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Mexican President Says Protests in Cuba Manipulated From Outside

Sputnik – July 12, 2021

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Monday that US-funded organizations were behind the recent protests in Cuba.

On Sunday, Cuba witnessed its largest protests since 1994, fueled by anger over shortages of basic goods. Thousands of people demanded free elections and the resolution of social issues. According to local media, protests and gatherings took place in eight Cuban cities, including Havana. In response, government and Communist Party supporters held their own marches following President Miguel Diaz-Canel’s calls to take to the streets and repel provocations.

“I see that there is meddling. For example, yesterday I saw a social media post from a group called Article 19, which is an association of journalists in Mexico funded by the US government, the US embassy … They condemned President Diaz-Canel’s call for confrontation …,” Lopez Obrador told reporters.

The Mexican president expressed solidarity with the people of Cuba and said the only way out of this crisis was through dialogue, without the use of force, confrontation and violence.

“Mexico has always been in solidarity with Cuba and with all the peoples of the world, if the Cuban government deems it necessary and its people demand it, the Mexican government could help with medicines, vaccines, supplies and food, without the interventionist political manipulation … because health and food are fundamental human rights,” Lopez Obrador added.

The president further noted that the US economic embargo of Cuba should be brought to an end.

“If you want to help Cuba, the first thing that would have to be done is to lift the blockade of Cuba, as required by most of the countries of the world. It would be a true humanitarian gesture, no country in the world can be fenced off, blocked. This is worse than the violation of human rights,” Lopez Obrador stressed.

Bolivian President Luis Arce echoed his Mexican counterpart’s sentiment, saying that Cuba’s domestic affairs must be handled internally.

US restrictions on trade with Cuba date back to the island nation’s communist revolution in the late 1950s and involve at least half a dozen different US laws. Former President Barack Obama took steps to normalize bilateral relations, but many of those steps were reversed by the Trump administration.

Current President Joe Biden has promised that he would return Obama’s policy on Cuba but has yet to reverse his predecessor’s steps.

On June 23, the United States voted against a UN General Assembly resolution condemning the embargo on Cuba, which was adopted by the overwhelming majority of 184 other nations.

July 13, 2021 Posted by | Aletho News | , | 5 Comments

Biden Is on the Same Page As Trump in Maintaining an Anti-Cuba Stance

By Ramona Wadi | Strategic Culture Foundation | May 30, 2021

U.S. President Joe Biden has given every indication so far that U.S. policies on Cuba will not veer away from those of the Trump Administration. In March this year, U.S. officials told Reuters that Cuba is not a top foreign policy item for Biden. The statement was left open to interpretation until now, when the current U.S. administration decided to retain Cuba on the unilateral and defaming U.S. State Sponsors of Terrorism list. The conditions for removal are very much based on how much U.S. influence the listed country will allow – in other words, becoming a U.S. accomplice in foreign policy is a must.

This week, a note signed by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was published, which stated, “I hereby determine and certify to the Congress that the following countries are not cooperating fully with United States anti-terrorism efforts.” Cuba was listed, along with Iran, Syria, Venezuela and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs unequivocally rejected Blinken’s stance: “This is a totally unfounded and political accusation that tries to justify aggression against Cuba, including the inhumane economic, commercial and financial blockades which our people have suffered.”

Cuba has been a victim of U.S. terrorism and invasions since the triumph of the Cuban revolution. Recently on social media, the Central Intelligence Agency drew attention to a commemorative coin which was created to mark an anticipated victory at the Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961, which ended in failure 72 hours later. The CIA-sponsored invasion of Cuba spouted the same rhetoric that is being used by the current administration to justify its oppression of Cuba. Only the U.S. can determine what freedom means for Cuba, in imperialist rhetoric, and the Biden administration is not letting go of the narrative that has suited the U.S. so well.

In case the U.S. needs a reminder, Cuba raised its responsibilities against all forms of terrorism in the new national constitution adopted in 2019. Article 16 (1) of Chapter II of the constitution states that Cuba “rejects and condemns terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, in particular state terrorism.”

At an international level, Cuba signed the Code of Conduct Towards Achieving a World Free of Terrorism in 2018. It has also declared itself committed to implementing the UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy.

The issue is not Cuba’s commitment to fighting terrorism, but the U.S. inability to accept an independent, socialist sovereign state that has resisted against interference, despite all odds against it. When in 1998, Cuba’s State Security had notified the U.S. of terror activities against the island being planned by dissidents in Miami, the FBI made no move against the planned terror and proceeded to arrest the Cuban Five instead. Likewise, the U.S. never targeted the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) – a powerful lobby group involved in many attempted assassinations of Fidel Castro. Neither did the U.S. take action against well-known terrorists Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles, both trained by the CIA.

It is more pertinent to ask why a powerful country that has sponsored so much global terror remains unchallenged in its designations of countries allegedly funding terrorism. The Biden Administration is prioritising Cuba in its foreign policy, but going about it in a backhanded manner. By maintaining Trump’s designation, Biden is taking an active part in attempting to diplomatically isolate Cuba, apart from upholding the ramifications of the illegal U.S. blockade on the island.

Rather than assume that the diplomatic rhetoric about “reviewing” Trump’s designation indicates a possible change in U.S. relations with Cuba, it might be better to hold the Biden Administration accountable to its actions. After all, Biden was voted in as an alternative to Trump. How well is that working in terms of U.S. foreign policy?

May 30, 2021 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | 3 Comments

Why the Embargo Against Cuba?

By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | April 23, 2021

Now that Cuban president Raul Castro has resigned the presidency of Cuba, will the U.S. government lift its six-decades-long economic embargo against Cuba?

Don’t count it. Squeezing the life out of the Cuban people as a way to get regime change has become such a normalized way of life for the United States that it is unlikely that this cruel and brutal policy will be ended anytime soon.

Back in the day, the embargo was justified as part of the Cold War against “godless communism” and, specifically, the international communist conspiracy that was supposedly based in Moscow, Russia and that supposedly threatened to envelope the United States and the rest of the world. (Yes, that Russia, the one we are being called upon, once again, to treat as our official enemy.) The Pentagon and the CIA steadfastly maintained that the “national security” of the United States was gravely threatened by a communist outpost only 90 miles away from American shores.

But when the Cold War suddenly and unexpectedly came to an end in 1989, the embargo just kept gong and going. And even though former communist dictator Fidel Castro is now dead and his brother Raul is now out of the presidency, there is no push within the federal government to finally bring an end to this cruel and brutal program.

What’s up with that? The U.S. government doesn’t have an embargo against communist Vietnam, whose northern half killed some 58,000 American men. Why have an embargo against a country that has never attacked the United States or even threatened to do so?

I suspect that part of the reason is that the CIA has never been able to get over the humiliation of having been defeated when its ragtag army of Cuban exiles invaded Cuba in 1961 in a futile attempt to secure regime change on the island. In fact, my hunch is that the CIA and the Pentagon have never been able to get over the fact that their entire regime-change operations against Cuba, including sabotage, terrorism, and assassination, as well as the embargo, failed to oust the communist regime and replace it with a U.S.-installed regime, one that would, once again, do the bidding of the U.S. government.

In the ultimate analysis, it’s all about empire and control. During the Spanish-American War in 1898, the U.S. came to the defense of Cuba in its war for independence from the Spanish Empire. Once Spain was defeated, however, the U.S. government double-crossed the Cubans and refused to permit them their independence. Instead, the fledgling U.S. Empire simply replaced the Spanish Empire.

The U.S. Empire then proceeded to control Cuba for the next 60 years through a succession of pro-U.S. dictators who agreed to do the bidding of the U.S. government. They were what are sometimes referred to as “puppets”—dancing to the strings of U.S. control. That’s in fact how the U.S. government got its imperial outpost in Cuba’s Guantanamo Bay. The U.S. government’s puppet regime in Havana gave that portion of Cuba to the United States.

One of the U.S. puppets was Fulgencio Batista, a corrupt pro-U.S. tyrant who was ousted by the Cuban revolution in 1959. One of his programs was to have his government goons go out into the Cuban countryside and kidnap young girls — minors. They would then bring them back to Havana, where they would be handed over to the Mafia-controlled casinos, which were giving Batista a cut of the action. The girls would be handed over to the high-rollers in the casinos as sexual favors.

U.S. officials loved Batista and were hoping that he would remain in power. It was not to be. The person who instigated the revolution was a woman named Celia Sanchez, who had a young girlfriend who was kidnapped by Batista’s goons and then raped as a sexual favor in the Mafia’s casinos.

What the Pentagon and the CIA want today is to resume control over Cuba with another pro-U.S. dictator who will do their bidding, just like before the Cuban revolution. That’s what the embargo is all about. That’s why they continue to target the Cuban people with death and economic privation. They want to resume control over Cuba, and they want it bad.

There is something else to keep in mind about the U.S. government’s relationship with Cuba for the last 60 years: It has always been the U.S. government that has been the aggressor. It is the U.S. government that has targeted the Cuban people with death and economic privation with its embargo. It has been the U.S. government that has engaged in sabotage and terrorism against the Cuban people. It is the U.S. government that has repeatedly tried to murder Cuban officials, even in partnership with the Mafia, one of the biggest criminal organizations in the world.

Finally, I would be remiss if I failed to point out that the U.S. government’s embargo against Cuba has always been a direct attack on the natural, God-given rights of freedom of travel and economic liberty of the American people. After all, let’s not forget that Americans are the ones who are arrested, prosecuted, and incarcerated for traveling to Cuba and spending money there without the official consent of their Washington overlords.

If the American people wished to begin restoring a sense of morality to the U.S. government and a small bit of economic freedom to their lives, a good place to begin would be by bringing about an end to the six-decades-old embargo against Cuba. It’s an evil and destructive Cold War dinosaur that deserves extinction.

April 24, 2021 Posted by | Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | , | 2 Comments

Just Leave the Commies Alone

By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | March 25, 2021

I’m not sure what good it did for the Cold War to end, given that the U.S. government has done everything it could since then to gin up hostilities, tension, and conflict with the communist and former communist world.

When Russia expressed a desire to have friendly relations at the start of the Trump administration, the Pentagon and the CIA went ballistic over that “attack” on their financial well-being. That’s when the big brouhaha over Trump supposedly being a covert Russian agent got launched, which played a major role in derailing his presidency.

Don’t forget also how NATO, under U.S. orders, began gobbling up former Warsaw Pact countries with the ultimate aim of absorbing Ukraine, which would have put U.S. nuclear missiles on Russia’s border and also would have put Crimea under the control of the U.S. military-intelligence establishment.

When China expressed a desire to have friendly relations with the U.S., President Trump launched his vicious trade war against the country, with the aim of preventing China from becoming more prosperous and more powerful. That’s what empires have done throughout history — launch preemptive strikes against rising nations, which are viewed as “adversaries,” “rivals,” “opponents,” “enemies,”or some other such imperialist nonsense.

And then there is North Korea, where the U.S. government intervened in the 1950s as part of its much-vaunted Cold War racket, in which the Pentagon and the CIA convinced Americans that the Reds were coming to get us. If the U.S. didn’t sacrifice tens of thousands of American men in the Korean civil war, U.S. officials maintained, it wouldn’t be long before the commies were running America’s public schools and our Interstate Highway System.

Today, the mainstream media is announcing that North Korea is “challenging” the Biden administration with the firing of what appear to be ballistic missiles. Question: Why aren’t the military exercises that the Pentagon conducts with South Korea considered to be “challenging” North Korea? Isn’t it possible that North Korea is simply responding to the “challenge” that the U.S. is posing to North Korea with its provocative military exercises?

Moreover, what about those cruel and brutal sanctions that U.S. officials continue to enforce against North Korea? They continue to target the North Korean people with death and economic impoverishment. Why aren’t those economic sanctions considered to be “challenging” North Korea? After all, given that their aim is to bring death to innocent people in the hope of achieving a political goal, how are they different from acts of terrorism?

It is the U.S. government — and specifically the U.S. national-security establishment — that is at the heart of the never-ending crisis in Korea, just as it is at the heart of the crises with China and Russia. The U.S. national-security establishment has never wanted to let go of its Cold War communist enemies, which enabled the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA to wallow in ever-increasing budgets, powers, and influence.

Crisis is the name of the game in the national-security state racket. The more crises, the better. If the communists won’t fit the Bill, there is always the war on terrorism … or Muslims … or Syria … or Venezuela … or whatever.

There is one reason for North Korea possessing nuclear weapons — to deter U.S. attacks on North Korea or, in the event the Korean War resumes, to defend against U.S. attacks on North Korea. Why should anyone be surprised when a Third World country wants to acquire nuclear weapons to defend itself from the Pentagon and the CIA and their policy of violent regime change?

Just ask the Iraqi people about that. They never attacked the United States. Nonetheless, the Pentagon attacked them, viciously, killing, torturing, and destroying hundreds of thousands of innocent people. It was nothing less than a “war of aggression,” a type of war declared a war crime by the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal.

There is something important to note about the U.S. war on Iraq: That Third World country didn’t have nuclear weapons. U.S. officials had nothing to fear from Iraq defending itself against the U.S. war of aggression.

Or ask the Cubans, another Cold War boogieman that U.S. officials claimed for 45 years posed a grave threat to “national security.” That was how the CIA justified its state-sponsored murder schemes against Cuban officials. It’s also how they justified an economic embargo aimed at killing innocent Cuban people as a way to achieve regime change on the island. It’s also what the Pentagon used as a justification to present its fraudulent Operation Northwoods plan to President Kennedy in the hopes that he would use it as an excuse to invade Cuba.

When Cuba brought in Soviet nuclear missiles, Kennedy agreed that there would be no invasion of the island in return for a Soviet withdrawal of the missiles. How could North Korea and every other Third World nation not see that?

It’s probably worth mentioning that although the Cold War ended decades ago, the U.S. government continues to target the Cuban populace with its vicious and brutal economic embargo. Hey, don’t forget: those Cuban Reds are only 90 miles away from American shores!

There is something else to note about U.S. troops in Korea. The war they are fighting is illegal under our form of government, given that Congress has never declared war on North Korea, as our Constitution requires. Don’t the troops take an oath to support and defend the Constitution?

The only thing that surprises me in this entire national-security state racket is that the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA aren’t stirring up trouble in Vietnam. Hey, those dominoes could still start falling any day now!

March 26, 2021 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

Human Rights Watch denounces Cuba for human rights violations

By Lucas Leiroz | February 9, 2021

Denunciations of human rights violations against Cuba have become routine in the West. For decades, governments, NGOs and activists have denounced the Cuban government for various attitudes of abuse of universal rights, but the sources of such reports and evidence of crimes remain weak and vague. Once again, the NGO Human Rights Watch issued a report warning of an alleged “abusive” situation with regard to human rights on the island – and again the evidence is weak and reveals an ideologized action.

Every year, Human Rights Watch releases its global reports, covering all regions of the planet and warning against alleged human rights violations worldwide. In its 2021 edition, published on January 13, in the topic dedicated to Cuba, several crimes were reported, including alleged arbitrary arrests on the island, lack of freedom of expression, presence of political prisoners in Cuban penitentiaries, travel restrictions and several others acts that are presented to international society as frequent and structural in Cuba.

There are explanations for Human Rights Watch’s frontal opposition to Cuba, which are little publicized in the international media. In the past, the Cuban government has accused the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) of funding more than 20 organizations to promote complaints and defamations against the Latin country, including HRW. NED’s ties to the CIA prompted the Cuban government to veto agents from organizations linked to the NED into the country. In fact, regardless of whether or not there is a plot against the island organized by the NED and the CIA, it is clear that HRW’s annual reports are focused on denouncing and criticizing emerging countries, especially non-aligned nations, anticipating coercive measures taken by the US and other Western powers. This led Havana to endorse the narrative that HRW creates justifications for subsequent coercive measures with its allegations of human rights violations.

The central problem for the credibility of HRW reports is the authenticity of the organization’s sources. The reports are based on data provided by anti-government activists who are ideologically committed to the end of communism and the triumph of American interests on the island. To this end, such activists, who work inside and outside Cuba, adulterate, exaggerate or even create data that does not correspond to the reality of the country, as has been reported several times by Havana. The speech of anonymous activists follows a model predefined by American agencies interested in the fall of the Cuban government. This speech is disseminated by human rights NGOs and finally justifies coercive measures by the American government. For this reason, Havana sees HRW as a threat to its national security and this will not change, even if Washington strengthens its sanctions further, as there is a central ideological incompatibility between these countries that cannot be overcome with mere coercive maneuvers.

Exaggeration is certainly the greatest weapon of these agents. Surely, there are human rights violations in Cuba – just as there are in any nation. There is no country that has been successful in completely abolishing acts contrary to human rights. Many nations may have officially abolished such practices, but they certainly still exist unofficially and, equally, deserve investigation and criticisms. However, this persecution against “human rights violators” is generally applied when the charged state is an emerging nation geopolitically opposed to Washington, like Cuba. In this way, NGOs like HRW observe cases of violation and exaggerate them, claiming that there is a state policy to confront universal rights, when, in fact, they are only marginal practices that exist in any country.

Just as mistakes are exaggerated, merits are ignored. Cuba has some of the best social indicators on the American continent, being a global reference in education and with some of the most qualified medical professionals in the world. Havana is responsible for several humanitarian missions sending doctors and equipment to nations in need of medical care, including not only poor countries, but developed states in emergencies, such as Italy during the pandemic. Furthermore, Cuba seems to be advanced in many agendas exalted in the West. For example, women occupy 51% of the deputies in the National Assembly and are 62% of the country’s scientists – which are remarkably high numbers by Western standards. These indices show that, with or without structural disrespect, there is undeniable progress in terms of human rights, and this cannot be ignored.

However, Havana is right to think that HRW’s reports are not by chance. What we should expect for the future is the resurgence of a focus of tensions between Washington and Havana. Trump, in his last days in government, reversed a process of rapprochement between the countries when he considered Cuba again as a terrorist financing nation – a totally unreasonable accusation and without any material evidence, which Trump certainly did not believe, but made this decision as a strategic maneuver to harm Biden and transfer power to his successor with more international tensions. Biden promised to review Trump’s policy against Cuba but gave no details of exactly what points he will reform. However, a peaceful policy for Havana was never expected from the new American president. Biden’s reforms are likely to occur, more likely, to facilitate the flow of migration and to include “humanitarian” issues in relations, shifting the focus of tensions from a security and defense perspective to one of respect for human rights and democracy.

In practice, this means that Biden must try to harm Cubans even more by imposing international sanctions in order to force Havana to comply with humanitarian standards that are already respected but whose compliance will never be recognized by NGOs committed to the American government.

Lucas Leiroz is a research fellow in international law at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

February 9, 2021 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , , | 1 Comment

Cuban Officials Reject Claims That ‘Havana Syndrome’ Was Caused by Directed Radio Frequency Energy

By Gaby Arancibia – Sputnik – 16.12.2020

In late 2016, reports emerged that staff members at US and Canadian embassies in Havana, Cuba, were experiencing symptoms that included hearing loss, dizziness and a sensation or vibration of pressure in the head. The mysterious health effects resulted in the US accusing Cuba of carrying out attacks on its diplomats, resulting in new hostilities.

Cuban officials issued a statement on Tuesday rejecting claims made in a US report that alleged directed radio frequency energy was likely to blame for mysterious health ailments suffered by several diplomats working in Havana, Cuba.

Luis Velázquez, the president of the Cuban Academy of Sciences, noted in the release that the organization disagrees with the National Academies of Sciences (NAS) December 6 report, even though it “made progress in defining the medical characterization of the causes and issued valid recommendations.”

“The report does not provide scientific evidence that radio frequency waves of great intensity existed in the area where the diplomats were located,” the statement read, before underscoring that the NAS conclusion was more of a hypothesis and “certainly not a proven fact.”

The NAS report was commissioned by the US State Department, a fact which likely raised red flags for the Cuban organization.

Velázquez’s statement further stressed that the Cuban body recommended both “journalists and governments to listen to science and refrain from endorsing conspiracy theories.” He added that symptoms reported by the affected individuals “should be considered and treated as a health problem, not as a political issue.”

NAS explained in its reporting that it had determined “directed, pulsed radio frequency energy” was the “most plausible mechanism”, after examining symptoms experienced by diplomatic staff. It’s worth noting that the study authors did indicate that a more thorough investigation would be needed.

Although health problems were first documented in late 2016, reports on the matter were not raised until 2017, after dozens of individuals reported symptoms. The unusual development was eventually dubbed the “Havana Syndrome.”

Initial reports suggested that afflicted individuals began first hearing an odd noise for a period of time, often late at night in their homes or hotel rooms. In some cases, the sudden wave of headaches and dizzy spells would prompt an individual to become nauseous.

With no clear understanding of what was happening, the Trump administration subsequently declared that the health problems were the likely result of a coordinated attack against American diplomats.

By August 2017, tensions between the US and the island nation reached a new height as two Cuban diplomats were expelled from the US. Some 15 Cuban diplomats would be expelled in the months that followed. Non-essential staff at the US embassy in Havana were later removed, leaving only a skeleton crew to keep the site running.

The Cuban government has repeatedly rejected all allegations that it had any involvement in the incidences, going so far as to offer its cooperation on investigations. Trump administration officials have refused to collaborate.

December 16, 2020 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

Cuba Advocates Denuclearization in United Nations Meeting

Ambassador Ana Rodriguez at the UN Headquarers, New York, U.S., June 1, 2020.

teleSUR | August 26, 2020

The Deputy Permanent Representative of Cuba to the United Nations Ana Rodriguez Wednesday reaffirmed her country’s commitment to denuclearization and advocated for a world free of nuclear weapons.

She stressed that it is disconcerting how some countries persist in their drive to modernize atomic arsenals and develop new types of nuclear weapons amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Rodriguez also pointed out that it is impossible to think about a world free of nuclear weapons when the United States violates both the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

The Cuban ambassador recalled that the U.S. has withdrawn from several international agreements on disarmament and arms limitation such as the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) and the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

She also mentioned that Cuba supports an effective and total ban on all kinds of nuclear tests. Her government also advocates the closure and dismantling of all facilities used for such purposes.

Rodriguez pointed out that the spending great amounts of money to develop nuclear weapons is unacceptable as international cooperation to face global health problems is needed.

Currently, there are approximately 13,400 nuclear weapons in the world, 3,720 of which are deployed and 1,800 are on high operational alert.

August 27, 2020 Posted by | Militarism | , | 1 Comment

USA’s Militarization of Latin America

By Yanis Iqbal | Dissident Voice | August 24, 2020

Maj. Gen. Andrew Croft, the commander of 12th Air Force, wrote on 22 August: “I have seen an increasingly contested strategic space where Beijing and Moscow are aggressively investing time and resources in Latin America to support their authoritarian models of governance. The Air Force must reinforce the strength of our longstanding commitment to the Western Hemisphere. We lose ground when we are unable to commit to spending the time and resources to fly our aircraft south and train alongside our partners.”

Croft’s statement reflects the growing American hysteria against the presence of any extra-regional actors in the Latin American continent. For US policy-makers, Latin America is not an aggregation of sovereign nations but a large lump of subordinated states constituting “America’s backyard”. Consequently, this conceptualization of Latin America as a natural extension of the American empire has led to viewing the engagement of any South American country with China, Russia and Iran as a “threat” to peace and security.

On February 7, 2019, Admiral Craig S. Faller – the commander of the United States Southern Command – told the Congress that the Western Hemisphere is facing “a troubling array of challenges and threats”. These threats included alarmist assertions about the growing dominance of China, Russia and Iran and a general demonization of the socialist governments of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua:

“China has accelerated expansion of its Belt and Road Initiative at a pace that may one day overshadow its expansion in Southeast Asia and Africa. Russia supports multiple information outlets spreading its false narrative of world events and U.S. intentions. Iran has deepened its anti-U.S. Spanish language media coverage and has exported its state support for terrorism into our hemisphere. Russia and China also support the autocratic regimes in Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua, which are counter to democracy and U.S. interests. We are monitoring the latest events in Venezuela and look forward to welcoming that country back into the hemisphere’s community of democracies.”

In response to the perceived threats posed by the China-Russia-Iran nexus, the Secretary of Defense has decided to conduct an assessment of the sufficiency of resources available to the U.S. Southern Command, the U.S. Northern Command, the Department of State, and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to carry out their respective missions in the Western Hemisphere. This assessment is required to include “a list of investments, programs, or partnerships in the Western Hemisphere by China, Iran, Russia, or other adversarial groups or countries that threaten the national security of the United States.”

In addition to warlike preparations, USA has also pursued a policy of increased militarization wherein it has tried to ensure “technological superiority” with regard to “anti-US actors”. In March, 2020, USA decided to send additional ships, aircraft and forces to South America and Central America in order to combat the influence of Russia and China. According to Navy Adm. Craig Faller, commander of Southern Command, “This really was born out of a recognition of the threats in the region,”. Along with the mobilization of the Southern Command, USA has substantially enlarged its security aid to Latin America: From $527,706,000 in 2019, US security aid to Latin America has increased by 10% to $581,270,000.

Chinese Footprint

The present-day US militarization of Latin America is rhetorically driven by an imperialist discourse framing the continent as a possession of the American empire which China, Russia and Iran are trying to appropriate. To take an example, R. Evan Ellis, a Latin America Research Professor at the US Army War College, stated before the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission that China’s engagement with Latin America “threatens the position of the United States, our security and prosperity, and the democratic values, rights, institutions and laws on which we depend.” To substantiate his statements, Ellis enunciated various strategies through which China is undermining USA’s dominance:

  • “Trade with, loans to, investment in, and other forms of economic and other support to anti-US regimes, indirectly enabling their criminal activities and contributions to regional instability”.
  • “Through providing an alternative to commerce, loans and investment from the West, making governments of the region less inclined to support the US on political, commercial, or security issues, or to stand up for rule of law, democracy or human rights, particularly where it might offend the PRC;”

In both these points, one can observe the imperialistic high-handedness with which Ellis is declaiming his pro-US rhetoric. While Beijing’s efforts to engage with sovereign nations and construct an alternative to the global American empire are regarded as enabling “regional instability”, no questions are asked about USA’s expansionist quest to imperialize the entire world through militaristic tactics.

In order to vilify China and smear its non-aggressive foreign policy, hawkish security experts have framed the country’s diplomatic involvement with various Latin American nations as a type of authoritarian tactic. Using this line of reasoning, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) writes: “Beijing has now officially established its own version of soft power… which emanates from its undemocratic system and rests on its ability to shape the viewpoints of others through co-optation and persuasion.” Not having any empirical evidence to prove its unconvincing statements, NED talks vaguely about the “hypnotic effects” exercised by “Chinese-style warm welcome”: “The Chinese-style warm welcome, the carefully selected tours that include visits to sites with symbolic historical and cultural significance, and ad hoc friendly discourse delivered by the Chinese hosts can have hypnotic effects on their foreign guests.” This is an indication of the extent to which America hysteria against China can reach.

In the same way as NED, the Brookings Institution has also tried to slander China’s diplomatic initiatives in Latin America to preserve the coercive dominance of USA in the continent. As per the think tank, “it would be fair to assume that China’s growing economic power and ambitions of global leadership, coupled with its inherently closed and repressive model of political control, will hurt the region’s prospects for strengthening its liberal democratic systems and respect for human rights.” While saying this, the Brooking Institution conveniently forgets that it the US, with its Western-styled liberal democracy, that has hurt the region most in the form of coups, violence and overt brutality against social movements. Most recently, a US-backed coup in Bolivia has resulted in two massacres and massive repression of social movements.

The Iranian Connection

Like China, Iran, too, experiences American hostility towards its engagement with Latin American countries. Lieutenant Andrew Kramer of the U.S. Navy terms Iranian support for the “economically backward governments” of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela as efforts “to maintain pockets of instability and hostility close to U.S. borders.” Echoing this perspective, William Preston McLaughlin, a Colonel (Ret.) of U.S. Marine Corps and Magdalena Defort, an Intern Analyst at the Foundation of Defense of Democracies, argue that “Iran’s presence in Latin America is an imminent threat to peace and political stability in the Western Hemisphere because its forces interact with Latin America’s deeply rooted revolutionary ideology and various well-intentioned but flawed “liberation theology” social movements.” Here, both of the analysts are merely parroting the imperialist “Monroe Doctrine” that subverted the sovereignty of Latin American nations and tethered the people of the continent to the whims of the American empire. Through the Monroe Doctrine, USA relegated the entire Latin American continent to the status of the empire’s handmaiden and constantly used its military muscles to overpower any regional initiatives challenging the dynamics of subjugation. Now, when Iran is lending support to the anti-imperialist administrations of Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba, it has come under the radar of USA for ostensibly destroying peace and political stability in the Western Hemisphere. In August 2020, for instance, USA confiscated four Iranian fuel shipments that had been bound for Venezuela, making it clear that it would not tolerate anti-imperialist opposition in Latin America.

In addition to portraying Iran as a threat to global peace, both the analysts also used a shrill, scaremongering rhetoric to over-exaggerate the strength of the country. According to the analysts, “Iran has used every agency within its borders to help extend Iranian tentacles into the political, cultural, economic, and military life of Latin America.” This bears striking resemblance to the traditional war-mongering US narrative that frames Hezbollah as a menace to justify the militarizary raising funds, seeking recruits, probing for our weaknesses and challenging our defenses,”. Through these discourses, USA seeks to unleash a new war against the anti-imperialist axis of Latin America which is standing up to militaristic predatoriness of the global hegemon.

Russian Presence

Besides Iran and China, Russia is another nation perceived as a “threat” to US security. General John Kelly, commander of the U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) noted in his Congressional testimony, “it has been over three decades since we last saw this type of high-profile Russian presence” in Latin America. In his command’s 2015 Posture Statement, Kelly added:

“Periodically since 2008, Russia has pursued an increased presence in Latin America through propaganda, military arms and equipment sales, counterdrug agreements, and trade. Under President Putin, however, we have seen a clear return to Cold War tactics. As part of its global strategy, Russia is using power projection in an attempt to erode U.S. leadership and challenge U.S. influence in the Western Hemisphere.”

John Kelly’s representation of Russia as a military threat has been repeated by the Commander of US Southern Command, Admiral Kurt W. Tidd who said in his February 2018 Posture Statement to the US Senate Armed Services Committee that:

“Russia’s increased role in our hemisphere is particularly concerning, given its intelligence and cyber capabilities, intent to upend international stability and order, and discredit democratic institutions… Left unchecked, Russian access and placement could eventually transition from a regional spoiler to a critical threat to the U.S. homeland.”

With the help this narrative, USA has aggressively pushed forward the agenda of greater militarism in Latin America as it strives to maintain “technological superiority” in relation to Russia and expand its already large military expenditure.

On top of depicting Russia as a military threat, US analysts have additionally portrayed the country’s support of socialist governments in Latin America as a danger to the economically empty liberal democracies of the West. According to IBI Consultants, a National Security consulting company specializing in Latin America, Russia’s growing presence in Latin America “is now an integral part of an alliance of state and nonstate actors that have shown their hostility toward the United States in their ideology, criminalized behavior, and anti-democratic nature.” Reiterating this point, on July 9, 2019, Admiral Faller declared before the Congress that “Russia seeks to sow disunity and distrust, propping up autocratic regimes in Cuba, Bolivia, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, which are counter to democracy and U.S. interests.” For Faller, those nations which don’t doggedly toe America’s imperialist line automatically become “threats” to democracy and if Russia shows solidarity with these anti-imperialist nations, it, too, classifies as a threat to US interests.

As the USA continues to militarize Latin America, it is increasingly becoming clear that it wants to protect its old, imperial structures from being challenged by anyone. It has been explicitly acknowledged even by pro-US analysts such as Ellis that US military assistance in Latin America “potentially serves U.S. strategic interests by helping to inoculate receiving states against radical or anti-democratic [read “socialist”] solutions which find receptivity when populations lose faith in the ability of a democratic political system and a free market economy to effectively address the corruption, inequality, injustice, and other dysfunctionalities plaguing their country [Emphasis mine].” US military assistance, therefore, is not apolitical and is ideologically tarnished with the objectives of stabilizing free market economies-bourgeoisie democracies and subverting socialist countries.

The United States Intelligence Community’s assessment of threats to US national security had stated in 2019 that “anti-US autocrats [in the Western Hemisphere]will present continuing challenges to US interests, as US adversaries and strategic competitors seek greater influence in the region.” Here, “anti-US autocrats” refers to the socialist administrations of three Latin American countries: Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. These three countries have been facing strong US belligerence for their anti-imperialist stance. US sanctions against Cuba have tightened during the pandemic; USA’s hybrid war against Venezuela has intensified as Trump has decided to use frozen funds to topple Nicolas Maduro and USAID (United States Agency for International Development) has strengthened its regime change operations against the Sandinista government of Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua. Due to the support lent by China, Russia and Iran to the socialist governments of Latin America, USA has decided to eradicate these extra-regional actors from its “own” backyard and re-proclaim a complete American dominance in the region. In times like these, the international community needs to oppose the militarism of USA against new regional alliances in Latin America.

Yanis Iqbal is a student and freelance writer based in Aligarh, India.

August 24, 2020 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

YouTube Shuts Down New Channels from Venezuela and Cuba

teleSUR | August 21, 2020

Without prior notice, YouTube Thursday removed three Venezuelan channels and two Cuban channels from its platform.

“We were loading to the platform not only live transmissions but also our complete programs. There is no clear explanation for this action,” said Barry Cartaya, a presenter of Venezolana de Television (VTV), a state-run television station based in Caracas.

“This page isn’t available. Sorry about that. Try searching for something else,” is the message popping up when the people try to access VTV channels.YouTube eliminated over 68,000 videos that the Venezuelan media stored in this platform since2011.

The VTV channels affected by the U.S. company are Multimedio VTV (314,000 subscribers), VTV Programs (87,000 subscribers), and VTV Signal Live, which allowed journalists and correspondents to directly post their productions to inform the public.

In Cuba, outlet Cubadebate also denounced the closure of two Youtube channels, namely, Mesa Redonda (19,700 subscribers) and Cubavision Internacional (8,200 subscribers).

Local analysts consider YouTube’s decisions might be related to the sanctions President Donald Trump is applying against individuals, companies, and institutions of both countries.

According to YouTube’s own rules, a channel can be closed when it has committed three serious offenses during a certain period. In the cases of the Venezuelan and Cuban channels, however, these offenses did not exist.

August 22, 2020 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , | 1 Comment

Russia to Start the Production of Its COVID-19 Vaccine in Cuba

teleSUR | August 11, 2020

Russia’s Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) Chief Executive Officer Kiril Dmitriev announced that Cuba could begin producing the COVID-19 vaccine, the Sputnik V, in November.

“Cuba has a large capacity to produce medicines and vaccines with highly qualified staff. We could coordinate with its government to start the vaccine production in November,” Dmitriev stated.

He also pointed out that the third stage of vaccine trials will begin in Russia on Wednesday. Later the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and the Philippines will continue testing it.

On Tuesday, Health Minister Mikhail Murashko announced the registration of the world’s first COVID-19 vaccine, the Sputnik V, which is named after the first artificial satellite launched into orbit by the USSR in 1957.

Before being tested in 76 volunteers, the Russian COVID-19 vaccine passed all the necessary safety and efficacy tests in several animal species.

On Tuesday morning, outlet Sputnik reported that that the Russian vaccine, which was developed by the Gamaleya Research Institute, can protect a person from the coronavirus for up to two years after injection.

“Such a prolonged period of protection is possible due to the vaccine being based on viral vectors – a harmless human adenovirus delivers a portion of the COVID-19 virus to a human body forcing it to form an immune response to it,” the Russian outlet explained.

August 12, 2020 Posted by | Aletho News | , | 3 Comments

The Evil, Immoral, Vicious, and Hypocritical Embargo Against Cuba

By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | July 20, 2020

The banality of evil that characterizes the U.S. national security state is demonstrated perfectly by the continuation of its deadly economic embargo against Cuba, which has been ongoing for some 60 years.

What’s the point of the embargo? After all, the Pentagon’s, CIA’s, and NSA’s official enemy Fidel Castro died years ago. Why continue to intentionally inflict harm on the Cuban people?

And make no mistake about it: Inflicting harm on the Cuban people is the purpose of the embargo. Its aim is to impoverish or starve Cubans into ousting their post-Castro regime and installing another pro-U.S. right-wing brutal dictatorship similar to the one that Castro ousted from power in the Cuban revolution.

In fact, the first embargo that the U.S. implemented against Cuba was during the reign of the crooked, corrupt, and brutal pro-U.S. right-wing dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. That was an arms embargo. U.S. officials didn’t want weaponry imported into Cuba because that might enable the Cuban people to oppose Batista in a violent revolution.

During his reign, Batista partnered with the Mafia, the premier criminal organization that was smuggling drugs into the United States. As part of their partnership agreement, Batista let the Mafia operate gambling casinos in Cuba. As part of that cozy relationship, Batista would have his henchmen kidnap under-aged girls in Cuba and turn them over to the Mafia, which would then provide them as perks to the high-rollers in its casinos. That’s one of the things that brought on the Cuban Revolution.

That’s the guy that the U.S. national-security state was hell-bent on keeping in power. Thus, it should surprise no one that the CIA, like Batista, later entered into partnership with the Mafia, knowing full well that the Mafia was engaged in massive criminal activity. The purpose of the CIA-Mafia partnership was assassination. They were working together to assassinate Castro.

It stands to reason that the Mafia would try to assassinate Castro. It has lost all its casinos to Castro’s nationalization. And it was in the business of killing people.

But the U.S. government? In the business of murder? And in partnership with the biggest criminal organization in the world?

Don’t forget something important here: Castro, Cuba, and the Cuban people have never attacked the United States or even threatened to do so. No invasion. No terrorist attacks. No assassinations.

In fact, it has always been the other way around. In the more than six decades of bad relations between Cuba and the U.S., it has always been the U.S. government that has been the aggressor. An invasion, terrorist attacks, assassination attempts, and the embargo, all on the part of the U.S. government.

U.S. national-security state officials always justified such actions under the notion that Cuba was the spearhead of a worldwide communist conspiracy to take over the United States, one that was supposedly based in Moscow. It was always a ridiculous notion but that was the mindset of CIA, NSA, and Pentagon officials during the Cold War — that Cuba’s communist regime posed a grave threat to U.S. “national security.”

But the Cold War ended more than 30 years ago. Do the CIA, NSA, and Pentagon still think that the United States is in danger of falling to the Cuban communists?

Of course not. Now, it’s just sheer viciousness. Now, it’s just a matter of doing everything possible to oust the current regime in Cuba from power and restoring a Batista-like dictatorship, one that will be loyal and deferential to the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA.

The viciousness is demonstrated by the fact that the embargo doesn’t just criminalize Americans who do business with Cuba. It also targets foreign companies who do so. If they are caught doing so, they are targeted for prosecution or economic banishment here in the United States. In the minds of U.S. officials, it’s more imperative than ever to squeeze as many Cubans as possible into death and suffering.

Needless to say, the embargo has made things significantly worse for the Cuban people during the COVID-19 crisis. That’s fine with U.S. officials. The more Cubans who die, the greater the chance of an internal regime-change operation.

Sure, there is no doubt that Cuba’s socialist economic system is a major factor in the economic suffering of the Cuban people. But there is also no doubt that the U.S. embargo has served as the other side of a vise that has squeezed the economic lifeblood out of the Cuban people.

A dark irony, of course, is that the embargo has enabled the U.S. government to wield and exercise the same type of economic control over the American people that the Cuban socialist regime exercises over the Cuban people. It’s called adopting socialism to oppose socialism.

When will the evil, immoral, vicious, and hypocritical U.S. embargo against Cuba be lifted? When a critical mass of the American people, including those who go to church every Sunday, have a crisis of conscience and demand that it be lifted.

July 20, 2020 Posted by | Corruption, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | 2 Comments

It Was JFK Who Blinked in the Cuban Missile Crisis

By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | July 13, 2020

By the time he graduates public high school, most every student in America has been indoctrinated with the notion that it was Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev who “blinked” during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Nothing could be further from the truth. Actually it was President John Kennedy who “blinked” during the crisis, and it was a good thing he did.

Every public school student across America is also indoctrinated with the notion that the Soviet Union installed “offensive” missiles in Cuba during the crisis, which the U.S. national-security establishment gravely maintained were a grave threat to U.S. “national security.”

That’s a lie too. The Soviet missiles were defensive in nature. Their aim was to deter another U.S. invasion of the island or, in the event that deterrence failed, to enable Cuba to defend itself against another unlawful U.S. invasion with nuclear weapons.

It’s important to keep in mind an important fact: In the long relationship between communist Cuba and the United States, it has always, without exception, been the United States, not Cuba, that has been the aggressor.

Cuba has never attacked or invaded the United States or even threatened to do so. It has also never initiated any act of terrorism within the United States. Instead, it has been the U.S. government that has done those types of things against Cuba.

There is the brutal economic embargo that the U.S. government has enforced against Cuba almost from the start of the communist regime there. Its aim has always been to inflict impoverishment, suffering, and death on the Cuban people as a way to achieve regime change in the country.

Operating through the CIA, the U.S. government also orchestrated numerous assassination attempts against Cuban leader Fidel Castro. President Lyndon Johnson referred to the CIA’s assassination program as “a damned Murder, Inc.” The CIA had entered into an assassination partnership with the Mafia, the most crooked murderous private organization in the world.

The CIA also sponsored terrorist attacks inside Cuba, for the purpose of destroying government-owned enterprises and to foment revolution. The attacks produced both death and property damage.

The CIA also sponsored a military invasion at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba, which was designed to oust the Fidel Castro regime and replace it with another U.S. puppet regime, similar to the one that Castro had ousted from power in the Cuban revolution. The invasion failed and Castro’s forces killed or captured the CIA’s invaders.

After the Bay of Pigs debacle, the Joint Chiefs of Staff continually exhorted Kennedy to order an all-out U.S. military invasion of Cuba for the purpose of regime change. As part of its efforts, the Pentagon presented Kennedy with a regime-change plan called Operation Northwoods. It called for terrorist attacks to be carried out on American soil that would result in the loss of American life. The plan was to blame the attacks on Cuban agents, which would then give Kennedy the rationale for invading Cuba. Kennedy rejected the plan.

Castro was well aware of the steadfast determination of the CIA and the Pentagon to invade Cuba.  But while he could defeat a rag-tag army of CIA-trained Cuban exiles, Castro knew that there was no way he could win if the U.S. military attacked and invaded Cuba.

That was when he asked the Soviet Union to install nuclear missiles in Cuba. It was his only chance to deter an invasion. He had also decided that if the invasion came, he was determined to resist it with nuclear weapons.

Needless to say, the Pentagon was livid with Kennedy. If he had accepted Operation Northwoods, the Joint Chiefs of Staff felt, this problem would never have arisen. Now America was faced with nuclear weapons 90 miles away from American shores, which, the JCS maintained, were a grave threat to “national security” even though they were defensive in nature.

The Pentagon exhorted and pressured Kennedy to order a bombing and an invasion of Cuba. Otherwise, the Pentagon maintained, there was no way America could survive.

Kennedy resisted the pressure. And it was a good thing he did. What he and the CIA didn’t know is that Soviet tactical nuclear weapons were fully armed and that Soviet commanders on the ground had been given battlefield authority to use them. If Kennedy had followed the recommendation of the Pentagon to bomb and invade Cuba, it is a virtual certainty that it would have led to all-out nuclear war.

Kennedy ended up striking a deal with the Khrushchev in which the U.S. would not invade Cuba and the Soviets would withdraw their nuclear weapons. That’s precisely what Castro wanted. That’s why the missiles had been put there in the first place. Kennedy also secretly promised to remove U.S. nuclear weapons from Turkey that were aimed at the Soviet Union.

Thus, contrary to what public school students are taught about the Cuban Missile Crisis, it was Kennedy, not Khrushchev, who “blinked” during the crisis. It’s a good thing that he had the wisdom to do so because his action saved the world from nuclear holocaust.

But the military and the CIA were furious. They considered Kennedy’s resolution of the crisis to be akin to surrender, treason, and cowardice. More important, by agreeing to leave a permanent communist outpost 90 miles away from American shores, Kennedy, the national security establishment felt, had placed America in grave jeopardy insofar as “national security” was concerned.

For more details, see FFF’s ebook JFK’s War with the National Security Establishment: Why Kennedy Was Assassinated by Douglas Horne, who served on the staff of the Assassination Records Review Board in the 1990s.

July 15, 2020 Posted by | Book Review, Timeless or most popular | , , | 1 Comment

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