’s environmental impact.
5) The Russian navy is allowed up to
– 25,000 troops,
– 24 artillery systems with a caliber smaller than 100 mm,
– 132 armored vehicles, and
– 22 military planes, on Crimean territory.
6) Five Russian naval units are stationed in the port city of Sevastopol, in compliance with the treaty:
– The 30th Surface Ship Division formed by the 11th Antisubmarine Ship Brigade. Comprises the Black Sea Fleet’s flagship guard missile cruiser Moskva as well as Kerch, Ochakov, Smetlivy, Ladny, and Pytlivy vessels, and the 197th Landing Ship Brigade, consisting of seven large amphibious vessels;
– The 41st Missile Boat Brigade includes the 166th Fast Attack Craft Division, consisting of Bora and Samum hovercrafts as well as small missile ships Mirazh and Shtil, and 295th missile Boat Division;
– The 247th Separate Submarine Division, consisting of two diesel submarines – B-871 Alrosa and B-380 Svyatoy Knyaz Georgy;
– The 68th Harbor Defense Ship Brigade formed by 4 vessels of the 400th Antisubmarine Ship Battalion and 418 Mine Hunting Ship Division respectively.;
– The 422nd Separate Hydrographic Ship Division boasts the Cheleken, Stvor, Donuzlav and GS-402 survey vessels and hydrographic boats.
7) Russia has two airbases in Crimea, in Kacha and Gvardeysky.
8) Russian coastal forces in Ukraine consist of the 1096th Separate Anti-Aircraft Missile Regiment in Sevastopol and the 810th Marine Brigade, which hosts around 2,000 marines.
Authorities in the Ukrainian Autonomous Republic of Crimea – where over half the population is Russian – requested Moscow’s assistance after the self-proclaimed government in Kiev introduced a law abolishing the use of languages other than Ukrainian in official circumstances.
Last week, Russia’s Federation Council unanimously approved President Vladimir Putin’s request to send the country’s military forces to Ukraine to ensure peace and order in the region “until the socio-political situation in the country is stabilized.”
However, the final say about deploying troops lies with Putin, who hasn’t yet made such a decision, stressing that deploying military force would be a last resort.
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From the Archives
A decade of lies: The US-funded biolab denial saga
RT | May 15, 2026
Russia’s allegations that the US funded clandestine biological laboratories near its borders – claims denied until recently by Washington – have remained a persistent flashpoint in the steadily deteriorating relationship between Russia and the West for nearly a decade.
The biolabs affair was revealed in a 2017 exposé by RT that questioned a shady US military tender seeking the genetic material of living Russians. Over the years, Moscow has raised allegations against Washington of conducting clandestine bio-research, including potential WMD development and illicit human testing, in a network of labs located across multiple nations, the bulk of which operated in Ukraine. The claims were met with a blanket denial in the West, which repeatedly dismissed them as “Russian propaganda.”
This abruptly changed the past week when US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said that her department had identified more than 120 US-funded biological laboratories in 30 countries, with over a third of them located in Ukraine. The agency is now working to “identify where these labs are, what pathogens they contain, and what ‘research’ is being conducted to end dangerous gain-of-function research that threatens the health and wellbeing of the American people and the world,” according to Gabbard.
RT looks back at the timeline of the biolabs saga and the US denial of its existence until now. … continue
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