Ron Ridenour
Author, Activist, Journalist

Credit: The Conversation

US President Barack Obama took to three former enemy targets in Asia this year.

His mission in Vietnam was to sell “lethal weapons”. This comes after a 50 year embargo of selling it weapons, and after the US weapons industry had scored billions selling death tools to its government so that it could conduct the un-provoked war (1960-75). The cost in human lives: between 1.5 and 3.9 three million Vietnamese and 58,000 US aggressors.

Weapon sales are conditioned, naturally, on Vietnam respecting US-defined human rights.

In return for this generous offer, the Vietnamese government commits itself to drop its Russian-built MIG-21 jet fighters and buy US-made F-16s. And The Man didn’t even have to apologize for previous White House custodians’ mass murder.

Japan was next Obama’s marketing list. He even dared stop at Hiroshima where he didn’t apologize either. He simply said that “artefacts tell us that violent conflict appeared with the very first man.”

The Man began his speech thusly:

“Seventy-one years ago, on a bright cloudless morning, death fell from the sky and the world was changed. A flash of light and a wall of fire destroyed a city and demonstrated that mankind possessed the means to destroy itself.”

“We come to mourn the dead, including over 100,000 Japanese men, women and children, thousands of Koreans, a dozen Americans held prisoner.”

“We remember all the innocents killed across the arc of that terrible war and the wars that came before and the wars that would follow.”

“Mere words cannot give voice to such suffering. But we have a shared responsibility to look directly into the eye of history and ask what we must do differently to curb such suffering again.”

“We must change our mind-set about war itself. To prevent conflict through diplomacy and strive to end conflicts after they’ve begun.”

Go Tell It On The Mountain! On the mountains of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Russia….

Then The Man took the historic step of becoming the first sitting US president to visit Laos. Hallelujah! He didn’t apologize here either but he made concessive remarks, something like there were “sufferings and sacrifices on all sides of the conflict.”

Laotian Hmong with US “adviser”. These mountain tribes were recruited by the CIA to fight the communist menace. An enormous proportion of their population died in this misguided effort, and a few lucky ones escaped to America.

“Conflict”! That is to say, the giant invaded the little land of Laos, 2.6 million people at the time, because the US had already invaded its larger neighbour, Vietnam, 35 million at the time. Americans had to do this, because Vietnam’s politics and social welfare-based economy was subversive and “regime change” was necessary.

The US dropped more bombs on this small country than it did on the Axis countries during WW11—270 million tons (many of them “mother”/ cluster bombs). The slim man in the white house came offering funds to help remove some of the unexploded bombs in Laos’ earth that 40 years later still kill thousands of people, especially playful children.

While on his mission, the elegant spokesperson for peace spoke of US containment concerning Asian “regional issues”, and had the felicitous gall to challenge China with this egalitarian message:

“Every nation matters. Bigger nations should not dictate to smaller ones, and all nations should play by the same rules.”

No lie. The graceful hypocrite said THAT while announcing that the United States of America will increase its military presence in the geographical area where lay China.

Remember!

• Grenada—1983, population 100,000—Invaded.
• Dominican Republic—1954, 2.6 million—Coup for Regime Change.
• Cuba—1961, 7.2 million—Invaded.
• Cambodia—1972, 7.3 million—Bombed incessantly.
• Chile—1973, 7.7 million—Coup for Regime Change.
• Nicaragua—1980, 3.2 million—Invasion by proxy.
• More recently and on-going: Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya…

In 1823, the congress legalized, the “Monroe Doctrine” as part of Manifest Destiny: hands off the US’s backyard, Latin America.

Of the thousands of times that US military force has been used against scores of countries, many have been subjected several times. Cuba has been attacked 12 times since 1814; Nicaragua 12 times since 1853; Panama on 13 occasions since 1856. Although Latin America has been the most targeted, China has been attacked 30 times, from 1843 “gunboat diplomacy” to 1999 when the US bombed its embassy in Yugoslavia.

Major-General Smedley Butler [Credit: Gunnyg – Photobucket]

Ron Ridenour

is the author of six books on Cuba including: “Backfire: The CIA’s Biggest Burn”, Cuba Beyond the Crossroads with Theodore MacDonald, and Cuba at Sea, plus other books such as "Yankee Sandinistas", “Sounds of Venezuela”, and “Tamil Nation in Sri Lanka”. He has lived and worked in Latin America including in Cuba 1988-96 (Cuba's Editorial José Martí and Prensa Latina), Denmark, Iceland, Japan, India. www.ronridenour.com; email: ronrorama@gmail.com. 

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Dispatches from Eric Zuesse

Simulpost with Off-Guardian

Well, what that document actually showed, and proved (and cited FBI investigators who could then have testified in public, if requested), was the opposite of unimportant: that the Saudi Ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar bin Sultan al-Saud (who was known in Washington as “Bandar Bush,” because of his closeness to the Bush family), had secretly been paying the Saudi handlers of at least two of the 15 Saudis among the 19 9/11 hijackers, and that Bandar’s wife and other relatives were also paying those hijackers-to-be, and their families — thus enabling the future hijackers to obtain the necessary pilot-training etc., for the 9/11 attacks.

How much news-coverage of this was there in the U.S.’democracy’ that is supposed to be informing the public about such things, instead of continuing the cover-ups of them?

Why do U.S. ‘news’ media hide it — after having demanded for more than ten years that the ‘missing 28 pages’ become published?

G.W. Bush: clearly a criminal at large by any elementary juridical standard.

G.W. Bush: clearly a criminal at large by any standard of juridical decency.

But that’s not all there is to the cover-up: As I mentioned and documented in my July 20th news-report on “9/11: Bush’s Guilt and the ’28 Pages’,”  U.S. President George W. Bush was also involved in the 9/11 operation: He had instructed his National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice to block his obtaining from U.S. government sources any specific information about what the attacks would entail, or about the date on which they would occur. (Presumably, he already knew, via his private communications with Prince Bandar or someone else who was in on the event’s planning, all that he had wanted to know about the coming event.) When CIA Director George Tenet, on 10 July 2001, was practically screaming to Rice to allow him into the Oval Office, to meet privately with the President to inform him of how urgent the situation had become to take action on it, she said: “We’re not quite ready to consider this. We don’t want the clock to start ticking.” Tenet was shocked, and dismayed. That encounter with Rice was intended to urge the President to establish a hit-team to take out bin Laden, so as to avert the operation — whatever it was, or would turn out to be. The way that Chris Whipple put this, in his terrific report in Politico magazine, on 12 November 2015, titled “The Attacks Will Be Spectacular”, was that, “they did not want a paper trail to show that they’d been warned.”

Bandar bin Sultan: Moe appropriately called Bandar Bush. CC BY-SA by Tribes of the World

Apparently, “Bandar Bush” knew the details, but his friend George W. Bush did not — Bush needed “deniability” — it’s not for nothing that he was able to say, after the event, as Condoleezza Rice was to put it when speaking to reporters on 16 May 2002, “This government did everything that it could in a period in which the information was very generalized, in which there was nothing specific to react to … Had this president known of something more specific, or known that a plane was going to be used as a missile, he would have acted on it.”

How does she now square that statement with her having told Tenet, on 10 July 2001, “We’re not quite ready to consider this. We don’t want the clock to start ticking.”? What ‘clock’? Why not? No one asks her — especially not under oath.

Is that the way things happen in a democracy, even 15 years after the event?

Condoleezza Rice is one of the small circle of people who definitely knows much more than she has told about 9/11—so why is she not pressed to talk? Who protects her? No need to answer that. Just a rhetorical question. Photo by NewsHour

[dropcap]O[/dropcap]n 10 September 2012, Kurt Eichenwald, who had reported for The New York Times, was then issuing his new book on the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, 500 Days: Secrets and Lies in the Terror Wars, and he headlined an op-ed then in his former newspaper (which thus could hardly have declined to accept it), “The Deafness Before the Storm”, describing the most puzzling aspect of the lead-up to 9/11:

It was perhaps the most famous presidential briefing in history.

On Aug. 6, 2001, President George W. Bush received a classified review of the threats posed by Osama bin Laden and his terrorist network, Al Qaeda. That morning’s “presidential daily brief” — the top-secret document prepared by America’s intelligence agencies — featured the now-infamous heading: “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” A few weeks later, on 9/11, Al Qaeda accomplished that goal.

On April 10, 2004, the Bush White House declassified that daily brief — and only that daily brief — in response to pressure from the 9/11 Commission, which was investigating the events leading to the attack. Administration officials dismissed the document’s significance, saying that, despite the jaw-dropping headline, it was only an assessment of Al Qaeda’s history, not a warning of the impending attack. While some critics considered that claim absurd, a close reading of the brief showed that the argument had some validity.

That is, unless it was read in conjunction with the daily briefs preceding Aug. 6, the ones the Bush administration would not release. While those documents are still not public, I have read excerpts from many of them, along with other recently declassified records, and come to an inescapable conclusion: the administration’s reaction to what Mr. Bush was told in the weeks before that infamous briefing reflected significantly more negligence than has been disclosed. In other words, the Aug. 6 document, for all of the controversy it provoked, is not nearly as shocking as the briefs that came before it.

Those “briefs” still are not published. And now, after the revelation, by Chris Whipple, that Condoleezza Rice was under instruction from her boss not to allow him to be informed too early for “the clock to start ticking,” we can understand why there is still so much that hasn’t yet been released to the public, in our ‘democracy’, about who was really behind 9/11.

On 17 April 2016, Paul Sperry in the New York Post headlined “How US covered up Saudi role in 9/11”, and he reported that his own investigation showed: “Actually, the kingdom’s involvement was deliberately covered up at the highest levels of our government. And the coverup goes beyond locking up 28 pages of the Saudi report in a vault in the US Capitol basement. Investigations were throttled. Co-conspirators were let off the hook.” But isn’t it time, now, to demand that Bush’s role also be explored — not only that the Saud family’s (especially Bandar’s) role in it be prosecuted? After all, Bush was the one who took a Presidential oath.

Or: Is the U.S. not enough of a democracy, for that to happen — for the Constitution to be enforced, by the U.S. President after Bush (the President who will not prosecute his intended successor)? How total must the non-accountability at the top be, before we call the country a “dictatorship” — only a fake ‘democracy’?

Regarding the actions that brought down the three World Trade Center Buildings, WTC1, WTC2, and WTC7, there also is good reason to distrust the official ‘history’. Witness accounts both by firefighters and by the general public were videoed at the time saying that they heard multiple explosions, which indicated controlled demolitions after the two plane-crashes into WTC1 and WTC2. Other witnesses of the WTC7 collapse also heard explosions. Regarding WTC7, there was testimony from the owner of the WTC, Larry Silverstein, saying that he instructed the Fire Department not to go into WTC7 but simply to “pull it.” (And his subsequent statement saying he didn’t really mean that and he meant only to “pull” the firefighters from that building, which actually had none, was debunked.) Even the government’s “Final Report on the Collapse of World Trade Center Building 7” acknowledged (p. 48) that there had been “(2) a freefall descent over approximately eight stories of gravitational acceleration for approximately 2.25 s[econds]” meaning that that 8-story segment had been blasted so that, throughout those 8 stories, there was zero resistance to the collapsed portion falling through it from above. This alone constitutes solid and conclusive physical proof of the official lie, though itself published in the official source. And yet on the very next page in that official document is stated, “Blast events did not play a role in the collapse of WTC 7. … There were no witness reports of such a loud noise.” But there were such witness reports; and, anyway, the very admission (on the prior page) that there was free-fall over an 8-story segment of the building, constitutes acknowledgement of physical proof that there had been controlled demolition on WTC7. Further, there has even been expert testimony that nano-thermite was used to bring down each of these buildings. But clearly, whatever the truth of the matter is, the U.S. Government has been lying, and continues to lie, about 9/11. For at least the past 16 years, we’ve been living in a dictatorship. And the evidence suggests that this has been the case ever since at least 1981.

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BY PATRICE GREANVILLE

NOTE: ALL VIDEO MATERIALS FROM CBS THIS MORNING, 9.9.16

CBS Charlie Rose with socialite Amanda Burden. A courtier by instinct, Rose has built a niche as America’s tv “intellectual”. But doing imperialist propaganda, serving as a smooth ideological watchdog for his masters, is what comes naturally to him, especially now that he is a millionaire many times over. Photo by david_shankbone

The Establishment picks a candidate

[dropcap]B[/dropcap]asically at this point, the dominant wing of the corporate establishment, a mob bent on US global hegemony at any cost, has decided to make Trump a pariah while casting its bets with Hillary. We know the fix is in because the mainstream media prostitutes, which constitute a dense, self-impressed layer at the very top of their smelly heap (being ready to act as enthusiastic shills for the empire and its countess crimes at home and abroad is as much a requisite for a successful career in US “journalism” as it is in regular politics) have been working around the clock to ridicule, “expose” and warn the public off, in hysterical terms, about Trump’s supposed threats to the nation and the planet. Yea, he’s that dangerous.

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he kingmakers’ disgust with Trump does not stem from anything decent or rational, or even remotely moral. That is never the case in American politics, a nation that has cultivated hypocrisy, “pragmatism”, and self-delusion to an astonishing degree. These establishment worthies are furious, offended and concerned by something else, the fact that Trump—technically their class brother, is too erratic, “too narrowly self-seeking, old-fashioned, and small-biz capitalistic” —to be trusted to carry out the imperialist agenda that the highest circles in the US ruling class have long embraced. This is a Neocon vision for the 21st century calling for war on Russia and China, and possibly other nations, if necessary, to preserve and expand the dominance of the United States in every corner of the world. The overwhelming majority of the US populace remains infantilistically innocent about this nifty project. Trump, for all his innumerable lies and faults, obviously does not see the need to court disaster in order to continue his enrichment or that of his class. Nor —businessman to the hilt—is he fully conscious or convinced that marketing rhetoric (in this case his ultra-chauvinist drivel) should be backed up with actual policies.

Photo by veni markovski

But, even with a man as unworthy of respect or credibility as Trump, strange emanations issue from his lips that set the alarms ringing. For the Donald, like the legendary broken clock, is still able to float —unpredictably, erratically and much too fleetingly—notions that strike even the normally brainwashed American as “reasonable”. Things like, why not just talk to the Russians and negotiate instead of starting a countdown to mutual incineration? Or, why not ally with Russia in the fight against ISIS, since the Russkies do it so well? (Apparently no one has bothered to tell Trump, who never reads and gets his info by watching television, that the official line that the US is actually fighting ISIS in Syria is total bunk.) Or, get this—equally heretical—why should we be paying for NATO when it is those cheap ingrates, the Europeans, who “benefit” from our “generosity? Why not just dismantle it? Yea, let them pay for their own defense. All of this sends shivers down the spine of the Deep State imperialists, for whom Hillary, is the only vetted horse.

O’Donnell: Cheerleader pretty, but a journalist?

To the US establishment, from its intel goons and henchmen, to the plutocrats in the defense and energy industries that control so much of US international policy, or, for that matter, that strange and untouchable tumour in the US foreign policy body, the Zionist neoplasm, all of this talk of isolation and dismantling is sacrilege, unnerving incoherence, plain heresy. Trump is therefore something to be combatted by any means necessary, and the first move has been to rally round Hillary, with alacrity. As Bruce Fein has summed it up so lucidly,

It’s quite unsurprising then, that in this toxic climate, the media barons have been quick to mobilize their overpaid hacks, types like Mr. Rose of previous mention, to do the dirty work. The upshot has not been pretty, even if their target is execrable in almost every regard. In this manner, like Henry II’s assassins bent on relieving their master of a “turbulent priest” the modern media assassins have been quick to unleash a constant barrage of ridicule, questioning, and vilification on Trump calculated to leave nothing standing. It is indeed something of a miracle, that the Donald is still there, and in some places even contesting Hillary’s turf.

I imagine that the hacks’ work on Trump could not have been very difficult. After all, this is a man who stubbornly provides any would be media assassin with abundant ammo. Almost daily, sometimes hourly. So for experts in character obliteration, this must have been a walk in the sun, a trick scarcely more demanding than shooting fish in a barrel, and hardly more edifying. The GOP nominee, you see, the standard-bearer of a rump and disoriented Republican party, is generous with instances of grotesque silliness and yahooism, something that even many Yahoos recoil from. Ignorant to the core, incurably arrogant and narcissistic, Trump is simply a dream come true for cartoonists and satirists of every stripe.

Oprah protege King.

Under such conditions, if  you are a student of American disinformation, watching CBS these days can be a rewarding activity. Not that CBS is unique in its shameless distortions. It’s just that the Tiffany Network is so smooth and elegant in its propaganda. They do it so well, almost as seamlessly as the New York Times, which set the standard for refined brainwashing under freedom.

Kaine holding forth on Obama’s great leadership brand and Putin’s lack of creds. Obviously.

So look closely how and for what totally base motives, the abject crew at CBS This Morning, led by that maximum ghoul of US media, Charlie Rose, supported, like a tv rock star by two of his adoring groupies, the forever clueless Norah O’Donnell and the slightly less dense Gayle King, pushes hard to advance Hillary’s fortunes by raising the specter of Trump’s admiration for Putin, the bottomless perfidy of Russia, the way Russia’s hackers menace the purity of US elections, how North Korea keeps threatening the peace, etc, etc. Certify also how CBS and the rest of the pack provide ample screen time to the worthless Clinton sidekick, Tim Kaine, a man better known for his well-deserved obscurity, and only slightly better informed than the pathetic Libertarian Gary Johnson, to lecture us on what constitutes “leadership”, “dictatorship” and other heavy notions. It would all be plenty laughable, if these jokers didn’t get to have the last laugh.

—PG

Incidentally, be sure to read the bonus material I am including with this post, two lucid analyses of the American way of politics by Steve Lendman, who rarely pulls any punches.

And one last thing: We are supporting Jill Stein and Ajamu Baraka, the Green Party ticket in this election. If you can’t vote for them, don’t vote, stay home.

Special Bonus: In the land of ignoramuses

How Fantasy Democracy Works in America

by Stephen Lendman

[dropcap]A[/dropcap]merica is a one-party state with two right wings. Fantasy democracy substitutes for the real thing, tyranny by any standard, might over right, equity and justice be damned.

Independent candidates are shunned – at times grievously abused. More on this below. Governance at the federal, state and local levels exclusively serves wealth, power and privileged interests, no others.

Elections when held are farcical – easily and often rigged with electronic ease and by other devious means, most people none the wiser. 

Power brokers run things. Ordinary people have no say whatever. Voting is a waste of time. Why bother when your choice doesn’t count.

Police state harshness punishes anyone challenging how America really works – a ruthless debauched state harming more people over a longer duration than any other country in history.

Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein and her running mate Ajamu Baraka represent what governance should be all about – serving everyone equitably and fair, polar opposite the way America works.

Resisting tyranny is a universal right and obligation – civil disobedience for right over wrong one of the noblest of noble acts, the stuff redoubtable heroes are made of. 

Stein and Baraka could be prosecuted and fined, even imprisoned for courageously standing in solidarity with Native American Sioux people and environmentalists in Morton, ND. 

They oppose ecologically destructive Dakota Access Pipeline construction to carry crude oil from North Dakota to Illinois if completed. Standing Rock Sioux tribe lawyers sought injunctive relief to halt the project temporarily.

On Wednesday, warrants were disgracefully issued for the arrests of Stein and Baraka. Wrongful charges include trespass and criminal mischief.

“And for what,” they asked? “For their commitment to defend the planet and stand in solidarity with the struggle of the Sioux people.”

“For standing with those who are defending their rights to clean water and sacred burial grounds.” They spray-painted messages on a bulldozer destroying hallowed ground.

Stein said “I hope the North Dakota authorities press charges against the real vandalism taking place at the Standing Rock Sioux reservation: the bulldozing of sacred burial sites and the unleashing of vicious attack dogs.”

“How does the act of Jill and Ajamu’s peaceful civil disobedience compare to the crimes being committed by the fossil fuel industry – threatening the water of millions and using dog and pepper spray attacks on peaceful protectors of the land,” both candidates asked?

Stein said “(w)e are facing a climate emergency that requires us to halt any further investment in fossil fuel infrastructure, and instead to transition to 100% clean energy as soon as possible.”

Energy and construction companies should be prosecuted for environmental destruction, not peaceful protesters courageously defending the land from their pillaging.

Baraka said “(o)ur campaign is all about standing up to the rich and powerful who believe in their right to exploit the rest of the planet’s beings and resources for their own profit.” 

“The state should be prosecuting the crimes of threatening the water of millions and the attacks on peaceful protestors.”

Stein and Baraka are revolutionary activists at their best, heroic figures, their progressive agenda what’s badly needed.

Media scoundrels ignore their message, treating them like nonpersons. They’re denied the right to compete fairly against the two most widely reviled duopoly party candidates in US history.

Now they face arrest and criminal prosecution – for courageously doing the right thing, for challenging people and environmentally destructive pipeline construction.

America works this way – for its privileged few alone at the expense of most others.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. 

Geopolitically Clueless Libertarian Presidential Candidate Gary Johnson

by Stephen Lendman

[dropcap]W[/dropcap]hen asked what he’d do about Aleppo if elected president, Johnson astonishingly replied: “(W)hat is Aleppo?” 

Asked if he was “kidding,” he said “no.” Pre-war, Aleppo was Syria’s largest city, its main commercial hub. Now it’s the epicenter of weeks of war for control over a key part of the country.

James Petras believes its liberation would strike “a decisive blow against the alliance of Saudi Arabia, Washington and Turkey.”

Defeating terrorism in Aleppo “will turn the war,” said Petras. “(O)nce (it) falls, Raqqa” is next, ISIS’ stronghold in the country, “and Syria will be liberated.”

A disquieting development is Turkey’s August 24 invasion of northern Syria on the phony pretext of combating ISIS fighters it supports – wanting areas it occupies and more bordering its territory annexed.

Petras calls its action “a threat for all democratic forces in the Middle East.” Preserving Syrian sovereignty and territorial integrity depend on challenging and deterring its aggression responsibly and decisively.

Gary Johnson’s troubling geopolitical ignorance is unsurprising. His gaffe is reminiscent of Gerald Ford once saying “(t)here is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe” while debating Jimmy Carter.

He’s like most Americans, sublimely ignorant about the nation’s imperial wars, why they’re waged, the millions of lives lost, the rape and destruction of one country after another, wanting all independent ones transformed into US vassal states.

Propagandists posing as journalists are know-nothings, regurgitating scripts handed them to viewers and readers, leaving them unaware of what’s most important to know.

Johnson’s interviewer calling Aleppo “the epicenter of the refugee crisis” failed to explain half of all Syrians displaced internally or externally, millions more affected the same way in all US war theaters.

America’s self-styled newspaper of record New York Times misreported, calling Aleppo the “de facto capital of the Islamic State,” later mistakenly saying it’s ISIS’ “stronghold” – wrong on both counts and one more, referring to Aleppo as Syria’s capital.

Anyone with minimum knowledge of what’s going on in Syria knows it’s Damascus. Americans are consistently fed misinformation or willfully lied to.

Media scoundrels complicit with authorities in Washington keep them in the dark, uninformed on vital issues affecting their lives and welfare.

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Nauseated by the
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Andre Vltchek
Itinerant Philosopher and Journalist

Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) welcomes US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in Russia’s far eastern port city Vladivostok on September 8, 2012. Australian AFP PHOTO / POOL (Photo credit should read MIKHAIL METZEL/AFP/GettyImages)