Remembering Manuel Noriega (And Forgetting the 4,000 Panamanians Murdered by the U.S. Military Invasion)

Manuel Noriega dies, U.S. media lies. (BBC and others too.)

Sickening "coverage" by U.S. and other media on the death of former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega. The U.S. invaded Panama on the orders of then-president George H.W. Bush (Bush the Elder) on the pretext of executing an arrest warrant for a head of state, Noriega. 26,000 U.S. troops were used for this purpose. The U.S. devastated poor neighborhoods in Panama, and an estimated 4,000 Panamanians were murdered by the U.S. and their bodies dumped into mass graves. This crime has been totally effaced from history.

The British propaganda network the BBC did the same thing, lavishing much time on Noriega and his fate, with not a single word on the number of Panamanians who paid with their lives for this act of wanton U.S. aggression. Ditto in the U.S. broadcast media.
Pretty despicable when you think about it.

The reason the U.S. overthrew Noriega, and this too was totally ignored and indeed lied about, was that he had refused an order from Admiral John Poindexter to step up Panama's cooperation with the U.S. terrorist aggression against Nicaragua. He was duly threatened with consequences for his defiance, which then followed.

Also covered up was the assassination of Noriega's predecessor, Omar Torrijos, who had the interests of the Panamanian people at heart. The closest anyone came to even mentioning this was Christopher Dickey, a career journalist, who on BBC called Torrijos plane crash "slightly suspicious." No, it was a definite hit. This is confirmed by former NSA operative John Perkins, author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, who explained that those who refused to sell out to U.S. "interests," like Torrijos did, are inevitably removed from power, violently if necessary, and that that is what happened to Torrijos.

Once again Western media exposes itself as nothing but a system of mendacious propaganda. It is NOT legitimate journalism.

U.S. Secret Police Deep State Tightens Noose Around Their Nominal Boss, President Trump

Another day, another arrow aimed directly at Trump. Today it's the news that the FBI is targeting his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Kushner is a key Trump confidant to whom Trump has assigned a number of responsibilities. The FBI is targeting Trump's trusted inner circle.

As usual, the FBI unethically and against official policy provided the information "anonymously" to their media accomplices. They have been using the two newspaper that sit atop the power and prestige pyramid, the New York Times and the Washington Post to mount these attacks.

As Democratic Senator Charles Schumer, the leader of the Senate Democrats, said to Rachel Maddow back in January, messing with the "intelligence community" is a bad idea because "they have six ways from Sunday" to retaliate, and they are "angry" at Trump, Schumer told Maddow.

Oh, but there's no Deep State. Why, a guy from the New York Times was on the radio in New York City just yesterday denying that there is any such thing!

Memo To Trump Impeachment Pushers: Be Careful What You Wish For

Who do you imagine will succeed "The Donald" if you succeed?

Mike Pence, the religious fanatic and extreme reactionary, becomes president.

Pence's domestic policies will be every bit as bad, and probably worse in some areas (such as the war against abortion rights) than Trump's.

On foreign policy, at least Trump is internally divided. He has "isolationist" (noninterventionist) impulses, so part of the time you get that, while at other times you get a violent lashing out, as the attack on the Assad regime airfield in Syria after the sarin attack by that regime- my only complaint about that Trump attack is that it was ineffectual. Plus, Trump isn't particularly interested in foreign policy. Therefore U.S. imperialism under Trump would probably be less focuses, less intense, and less assiduously imposed everywhere possible at all times than is the norm. Which is a MAJOR REASON the power establishment (political, media, and Deep State, which includes the military and secret police organizations) is so intent on hamstringing or, if possible, ousting Trump.

Pence can be expected to be much like Reagan and the Bushes on foreign policy; aggressively violent, employing the military and CIA very extensively.

Even worse, is that Pence projects a low-key, non-threatening, friendly and placid demeanor. In a word, he comes across as amiable. Thus he will be the more effective evil. Just as Obama was the more effective evil than Bush II, or than McCain or Romney would have been. Simply put, the "nice guy" personas of state criminals like Obama and Pence simply don't arouse the public opposition that Republicans generally and especially politicians who come across as intense do.

So Trump is a horror, but Pence would be worse.

By the way, Obama was a horror, Bush the Younger was a horror, Clinton was a horror, Bush the Elder was a horror, Reagan the fascist was a horror, Ford helped Indonesia invade East Timor and exterminate a third of the population (with Kissinger at his side, a policy continued by Clinton), Nixon (enough said), Johnson sent a 550,000 invasion force into Vietnam, and invaded the Dominican Republic to reverse an election he didn't like, and arranged for military dictatorship in Brazil, a U.S. plot begun by Kennedy, who created a U.S. torturer-training program in Latin America under the rubric of the "Alliance for Progress," and Eisenhower was responsible for the CIA coups in Iran (1953) and Guatemala (1954) which ushered in two of the world's most murderous dictatorship, a quarter million people murdered in each case, and the consequences still being suffered by the peoples of those countries to this day. Truman, the man who atomic-bombed two cities, enough said- and I could go back and back, indeed all the way to Washington, but there are too many, and the crimes are literally in the tens of thousands. because imperialism is a criminal enterprise, and  the U.S. was imperialist from the beginning, when white colonizers "discovered" the Western Hemisphere, and  eliminated in North American over 90% of the people whose ancestors predated the Europeans' arrival by 15,000 years, in order to seize the land and resources.

The point is, Trump is not uniquely bad. That's the establishment line, because he's unpredictable and not anchored to their ideology. That means there are possibilities for cracks in the system to open. That is one reason people instinctively voted for him- on the hope he would "shake things up." Of course he won't deliver on his promises, but he IS a destabilizing presence in the White House. If nothing else, the attention of the criminal rulers is somewhat diverted by their obsession with demonizing, "investigating," undermining, neutralizing, and ultimately ousting him. That gives the world's population a bit of breathing space, or a lessening in the intensity of U.S. attacks (including perhaps domestic dissidents, with the FBI and CIA and NSA prioritizing their conspiracies against Trump).

The U.S. is a nation founded on the twin pillars of genocide and slavery, which has, with the immense power it has amassed, a world-historic opportunity to change the nature of civilization, but instead is simply repeating the same millenia-old game of domination, exploitation, and oppression. (By the way, committing genocide has been a very good way to get to the White House. For example, Andrew Jackson, exterminator of the Creek Indians, got to be President, as did William Henry Harrison, who destroyed the Confederacy of Northwest Tribes and oversaw the elimination of the charismatic native leader Tecumseh.)


In America now, we see a colossal waste of power and the squandering of a world-historic opportunity to change the world for the better.  And what a lack of ambition this bespeaks. The ambition to do something truly great and world-changing. With its unparalleled power, the U.S. could put humanity on a truly civilized path. Instead Americans prefer to delude themselves that their nation-state (and by extension, themselves) are "great" simply because they are powerful. But since the power is largely (not entirely) used for evil, their "greatness" is of a piece with the "greatness" of the Soviet Union and the Third Reich. It may be awesome, but it is not admirable. It is anti-human, as we see even today, yet again, with President Trump and his Secretary of State, Rex "Gusher" Tillerson, praising the Saudi oppressors, among the very worst in the world, while simultaneously, with the maximal hypocrisy typical of the U.S. government, slamming Iran for its repression and "terrorism." (Trump and his gang talk as if IRAN is behind ISIS and Al-Qaeda, not Saudi Arabia!)

The blather and bullshit sure gets repetitive after awhile.

Too bad so many of the fellow travelers of the Democratic Party, who should know better, are mindlessly parroting the propaganda lines of that Party and its secret police temporary allies-of-convenience. (Rather stunning to hear Democracy Now boss Amy Goodman repeatedly saying the phrase "Russian meddling" in the U.S. election!)

Maybe putting things in historical and political perspective would help them think more clearly. No need to take sides in a battle between Godzilla and Mothra.  (Trump and his establishment enemies.) The proper response is to illuminate what is happening, including the real causes of the conflict, to report objectively and demystify the show that is being presented in the Bourgeois Media Theater.

Typical victims of U.S. "Defense of Freedom"

American Heroes with captive Woman

 

Medical Oddity Roger Ailes Finally Dies at Age 77

In a case of an unexplained medical miracle, Roger Ailes lived to age 77 without a human heart. Scientists have long been at a loss to explain this phenomenon. One theory holds that since Ailes had ice water in his veins and not blood, no heart was necessary to sustain life.

Ailes, better known as a lifelong rightwing political operative and propaganda master, made his first major contribution to making life on earth worse for the human race by helping get Richard Nixon into the White House through his work as a media svengali for Nixon during the 1968 presidential campaign. Later he became a key henchman to evil reactionary global agit-propaganda czar Rupert Murdoch, a verminous lifeform that arose in Australia. Ailes is credited as the mastermind of Murdoch's Fox "News" channel, a platform for ranting reactionary disinformation and agit-propaganda.

Ailes, a known serial sex offender, is being given a totally misleading and undeservedly respectful sendoff by the U.S. corporate media, which refuses to report the facts of his life's work promoting anti-human policies and power. That media of course is rightwing, a fact it obfuscates by pretending its propaganda is "objective news."

Last July, after a sex scandal finally blew up publicly, Murdoch was finally forced to ditch Ailes, paying him $40 million just to go away.

Unfortunately Rupert Murdoch, a reptilian lifeform, apparently is going to live to be over 100, just like the mother who spawned him.

I'll put you on TV if you give me a kiss, Baby!

HE may be dead, but I'm NOT, Mate!