Pakistan Sponsors Another Terrorist Attack on Indian Territory

A powerful car bomb used to attack a bus in the Kashmir region of India murdered 46 Indian paramilitary police. The suicide terrorist was trained in Pakistan, the BBC reports. The terrorist group that bragged of the attack, Jaish-e-Mohammad, is based in Pakistan, where it is obviously protected by the military-controlled state, or else it couldn't exist and operate freely. (China has blocked UN sanctions on the terrorist group that India asked for. Obviously that's proof Pakistan is a state sponsor of this group, and China is covering Pakistan's back. Pakistan has invited China into the country to build port facilities and bases. [1])

Whenever one of these attacks occurs, Pakistan acts in a way that proves its guilt. Instead of vowing to track down the terrorist criminals, is lies through its teeth and plays dumb. (So far on this one it claims to be "gravely concerned" and rejects allegations that it was involved- even though the terrorists are based on its territory and the bomber was trained in Pakistan.)

Pakistan is a military-controlled state with a civilian government "beard" that pretends to rule the country. It hosts numerous Islamofascist terrorist groups- which it pretends aren't there. Just like they pretended to have no idea where Osama bin Laden was- the military dictator ("president") at the time, general Pervez Musharraf, and others even insisted they thought he was dead- when it turned out they had him stashed away in a military-dominated city with numerous military installations.

This latest terrorist assault on India occurred just days after friendly words from Pakistan's pretend ruler, the president, towards India. That's a pattern. The Pakistani military consistently sabotages any attempt to improve relations with India. Their power depends on using India as an external enemy and hate-object, to justify their dominant position in Pakistani society, as well as their budgets and outrageous domestic control. This attack also occurs on the eve of Indian elections, which means the Indian government will feel obliged to make a relatively strong reaction, thus stirring the pot some more and worsening relations, which the Paki military wants, and providing excuses for more Pak-sponsored terrorist attacks.

Over the years, India has shown incredible forebearance in the face of repeated Pakistani-sponsored terrorist attacks in its country. Most of these attacks are ignored by the majority of U.S. media. The U.S. in effect protects Pakistan by applying constant pressure on India not to respond to such outrages.

Note the contrast with the U.S.' own responses to such incidents against itself. When the U.S. allowed two planes to fly into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan, and then detonated preplaced nanoexplosives to demolish the skyscrapers, and for good measure blew up number 7 World Trade Center shortly after 5 pm the same day, apparently to destroy records of Pentagon budget malfeasance and corruption, it used that as a pretext to invade not ONE, but TWO countries, Afghanistan and Iraq. And the Bush-Cheney regime's plan was to invade five MORE countries after THAT, as we know from General Wesley Clark, who has, on several occasions, described the plan. But since Iraq turned into a quagmire for the U.S., the rest of the plan couldn't be executed. The Bush-Cheney-neocons' eyes were bigger than their stomach, it turned out.

The region called "Kashmir" is divided roughly into thirds, one third in Pakistan, India, and China each.

Notice that Pakistan never sends terrorists into the part of Kashmir that's inside China. Gee, I wonder why. Here's why: Because Pakistan knows China would give them a bloody nose if they ever did that.

The point is, retaliation can be an effective deterrent. India needs to try it sometime.


The fact that the U.S. counsels- and pressures- India to take it lying down that a foreign power consistently sponsors terrorist attacks against it, something the U.S. would never tolerate against itself, is of course the height of hypocrisy. And never mind that the Deep State of the U.S. creates such attacks as pretexts, as in the FBI-arranged bombing of one of the Twin Towers in 1993, the bomb even built by the FBI's infiltrator, the Egyptian colonel Salem. (I've heard the audio that Salem made of his phone call to his FBI handler mentioning the fact that he built the bomb. The handler said nothing- apparently he wasn't surprised and already knew.) The U.S. has long privileged Pakistan over India. That's because India has been too independent for the U.S.' liking. Ever since India refused to join the Hate-The-Soviet-Union bloc that the U.S. was boss of (now it's the Hate-Russia bloc) India has consistently refused to take orders from the U.S., a grave sin in U.S. eyes. [Today India gave the U.S. another reason to hate it, advising buyers of Venezuelan oil to circumvent the U.S. financial system. See "Exclusive: India advises refiner to avoid U.S. system for Venezuela oil buying - source," Reuters, February 15, 2019.

1] BBC World Service, February 15, 2019. The BBC incorrectly claimed that Kashmir is 1/3 in Pakistan and 2/3rds in India. They seem to believe Pakistan is entitled to all of it. In fact, it wasn't long ago when the population was majority Hindu (driven out by Islamofascist terrorists). Kashmir in fact consists of the Indian territory of Jammu and Kashmir (which includes the region of Jammu, Kashmir Valley, Ladakh and Siachen), the Pakistani territories of Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan, and Chinese territories of Aksai Chin and the Trans-Karakoram Tract.

Apotheosization of Barbara Bush, Grande Dame of Ruling Class Crime Clan, In Full Swing

We're being told by the U.S. corporate propaganda system that we all loved Barbara Bush, who was some sort of kind-hearted yet iron-willed lady who loved children. It's garbage, of course. She was partners with a major criminal of the 20th century, her husband, George Herbert Walker Bush.

Just turning on the radio, I was subjected to career propagandist Susan Page pushing the mythology that Bush was "America's Grandmother" who "loved children." Those are two of the ubiquitous propaganda lines the huge U.S. corporate propaganda system is assiduously shoveling down our throats. (Apparently Queen Mother Bush didn't care for Guatemalan, Salvadorean, Honduran, Panamanian, or Palestinian children, among others.) She's getting the full media sendoff, as the U.S. corporate propaganda system once again acts EXACTLY like state media.

Naturally, the BBC, always reliably sycophantic to U.S. imperialism, is parroting the U.S. propaganda lines about the U.S.' Queen Mother. (Who knew this was really an aristocracy?)

Marx thought that the bourgeoisie had overthrown the aristocracy. If they did, it was only to become a new aristocracy.


Google, partner in mass surveillance with the NSA, does its bit
 to make us bow our heads in memory of the old battle-axe.

Queen Mother Barbara Bush Dies- "Free" Press Acts Just Like State Media

She was 92, with an iron will, and up to her eyeballs in Bush clan criminality. Her husband is a known sex offender who gropes women. But that's the least of his crimes.

The Bushes are part of the contemporary U.S. aristocracy, permanent fixtures of a ruling political elite. This is treated as a natural state of affairs in a nation whose propagandists and politicians can't stop for one second yammering about "Our Democracy," as if such a thing exists. It exists if you apply an Orwellian definition to "democracy," meaning oligarchy.

U.S. and even foreign media is acting as if a Queen has died. They are trying to create the impression that she was a popular figure. I rather doubt most Americans ever gave much thought to Barbara Bush. She operated behind the scenes.

Here's some sample rhetoric from the CBS propaganda network:  She was "as real as it gets," she was "compassionate," and charitable, she cared about "literacy."  No wonder that, according to CBS, "tributes are pouring in" for Mamma Bear Bush. (Actually her kind are dedicated to political and historical illiteracy for the people.)

I didn't see her alleged "compassion" on display when her husband was slaughtering 4,000 poor Panamanians. Or when her son caused the deaths of a million Iraqis. Or when her husband, as Reagan's vice-president, had blood up to his elbows helping to surreptitiously fund the terrorists commiting atrocities in Nicaragua from their CIA bases in Honduras and Costa Rica, or supporting the fascist death squad regime of El Salvador. Numerous other examples could be cited.

The Bush clan supported the Third Reich financially. That's some history that the U.S. establishment has consigned to oblivion. (This is copiously documented in books and videos.)

And then there is the 9/11 conspiracy which the Bush crime family and their Saudi friends wrapped around the Al-Qaeda conspiracy, to allow planes to be flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan, a cover for the demolition of those towers, along with a third building, 7 World Trade Center (another real world event consigned to the bourgeoisie's memory hole) by nanothermite explosives, also proven beyond doubt by physical evidence. (Just go to youtube.com and search "Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth" and educate yourself. Or go to their website, https://www.ae911truth.org/)



Would the U.S. media be any more uniform if it was all government controlled? It couldn't be more unanimous in its fawning eulogizing for the nasty Bush matriarch.  Put another way, at such times, which come all too often, there is no functional difference between the corporate media and the state media of North Korea, or Iran, or Saudi Arabia. (The beating of the war drums to agitate the populace to support the invasion of Iraq in 2003, or the war on Vietnam in 1964 with the fictitious attack on U.S. warships in the Gulf of Tonkin, or the war drive in 1917, are particularly pernicious examples of this phenomenon of the privately-owned media acting exactly like government organs.)

Also, in their typical slavish fashion, those reliable sycophants to U.S. imperialism at the BBC also gushed a bunch of guff about the American Queen Mother. Imperialist shills at the BBC intoned: "We'll remember Barbara Bush, wife and mother to two U.S. presidents," "who won the hearts of Americans with her self-deprecating wit, determination, and" blah blah blah.  Self-deprecating wit? Won the hearts of Americans? What bosh, as they'd say in Britain, if they were honest.

Favorite Targets the BBC Loves To Bash (Under the Cover of "Journalism")

After several years of monitoring the British government's global propaganda arm, the BBC (British Broadcasting Government), what leaps out at me are the following objects of hate at the BBC:

-The Venezuelan government, headed by Nicolas Maduro

-The Colombian rebel movement FARC

-The defunct secret police agency the STASI of the defunct nation East Germany (they just bashed this one again September 14)

-The defunct Soviet Union

-Russia

-Vladimir Putin

Now by "bashing" I mean gratuitous stories that are slanted and grossly unbalanced.

For example, in attacking the Venezuelan govenment, they never give the government's viewpoint, nor that of the millions of Venezuelans who support it. You ONLY hear those Venezuelans attacking the regime, and the foreign governments trying to overthrow it (namely the U.S.). Even worse, while constantly portraying the Maduro government as violently repressive, they have completely hidden the facts that the so-called "protesters" are in fact violent thugs who set fires, attack motor vehicles, burn cliinics, murder policemen, and have burned alive dark-skinned poor people who the "protesters" presume are Chavistas, based on their pigmentation and economic class. But that's not bad enough for the smarmy and dishonest propagandists at the BBC. They cynically add in the people, including police, murdered by the thugs the BBC portrays as brave oppressed people fighting for democracy, with the street goons who get themselves killed while committing felonies in the streets, in one total, which they mislead listeners and viewers into believing are all victims of government violence.  They talk about "protesters," then give a number of people killed to date, sneakily aggregating deaths on both sides without telling you.

NPR, a U.S.-government domestic propaganda network, is the same as the BBC in regards to how it "covers" Venezuela.

You don't have to be a supporter of the Maduro regime- I'm not- to see that this vulgar propaganda is merely a political operation to prepare public opinion in the U.S., UK, and wherever in the world people are stuck relying on the BBC for their "news," for the overthrow of the "evil" and "repressive" Venezuelan government, in the name of "restoring democracy."

Yeah, the U.S. and UK are so in love with democracy that both are shoveling armaments in the Saudi Arabian regime''s hungry maw as fast as they can. Saudi Arabia, one of the two most repressive countries on earth (North Korea is the other) is using those weapons to destroy Yemen. They are butchering its people, starving them with a naval blockade, and causing an uncontrolled cholera epidemic which has sickened over 600,000 Yemenis and killed several thousand already. All to try to put in power a so-called "president" who has so little indigenous support that like the South Vietnamese generals who ruled that ersatz country, are totally reliant on foreign military power to try and subjugate the populace. (One group, the Houthis, were able to put the fake Yemeni government to flight in Saudi Arabia.)

Western guff about "human rights" and "democracy," SOO cynically dishonest, has done much to discredit those essential concepts. Just as the Soviet Union, Maoist China, and going down the scale of degeneration, the likes of Pol Pot in Cambodia (or "Kampuchia" as it was styled when his psychopaths, the Khmer Rouge, ruled it) and Robert Mugabe in Ziimbabwe and others, have discredited and destroyed the very words "communism" and "socialism" with their cynical misappropriation of those terms for their own base power manias, so are human rights and democracy being delegitimized by the scumbag imperialists of "the West."

The BBC (and the entirety of Western power-establishment media) has been so grossly twisted on the question of Ukraine, and Crimea, that it merits a separate essay. Just coincidentally, an example of deranged BBC distortion of reality occurs as I write this. According to the BBC, Russia is now holding military exercises "close to NATO's frontier." In other phrasing, they "report" breathlessly "Russian military operations near NATO's border- is it cause for alarm." That is to say, inside Russia on Russia's own border. It just so happens that NATO has pushed itself RIGHT UP TO THE RUSSIAN BORDER. So now if Russia stations its OWN MILITARY INSIDE ITS OWN BORDERS, that is deemed to be a "Threat" to NATO! Amazing.

I don't like Russia, and Putin is a sinister autocrat. But I don't throw objectivity and reason out the window because of it.

But then, I'm not a propagandist.

BBC Finally Forced To Mention Saudi Arabian Support For Terrorism

The UK-based Henry Jackson Society issued a report about Saudi Arabia's guilt as a wellspring of Sunni jihadi Islamofascist (my word) terrorism. This got a few sentences in the headline news of the British government's propaganda agency, the BBC "World Service" in English this morning. The Saudis utterly false, vehement denial was prominently reported. Also mentioned was the Society report scoring the Saudis for hypocrisy for blaming the Qataris for "supporting terrorism." (A mention dropped in later versions, which moved the Saudi lies to the top.)

By 4:30 AM EST the item was reduced to a single sentence: "Saudi Arabia has rejected accusations by a London think tank that it is the source of extremism in the UK." Back to backing the Saudis after just a couple of hours. Then repetition of Saudi attacks on Qatar, including playing a Saudi ruler's rant that Qater must "stop supporting terrorism, stop spreading hate." Unbelievable. Bastards living in a glass mansion hypocritically hurling boulders at Qatar. And the BBC has already forgotten the Jackson Society report in only a couple of hours. What does "BBC" stand for? Bullshit Broadcasting Corporation?

The BBC has been assiduous in its avoiding of any mention of Saudi culpability in the spread of Islamofascist Wahhabi-Salafist terrorism. Nor does it mention the fact that Saudi Arabia caused the current cholera epidemic and famine in Yemen, by bombing critical infrastructure, including power, water, and hospitals, and with a naval blockade that has cut off food imports on which Yemen depends. So what accounts for this lapse? It's the fact that a "respected" (BBC's word) right-wing think tank has spoken. Right-wingers are politically and ideologically dominant in "the West." Thus they get special privileges, including the privilege of being heard.

The Jackson Society also called for the release of a suppressed UK government report on Saudi backing for terrorism- another matter the BBC has tread extremely lightly over, to say the least.

The Henry Jackson Society is named after a dead U.S. Senator, Henry "Scoop" Jackson, who was known as "the Senator from Boeing," because he promoted the interests of that military arms manufacturer. (Boeing's other main business is commercial aircraft manufacture.) Boeing is headquartered in the state of Washington, on the west coast of the continental U.S. (Not to be confused with the city of Washington, D.C., i.e. District of Columbia, the capital of the U.S., on the east coast.) A Democrat and a rabid militarist, Jackson was one of the two Senators from the state of Washington. (Another note to non-Americans, and to ignorant Americans: as per the U.S. Constitution, every U.S. state has two U.S. Senators, regardless of population. There are currently 50 states, thus 100 Senators. This is highly anti-democratic. The 20 or so least populous U.S. states have the same population as the state of California, yet have 40 Senators to California's 2. What an ideal democracy! One reason for the utterly reactionary nature of the U.S. political system is the fact that all these rural, reactionary states dominate the U.S. Senate.)

Bourgeous Elitists of Nobel Committee Snub FARC, Award Prize to Colombian President ONLY

In an unprecedented move, the  Norwegian swells who decide who is worthy of High Acclaim and Prestige in the world, awarded the annual Nobel Peace Prize they control to only one side in a "peace process." The worthies gave the prize (funded by deceased explosives multi-millionaire Alfred Nobel) to Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos, omitting his negotiating partner, the rebel FARC organization and its leaders. [1]

Consider previous similar prizes: in 1994 the Peace Prize was bestowed upon the Israeli political bosses Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, and the Palestinian "terrorist" Yasser Arafat, for initiating the deceptively misnamed "Oslo Peace Process." (It actually was a con job and long stalling process during which, over eight years, the Israelis, with their U.S. patrons running interference for them, doubled the "settler" population in the occupied territories while pretending to be "negotiating" for a future Palestinian state on the same land. This was yet another of Bill Clinton's deceptions and crimes against humanity.)

In 1993, the Big Prize went to the president of the racist apartheid South African regime, F. W. de Klerk, and the "terrorist" ANC head Nelson Mandela, for negotiating a transition to more democratic rule, ending a decades-long period of repression and insurgency.

And in 1978, the prize went to Egyptian president Anwar Satat and Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin (formerly head of the terrorist Irgun). This for negotiating a peace treaty between their two nations.
But apparently the FARC is beyond the pale to the international bourgeoisie.

Facts, history, and reality all have to be ignored in the "universal" demonization of FARC by the international bourgeoisie. Start with the estimated 250,000 who have "died in the 52 year conflict." Most were unarmed civilians murdered by the military, police, and fascist auxiliaries, the right-wing death squads euphemised as "paramilitaries" (never "terrorists," the label officially branded on FARC). Just a year ago or so mass graves were discovered outside a military base containing the corpses of civilians murdered by soldiers who claimed their victims were "guerrillas," to obtain  bounties and inflate their body count.

It is also misleading to refer to a "52 year long civil war." There was a previous cessation of war- but not of violence, as it turned out- when the FARC laid down their arms and ran candidates for office. This turned out to be a great opportunity for the rich of Colombia to try and exterminate people for progress. The Colombian bourgeoisie duly unleashed their fascist killers on the FARC candidates, supporters, and allies, to murder thousands of "leftists." This period of one-sided violence lasted from 1984-87. And according to Wikipedia: "In 1989 a single large landholder had over 400 UP members murdered. Over 70% of all Colombian presidential candidates in 1990—and 100% of those from center-left parties—were assassinated." [Sources at Wikipedia.] [2]

The fact of the previous three-year attempt by FARC and others to "participate in the political process," which was met by massive state terrorism, is virtually blacked out of bourgeois history and media commentary. This is ideologically and politically necessary in order to paint FARC as "the bad guys," ruthless killer terrorists who "take hostages" (capture prisoners to try and exchange for their own people held as prisoners by the government, which has always refused prisoner exchanges) and "traffic in drugs" (as if the Colombian goverment, the "paramilitaries," and the CIA DON'T do the same).

By the way, the U.S. has sent its experts in state terrorism down to Colombia at least since 1959, five years before the FARC took up arms. This "Special Survey Team" of "counterinsurgency experts" recommended a sinister program of "intervention," and that "to shield the interests of both Colombian and US authorities against 'interventionist' charges any special aid given for internal security was to be sterile and covert in nature." In 1962 another group of U.S. Army covert terrorists, headed by a general this time, paid another visit to Colombia to conspire in repression with the Colombian "security forces"  by teaching them methods, equipping them, and over all institutionalizing "professional" methods of ubiquitous human rights atrocities and a permanent feature of this typical U.S. client state in its "own backyard."

The award to Santos comes days after a referendum presented to the Colombian public to ratify the peace agreement negotiated with FARC was rejected by a bare majority of 50.2% of the 40% of eligible voters who actually voted. Thus 20% of the electorate defeated the deal.

In the aftermath of the vote, the BBC among others has given play to the complaints of the fascist elements of the Colombian elite who opposed the agreement. They are outraged that FARC members won't be imprisoned as long as they confess. (No mention of the crimes and impunity afforded to their death squads and their military.) They are also outraged that FARC didn't have to turn over all their weapons before an agreement!!! And they find it unacceptable that a whole ten seats were to be reserved in the bicameral legislature for the FARC. (I guess they think the FARC's candidates should just be murdered, as happened during the last peace agreement.)

The previous president, Alvaro Uribe, a rich landowner who founded the death squads, has been a vociferous opponent of any peace agreement with FARC.  He led this opposition, preferring to press on with extermination. (Aided by U.S.-guided assassination of top FARC personnel.)

Enjoy your prize, Santos. I mean the 8 million Swedish Krona ( a bit less than one million U.S. dollars, $926,000 as of today.)

Maybe the Norwegians just didn't want the U.S. to indict them for providing "material support to terrorism"!

1] Alfred Nobel was a Swedish industrialist, trained in chemistry and engineering who is usually described as an inventor and "innovator," His big "innovation" was developing dynamite. During that process, there were glitches along the way, including an explosion that killed his brother and four others. By 1867 his efforts bore fruit. After dynamite, apparently obsessed with explosives, Nobel invented gelignite in 1875, which is even more  powerful than dynamite, and in 1887 he patented ballistite, a predecessor of cordite.

Another of his "innovations" was converting the iron and steel manufacturing company Bofors into a major weapons maker, especially of heavy armaments like cannons. 

Nobel grew rich from dynamite and from his trade in arms and ordnance. But he was stung in 1888 by an obituary about him which a French newspaper, mistaking Nobel's brother for Alfred himself (the brother had just died), published, which stated: "The merchant of death is dead" and "Dr. Alfred Nobel, who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before, died yesterday." 

Nobel, desirous of having a good reputation "in perpetuity" as they say, that is, worried about what people would think of him after he was dead and no longer existed, hit upon what has proven to be one of the most brilliant, effective, and durable public relations moves of all time. He set up the Nobel Prizes, to be funded after his death through a trust fund in which he secretly put most of his wealth (the amount in the trust estimated at $265 million in current U.S. dollars), causing disappointment and surprise among his relatives and friends, who only discovered this after his death. (Rich people are almost invariably selfish creeps, and love to stick it to the fawners and sycophants who cravenly try to curry their favor in hopes of a big payoff in the future. The rich often secretly hold these wishful thinkers in contempt. Their wealth makes them chronically paranoid and distrustful that other people are only interested in them for their money. This is one reason the rich generally limit their friendships and socializing to other rich people, forming an insular and armored class of the rich.)

There are five Nobel Prizes, for Chemistry (natch, since he was a chemist), Peace (ironically), Literature, Physics, and Physiology or Medicine. They were first awarded in 1901. The "Economics Prize" was invented later by the Bank of Sweden, which attached it to Nobel's name to leech off the prestige of the real Nobels. The bank got the  Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which awards the two science Nobels, to hand out the "Economics" prizes. Swedish institutions handle the awards other than the "Peace" prize, which is controlled by the Norwegian Nobel Committee. For some reason Nobel didn't want his fellow Swedes handling that one. Go figure.

2]  Wikipedia, FARC entry, October 7, 2016.

The Last Time the FARC Disarmed, Thousands of its Members Were Slaughtered. Is That About To Happen Again?

Sometimes history doesn't repeat as farce, but as yet another tragedy. Of course, one person's tragedy can be another's cause for celebration. (The Nazis and the Jews- and hopefully now most of the rest of humanity- had very different feelings about the Holocaust, for example.)

You wouldn't know it from establishment media "reporting," but the just-announced ceasefire between the Colombian rulers ("government") and the rebel force FARC, under which FARC will disarm and become a political party and presumably participate in elections, is the second time we've been here.

The same agreement was made back in 1984, the so-called La Uribe Agreement, FARC disarmed and came out into the open. The following year, FARC got together with various leftist and communist groups to create a  new political party, the Union Patriótica (Patriotic Union, UP). The UP sought terribly evil political reforms, such as a revised constitution, democratic local elections, political decentralization, and most unforgivably, an end to the hegemony over Colombian politics by the Liberal and Conservative parties. They called for desperately needed health and education spending, favored nationalization of foreign businesses, Colombian banks, and transportation, and public access to the oligarchy's media. They even had the effrontery to pursue land redistribution! (Hundreds of thousands of rural families were rendered landless by people like Alvaro Uribe, father of the fascist death squads and the previous president of Colombia before the current one.)

Needless to say, all this was unacceptable, so the rulers unleashed their death squads, which dutifully murdered not just one, but two UP presidential candidates, numerous UP public office-holders and officials, and as many as 6,000 people all told between 1986 and 1990. In 1989 a single landholder had over 400 UP members murdered. (Notice that rich Colombians all have an individual license to kill.) And in 1990, every single presidential candidate from all the center-left parties were assassinated. Apparently merely stealing an election is too humdrum for the Colombian "elite." (Most of the UP ranks were not from FARC, but from socialist and labor groups.)

Will this time be any different? Given the bloodthirsty history of the Colombian ruling class and its military and auxiliary fascist death squads (euphemistically referred to in Western media as "right-wing paramilitaries," when they're mentioned at all), there is reason for grave concern. This new Colombian ceasefire may well  be a prelude to yet another ruling class extermination campaign against its class enemies.

You would think this very germane antecedent would bear at least a mention, but no. This part of history conflicts with the propaganda narrative of Western media, so it is simply ignored completely, as if it never happened. [1]

Instead, we are now being fed false and grossly misleading propaganda like this from the U.S. Government's NPR, and the British Government's BBC (every half hour around the clock from the BBC): "historic ceasefire," as if it's a first; the ceasefire is "to put an end to five decades of war..." (if you don't count the years 1984-1990- although I guess in a sense most of those years was a war, if a one-sided one, like the "war on drugs," or the Nazi "war against the Jews) "...and turn them [FARC] into a legal political movement;" FARC will become a party and "will try to gain political power in Colombia through democratic means," as if they never tried that before. As if the problem is violent leftists who don't believe in democracy, not a ruling class that doesn't allow the vast majority of people to participate except to rubber-stamp two ruling class parties!

And the same aforementioned propaganda outfits keep telling us that 220,000 or 260,000 people were "killed in the conflict." That neatly sidesteps the fact that the vast majority of those killed were unarmed civilians slaughtered by the government's military and the rulers' death squads. It also avoids mentioning the mass grave found outside at least one army base, of local civilians murdered for bounties. The government had the brilliant idea of paying bonuses for dead "guerrillas." So grab a poor peasant and murder him- easy money!

The BBC put on an American polemicist and unreconstructed imperialist named Steven Pinker, a hustler originally from Canada who now bills himself as a "cognitive scientist" and wrangled a perch for himself in the psychology department of Harvard University, a school that is sort of a Ground Zero for U.S. imperialist ideology. Pinker instructed that the Colombian civil war (bourgeois media never call it a civil war) "is the last remnant of the Cold War," which can only mean that FARC was a cat's paw of the Soviet Union, part of the "International Communist Conspiracy," the alibi U.S. imperialists long used to justify their coups, invasions, and imposition of fascistic military dictatorships and various repressive regimes designed to quash democracy and social progress in its sphere of influence- a sphere which they believe ultimately should rightly include the entire planet, the dream of every imperialist who ever lived.

Ask yourself this: in the quarter century since the Soviet Union ceased to exist in 1991, has U.S. behavior changed one bit? To the contrary, NATO, which was created, it was claimed, to defend against a Soviet invasion of western Europe, has since been expanded right up to Russia's borders, and assigned new missions helping fight the U.S.'s wars in far-flung lands. The U.S. is still aiding and abetting coups against democratically-elected governments, as in Honduras, Egypt, Venezuela, and Brazil. It is committed to a relentless expansion of its power. Through the NSA, it attempts to spy on all communications everywhere. It has put in train a trillion dollar buildup of nuclear weapons.

And what about the period before the Soviet Union came into existence in 1917? Over a century earlier, the U.S. invaded British Canada to try and annex those lands for itself. In 1846 it attacked Mexico, ultimately forcing Mexico to cede over half (55%) of its entire national territory to the U.S. (including Texas), with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. In 1998 it started a war with the decrepit Spanish empire to seize Spain's colonies, even the Philippines, on theother side of the globe. (The Filipinos had the crazy notion that they were entitled to self-determination and independence, so the U.S. had to beat that notion out of them with the usual methods of torture and mass killing.) The U.S. invaded various Caribbean and Central American nations numerous times in the first decades of the twentieth century. And so on.

Cold War my eye.

Steven Pinker. Even a clown can spout imperialist propaganda.

Let's briefly review how FARC came into existence in the first place. It's not some inexplicable derangement of innately evil people.

In 1948, the ruling classes inaugurated a decade of mass murder with the assassination of popular politician  Jorge Eliécer Gaitán. Over the next ten years, a period called La Violencia, (The Violence,), over 300,000 people were murdered, overwhelmingly peasants and poor laborers. Then in 1958, the bourgeois elites of the "Liberal" and "Conservative" Parties, in cahoots with the ever-reactionary Catholic Church and big businessmen, set up a two-party dictatorship they christened the National Front. The two parties would take turns ruling, irrespective of actual election results. "Radical" were frozen out of political life. This oligarchic arrangement, a political monopoly of the upper classes enforced by state repression and violence, lasted until 1990.

In 1959, the U.S. sent a crew of its state terrorists ("counterinsurgency experts") down to Colombia to assess the situation and craft a state terror campaign to crush any reaction to the slaughter of the preceding decade.. The U.S. Army "Special Forces" (aka Green Berets) recommended that  "in order to shield the interests of both Colombian and US authorities against 'interventionist' charges any special aid given for internal security was to be sterile and covert in nature," which beneath the jargon is quite sinister. Then in 1962 another "Special Warfare" [i.e. state terrorism] team from Fort Bragg  paid a return visit, led by the Special Warfare Center commander himself, one General William P. Yarborough. He recommended to the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff (notice the high level this conspiracy is operating on) the formation of a "paramilitary" force to carry out sabotage and terrorism against "communists." This plan was duly implemented. The criminal conspiracy was dubbed Plan Lazo.

Under this plot, the U.S. goaded the Colombian government to attack villages that tried to arm themselves for self-defense. In one such operation, 16,000 Colombian troops, backed by U.S. might, attacked the village of Marquetalia, a community of 1,000 souls, 48 of whom were armed. These armed men managed to escape, and led by Manuel Marulanda Vélez, one of their number, founded FARC, which grew from that beginning.

If Colombia had ever been a democracy, if the rulers of Colombia weren't murderous thugs, if they didn't systematically assassinate popular leaders and slaughter hundreds of thousands of people, would the FARC even exist in the first place? No.

The propaganda systems of "Western" nations like to paint FARC as evil and the source of all violence in Colombia. This is a grotesque distortion of the actual history of Colombia, which makes clear that FARC was formed in response to the hyper-violence of the "upper" classes in Colombia against the "lower" classes. Members of the victim classes in fact were forced to take up arms.

Western propagandists also enjoy portraying FARC as a gang of degenerate kidnappers and drug lords. What's rarely mentioned is that they aren't the only ones using drugs as a source of funds. The corrupt Colombian government has plenty of officials involved in protecting the drug trade. The "paramilitaries" partake of cocaine money. And the CIA has profited from drug trafficking almost from its inception. So the high moral dudgeon of Western media rings a tad hollow to an objective person's ear.

The FARC was basically forced into accepting the current dangerous deal, even though it may well be walking into the same deadly trap as it was lured into in 1984, again, thanks to the U.S. Because of massive U.S. military and "intelligence" aid to the Colombian regime, FARC has been crippled and diminished. Under two Democratic Party presidents, Bill "Golden Tongue" Clinton and Barack "The Drone Assassin" Obama, sinister U.S. operatives from the CIA and military, and large amounts of weapons, were sent in to fight on the side of the regime against the rebellious sectors of its populace. Under Obama, FARC leaders were located and then assassinated. FARC was strategically trapped in a downward spiral of the U.S.' design. So now tell me again, all you "progressive" fellow-travelers, why we should vote for the Democrats!

So under Obama, U.S. "policy" in Latin America has consisted of: a coup attempt in Venezuela, then the probable murder of Hugo Chavez by the CIA; a coup in Honduras; imprisoning women and children fleeing U.S.-created violent hellholes in Central America; approval of a coup by corrupt legislators in Brazil; and a vicious "counterinsurgency" campaign in Colombia that has killed thousands. Oh, but he reestablished relations with Cuba, the better to subvert the established order there. (Cuba does need changes, by the way. Say, that "naval base" in Guantanamo Bay, you ever gonna get the hell out of there, U.S.?)

None dare call them imperialists!

The very respectable Alvaro Uribe, Godfather of Death Squads, President of Colombia 2002-2010

1]  I've only ever come across one mention of the 1985-90 extermination campaign in the establishment's media that I can remember. It was buried about two-thirds of the way down in a lengthy New York Times article, consisting of a short paragraph or two, very matter-of-fact, and then the article returned to FARC-demonization, as all NY Times articles dealing with FARC do. So is it not correct to call the NY Times imperialist propaganda? That's not a polemical statement, it's a factual one.

"History of FARC," Wikipedia, August 29, 2016.

U.S. Brazenly Announces Its Coup Plans for Venezuela

The New York Times has for years been the favorite bulletin board for high U.S. government officials to post anonymous messages. Their missives to the world at large are often granted page one placement. These messages, converted into "news" stories by the NY Times, are always intended to advance a political agenda, manipulate what people think, and often are disinformation (that is, lies).

A revealing example of this phenomenon appeared a few days ago under this headline:

"Nicolás Maduro Tightens Hold on Venezuela as U.S. Fears Further Tumult." [1]

Now the first thing that needs to be said, indeed stressed, is the absurdity of the word "Fears." The U.S. doesn't fear tumult in an enemy state. The U.S. seeks to CREATE tumult in enemy states! That is one of the "tools" in its "toolbox" for destabilizing hated leftist regimes. So the editors are being smarmily disingenuous before the reader even gets to the article.

Now let's move on to the body of the article. (It was co-written by Mark Landler, one of the more dodgy NY Times "reporters.") Here's the first three paragraphs:

CARACAS, Venezuela — President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela threatened Saturday to seize idle factories in his country using a new emergency decree, moves that followed warnings by United States officials that economic chaos in the country had turned even his allies against him.

“An idle plant is a plant the people will take,” local news outlets quoted Mr. Maduro as saying at a rally. “We will take all the actions necessary to activate production, which is being paralyzed by the bourgeoisie.”

The threats came a day after Mr. Maduro said he would extend a state of emergency for another 60 days, a measure he said was aimed at reviving the country’s collapsing economy. The government said the move would extend presidential powers, though it was vague on specifics.

Notice the Bad Guy makes "threats," the Good Guys "warn."

The next paragraph describes in three sentences dire economic conditions in Venezuela. Then we get some ersatz hand-wringing from U.S. secret police bosses:

The United States fears that Venezuela could face a major eruption of street violence in the coming months, according to senior American intelligence officials who spoke on condition of anonymity in discussing the government’s latest intelligence assessment.

While Mr. Maduro has so far held off a recall vote against him, the American officials said that they believed his grip on power was weakening by the day, and that he could be removed from power, either in a palace coup by members of his party or by the Venezuelan military.

While the military’s high command appears unlikely to act against the government right now, these officials said, its midlevel officers are more restive. One American official said intelligence officials were worried about some kind of change, but were not aware of any active plots. [My emphases, obviously.]

The CIA (presumably) is "worried" Madura might be overthrown? Is that sarcasm? Eager to see "some kind of change" (oh so coy; just say "Maduro overthrown") is the obvious truth! What kind of "newspaper" prints whopping lies without pointing out their falsehood? Certainly when the Times quotes Putin or Ayatollah Khamenei they make sure to contradict what they're saying.

After some more description of economic problems in Venezuela (with nary a mention of their causes, such as the plunge in oil prices over the past couple of years) we come to the last paragraph:

                 The officials acknowledged that the United States had limited influence in
                 Venezuela, where the government has blamed American meddling for the 
                 instability.

"Meddling" meaning subversion. By the way, there are some "secrets" the NY Times doesn't report- what the U.S. has been up to in Venezuela since Hugo Chavez ascended to power. You'll have to go elsewhere to learn about that. To the NY Times, those are just some wild and baseless accusations being flung about by a leftie government to cover up for its own failings. (And I'm not saying the Venezuelan government has no failings. But there hasn't been any honest discussion of them in the Western capitalist media, which has confined itself to Chavez-Maduro bashing since Day One.)

What I found a bit stunning was how the Obama regime openly advertised Maduro's alleged vulnerabilities. Maduro can only take these as threats (note the oh-so-innocent CIA avowal of being unaware of any coup plots. Sure. Fomenting coups are one of the CIA's main purposes, and it has a long, vicious history of committing and attempting them.) It's like a gangster walking into a business and saying "Nice little shop you have here. Be a shame if anything were to happen to it." The idea that the U.S. and CIA don't want anything BAD to happen to the hated Maduro is just a weird insult to our intelligence, once that the CIA and, worse, the New York Times is willing to shovel down the gullets of its presumably educated (but apparently infinitely credulous) readers- infinitely credulous when the guff is coming from their bourgeous bible, the NY Times. 

It's germane to mention here the fact that the NY Times has a history of hailing U.S. coups, including the three most notorious ones, Iran 1953, Guatemala 1954, and Chile, 9/11/73. And leading up to those coups, the NY Times used it propaganda powers to prepare public opinion to see those mass murderous acts as Good Things, "rescuing" countries from "communism."

"Senior American Intelligence Official." 

We got rid of that bastard Chavez, now Maduro goes down!  John Brennan, CIA Director.

By the way, the "government's latest intelligence assessment" is no doubt highly classified, which means the "intelligence officials" who divulged it to the Times committed felonies, since New York Times reporters don't have security clearances. But Obama certainly won't be siccing the FBI and "Justice" Department on them, like he does to whistleblowers, nor put the reporters under criminal investigation, as he's also done. These are "authorized" "leaks." (They aren't leaks, they're plants. The U.S. media deliberately mischaracterizes what is going on in these cases when the government uses the media for its political ends.)

The Washington Post is another imperialist bulletin board where high government apparatchiks can freely post anonymous political notes. Here too those ghostlike "intelligence officials" made an appearance. But the Post is a lot more honest than the Times in this instance, even though the Post is definitely to the right of the Times these days. (The Times is also quite mealy-mouthed, which could be a factor in this case.) [2]

Here are the opening paragraphs of the Post version of the Obama regime secret police planted article:

        Venezuela, where clashes erupted this week between security forces and demonstrators

        protesting food stortages, power blackouts and political gridlock, may be headed toward 

        an all-out popular uprising.that could lead to the overthrow of its government this year, 

        senior U.S. intelligence officials said.

        “You can hear the ice cracking,” an intelligence official said [or gloated]. 

        “You know there’s a crisis coming.” [He added, licking his chops.]

         Disaster is pending in Venezuela at the same time the Obama administration believes that
         it has vastly improved U.S. standing in Latin America, compared with the days when political          
        and economic turmoil in the hemisphere was blamed, sometimes with reason, on either            
        interference or disregard by Washington.

       There have been many times over the past two decades when the United States has wished

       for the demise of the left-wing Bolivarian revolution begun by former Venezuelan president            
       Hugo Chávez and carried on since 2013 by his successor, Nicolás Maduro. The Obama            
       administration and its predecessor have charged the government in Caracas with corruption,
       human rights abuses and drug smuggling, among other things, and have supported the
       political opposition.

You can see the relative frankness of the Post's version vs. the dishonesty of the Times. Still, the Post is discreet enough not to mention with what "reason" the U.S. was "blamed" for "turmoil," which "sometimes" the accusations weren't just shrill blame-shifting, and what the "interference" consisted of. (Like, installing murderous military dictatorships, maybe?)

And yet the Post, like the Times, was perfectly willing to provide a platform for absurd lies, which it ran without demurral. Such as this:

       The days of America rooting for the ouster of Chávez and his revolutionary movement
      “are over,” the intelligence official said. Now, “it’s not really the case that the United
      States is rooting for any outcome, other than that it’s not an outbreak of political violence.
      You’d have to be insane not to worry.” [We all know how much the U.S. ABHORS violence!]

      The senior intelligence officials, who briefed a small group of reporters, spoke on the
      condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the government.

Why they would be any less eager to get rid of Maduro than Chavez is left unexplained.

The Post article concluded by explicating three ways to overthrow the Venezuelan government:

           
      The intelligence officials outlined three possible change-of-government scenarios.
      The failure of this year’s recall referendum could lead to another petition next year.
      But the opposition — itself divided and ill-disciplined — has been a disappointment
      to the Obama administration.

      Second, there could be a “palace coup” in which some members of Maduro’s
      government move to oust him with the help of some segment of the military.

      The third possible scenario is a military move, possibly led by lower-ranking officers
      and enlisted members who also are feeling the economic pinch, to remove the
      government altogether.

Nothing like spelling it out, guys. (Gals too, these days, They're so "progressive," they even let women and blacks be imperialist gangsters now! And gays! How much more enlightened can you get!) So there's the game plans. Rather, the end game plans.

"Senior U.S. intelligence official."

The Maduro regime is this close to the edge. All it needs is one little push...  

James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence.

Here's a measure of the depth of cynicism involved in this propaganda salvo. If the U.S. were truly worried about a collapse in Venezuela, and wanted to avert a coup, it wouldn't PUBLICIZE all this. It wouldn't in effect goad the opposition, and the military, in this way. Instead of very conspicuously handing out a roadmap for overthrowing Maduro, it would quietly inform key opposition and military figures that the U.S. would not support a coup.

Of course the U.S. WILL support a coup, just as it supported the Honduran coup, a fact Obama's previous Secretary of State, Hillary "Hard-nosed Realist" Clinton even bragged about in her recent book,  In fact, it probably prefers one, as that will make it easier for the U.S. to choose Maduro's successor than if the regime is toppled by a mass rebellion of some sort.

So on the guise of being worried about the Maduro regime falling (and the end of Chavismo, hopes the U.S. global masters), the U.S. global gestapo is trying to cause that very thing.

All this parallels Obama's habitual pattern of saying the exact opposite of what he actually intends to do. (Sometimes, of course, he says what he means- when it's something evil.) Obama may well be the most mendacious president in U.S, history. (Although Bill Clinton, another conscience-free con man, is certainly in the running.) Not even Reagan and Nixon quite compare, as both of them frequently came right out with their reactionary intentions. Not so Obama. Obama endeavors to deceive almost always.

Now, here's something very important to notice, that the U.S. propaganda system and imperialist government is trying to slip by you: for all the moaning about leftists taking over Latin America, the U.S. has been overthrowing  can one left-leaning government after another, or certainly giving them a shove. In Brazil, the largest and most important Latin American nation, thieving legislators have removed president Dilma Rousseff (whom the vengeful Obama no doubt held a grudge against for taking offense at his NSA listening in on her phone calls- and if you don't think he's vengeful, and ruthless, take note of how he had Egyptian secret police goons break Medea Benjamin's arm after she interrupted one of his speeches, and how he had Anwar al-Awlaki's son and nephew bumped off). These fine men defenestrated Rousseff so they can quash the criminal investigations into themselves. In Argentina, U.S. billionaire Paul Singer financed an election victory for Macri, replacing Isabel Kirshner. Macri promptly handed over billions of dollars of Argentina's national funds to Singer and his fellow hedge fund hyenas. Honduras I already mentioned. Obama has pried open the door to internally subvert Cuba, an elusive "prize" the U.S. has sought since 1959. Guess we better assume Ecuador and Bolivia are on the list. And except for Cuba, none of these regimes is or was particularly leftist, just mildly social democratic. That shows the extreme intolerance and hard right-wing nature of the permanent U.S. imperialist state.

Capo di tutti capi

I LOVE you guys!     U.S. Emperor Obama

One more thing worth remembering: we still don't know what caused Hugo Chavez's lethal cancer. We do know that Imperialist Boss Obama sure seemed satisfied with it..

This was Obama's entire statement upon Chavez's death, from the White House website: 

March 05, 2013

Statement of President Obama on the Death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez

At this challenging time of President Hugo Chavez’s passing, the United States reaffirms its support for the Venezuelan people and its interest in developing a constructive relationship with the Venezuelan government. As Venezuela begins a new chapter in its history, the United States remains committed to policies that promote democratic principles, the rule of law, and respect for human rights.

There it is. Not a single word of condolence. And a reiteration in coded language of the U.S. determination to overthrow the leftist regime. This is the new verbiage the U.S. uses since invoking The Communist Menace as an alibi for its subversion, sabotage, terrorism and coups became obsolete. Obama's own record is crystal clear the contempt in which he actually holds "democratic principles, the rule of law, and respect for human rights." Massive secret surveillance of the entire U.S. population, assassinations of even teenagers by drone, contempt for law- he writes his own laws, in secret, and refuses to let anyone else read them, and has taken the pieces of the Bill of Rights shredded by his predecessor and reduced them to confetti- this is the rhetoric of cynical global gangsters.

Keep in mind that Obama personally reviews death lists before the CIA and military carry out their assassinations. He even authorized the murder of the teenage son and nephews of al-Qaeda in Yemen propagandist Anwar al-Awlaki. So he's not squeamish. (Awlaki father and son, "terminated with extreme prejudice" two weeks apart, were both American citizens, for what that's worth. Not much, it seems. Mere citizenship didn't save Michael Hastings or Sandra Bland either. "Fellow Americans" is indeed a hollow, cynical term.)

To review the death of Chavez, the cold satisfaction the U.S. took in his death, and the unresolved question of whether the CIA murdered Chavez by inducing the cancer that the Cubans' best doctors couldn't cure, see "Chavez, Cancer, and the CIA," March 9, 2013; "With Chavez Dying, Obama "National Security Team" Preparing to Gloat," January 10, 2013; "Dead Man Walking: Hugo Chavez Doomed. CIA Dancing a Jig?," December 12, 2012.

And the British government did its bit in the demonization of Chavez. Like a puppy-dog eager to please, it is usually avid in its desire to demonstrate its usefulness to the U.S., an urge manifested in its leaping to the U.S. military's side with forces of its own when there's a fight on somewhere. (This sycophantic urge was played on by Obama when he opined that the UK would be less useful to the U.S. if it left the EU. The cold manipulator Obama thus expertly plucked the strings of British elite insecurity about its power and position in the world.)

The British ruling class still suffers from the delusion that the U.S. will reciprocate its servility by sticking up for Britain's dessicated imperialist pretensions. (At best, the UK is allowed to ride the U.S.' coattails. Here's a telling historical fact: the Reagan regime almost sided with the fascist Argentine military junta in the Falklands War, at the urging of the fascist Jeane Kirkpatrick and demented reactionary Alexander Haig.*  What turned Reagan around was his Secretary of war, Caspar Weinberger, who insisted the U.S. had to aid Britain.) Someone needs to tell the British: nations don't have "friends," notwithstanding the constant invocation of that word, nations have interests.

Given this quasi-craven attitude of the British government, it's no surprise that its propaganda arm, the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation), often reliably parrots the U.S. media/government line and attitude. A particularly grotesque example of this occurred when Huge Chavez died. I discussed this, quoting the BBC in the essay title: "Hugo Chavez: Champion of the Poor or Unhinged Megalomaniac?" March 6, 2013. Oh those English are so refined and subtle.


* Haig was an obscure colonel and son of a Republican lawyer whom Nixon rapidly elevated to four-star general rank. A reactionary fanatic, he committed many crimes during his "career." He actually suggested a "nuclear warning shot" in Europe to "deter" the Soviet Union. [Congress and the Nuclear Freeze: An Inside Look at the Politics of a Mass Movement, by Douglas C. Waller, 1987, page 19.]

But the bourgeois media will remember him, if at all, for declaring himself "in control" at the White House when Reagan was shot and hospitalized in March 1981. Haig was Secretary of State at the time, a post he resigned in mid-1982, a year and a half into Reagan's reign.

1] New York Times, May 14, 2015.

2] "U.S. intelligence officials: Venezuela could be headed for collapse," Washington Post, May 13,      2016.