TOTAL OBEDIENCE FIXATION: THE POUTING HEGEMON STRIKES BACK

MAKE SURE YOU CIRCULATE THESE MATERIALS! BREAKING THE EMPIRE'S PROPAGANDA MACHINE DEPENDS ON YOU.

A good way to popularly reformulate the infamous mid-90s “full spectrum dominance” doctrine would be to call it the imperial “total obedience fixation.” We can set aside the extensive history of essentially illegal and thus criminal “regime change” interventions (the said doctrine, far from being the announcement of a new policy, at the time, was just the jubilant public affirmation of a long-standing but until then largely surreptitious pattern of conduct). It is now opportune to turn to two specific examples of how it is being applied today, literally as this is written. Our two case studies, Azerbaijan and Serbia, are geographically, geopolitically, and in terms of several other important parameters, rather far apart, yet they are highly illustrative. What they have in common is the fact that their governments are currently subjected to an ominous onslaught of imperial displeasure leading – who knows? – to perhaps more serious forms of punishment.

AZERBAIJAN

It so happens that lately a gust of familiarly intoned “human rights” criticism has been directed at Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliev and his government, originating from their erstwhile US and European strategic partners. (Yes, gentle reader, if you are endowed with memory and have finely honed political antennae, you have correctly noted the significance of the current president’s surname. Indeed, Papa Aliev, whose prehistoric affiliations included membership in the notoriously human rights sensitive CP of the USSR Politbureau, and who was eagerly lionized by the same “Western partners” in the 90s when their immediate agenda was the breakup of the Soviet Union and access [and denial to Russia] to Azerbaijan’s vast oil and gas riches, is not just the biological progenitor of the current president, but the political founder of the modern independent Azeri state as well.) As is the rule in these matters, all was proverbially well as long as submissive “cooperation” and “nation building”, with the simultaneous rape of natural resources by Western trans-nationals and the utilization of Azeri territory for subversive operations against nearby recalcitrant states, could proceed without hindrance. The current emergence of human rights issues (what an unusual coincidence!) coincides with certain policy corrections introduced, following his father’s departure, by the younger President Aliev. In the relevant full spectrum dominance chancelleries such effrontery was interpreted as no less than lèse-majesté, an impermissible interference with the settled order of things, requiring immediate disciplining of the offender.

Aliev: Fall from grace, suddenly a serious "human rights violator".

As soon, therefore, as the current President Aliev – guided by whatever considerations – made his choice in favor of an independent and more balanced foreign policy, some standard script things promptly transpired. Until literally the day before an admirable democratic partner, he was now pronounced to be an obnoxious authoritarian, a human rights violator, and a consistent scoffer at “democratic values.” (Underlining the gravity of these charges, and to make a political point that surely would be noted all the way to Baku, a committee of the US Congress, also known in some naïve circles as “the greatest deliberative body on earth,” met at 2 p.m. on November 5, 2015, having nothing more pressing to consider than “The rule of law and civil society in Azerbaijan,” thus amply earning their keep for the day from the American taxpayers.) It is also broadly indicative that the opening of the European Games in Baku, in 2015, was demonstratively not attended by any of the Western leaders, their underlings, or even their office cleaning ladies. Talk about isolation and sending a strong message! Going even further, to rub it in on the eve of the aforementioned European Games, the German Bundestag dutifully passed a resolution in condemnation of “human rights violations in Azerbaijan.” The “all the news that’s fit to print” New York Times was not far behind with its own fulminations about the “rule of law crisis” in the same unhappy land. Predictably, the US State Department also chimed in with its own lurid allegation.

Mammadov: A pseudo martyr of convenience. The Western propaganda machinery manufactures them on demand.

In concert with these human rights authorities (but without suggesting any conspiracy theory, of course) Brussels soon added its own two cents’ worth. At the end of September 2015, at a meeting of a committee of the Council of Europe, Secretary-General Thorbjørn Jagland called for the introduction of sanctions against Baku for “systematic violations of democratic principles and human rights.” Jagland then brought up to the attention of the world public a new outrage committed by the hapless Azeri government. It arrogantly refuses, he claimed, to honor the decision of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) with regard to a certain Ilgar Mammadov, leader of the opposition ReAl (Republican Alternative) Movement, imprisoned for inciting social disorder but proclaimed by Brussels to be Azerbaijan’s poster boy “prisoner of conscience.”

Mindful of the recent experience of other targeted states, the Azeri government has no illusions about the ultimate purpose of the local Western-financed “NGO” network. At best, they are aiming for a Ukrainian scenario in Baku, and at worst its Syrian variant. In Azerbaijan (and also, as we shall soon see, in Serbia) Western “partners” are playing their all too familiar double game.

There, once again, we see the familiar double-standard pattern. While verbally committed to “stability” and the related mantras, in practice Western political mechanisms and their covert services are actively undermining the government of a sovereign country, all for daring to introduce a measure of balance in its foreign relations.

Not to be intimidated, President Ilham Aliev curtly responded to these pressures by raising the entirely thinkable possibility of his country’s departure from the meddlesome Council of Europe. “If Azerbaijan withdraws from the Council of Europe,” he noted with remarkable common sense, “nobody will even notice, and nothing will change for us. As a result, we will be neither richer, nor poorer. We are fulfilling our international obligations not for the sake of gaining the approval of the Secretary-General of the Council of Europe but for the sake of our country’s development.” As indeed nothing whatsoever would change in such an event, any more than anything did as a result of the United States’ withdrawal from UNESCO.

Not one to let pass making a fitting repartee, Aliev made his own recommendation to the Council of Europe. Before taking up Azerbaijan’s case, he suggested, it ought to ensure first the implementation of over 10,000 European Court of Human Rights verdicts by such “advanced democratic countries” as Great Britain, France, and Spain, as well as others such as Italy and Moldova, to name just a few.

But to return to the gist of the matter, mindful of the recent experience of other targeted states, the Azeri government has no illusions about the ultimate purpose of the local Western-financed “NGO” network. At best, they are aiming for a Ukrainian scenario in Baku, and at worst its Syrian variant. In Azerbaijan (and also, as we shall soon see, in Serbia) Western “partners” are playing their all too familiar double game. While shaking hands with President Aliev, and still even pledging support, they are financing simultaneously such violently subversive outfits as Meydan TV, which calls from the safety of far-off Berlin for turning vibrant Baku into a replica of desolated Damascus.

Apparently, if one may judge by the pattern of support being extended to local Azeri discontents, the hegemon is not loath to entertain even the horrors of the Syrian scenario in the maniacal quest for absolute obedience. How else to explain the massive funding, in Azerbaijan, of revolutionary outfits which make no secret of their commitment to undermining the foundations of a stable, secular authority? Behind these subversive factions are “all the usual suspects,” USAID, NED, EED, and other institutions of a similar ilk.

[dropcap]Q[/dropcap]uite recently, in fact, the infamous NED funneled over a million dollars to Azeri opposition “NGOs”. A notable feature of this operation is that NED conspicuously refused Azeri government’s request to furnish a list of local grant recipients. By contrast in Georgia, where imperial influence is deep and widespread, a similar request by that country’s government was complied with. The confidential nature of the identity of the Azeri grantees strongly suggests that they are slated for covert utilization as pawns in the forthcoming regime change operation to be directed against the errant government of that country.

At the same time, it should be noted that the Azeri government itself is not entirely blameless of naïve good faith actions that ignore established lessons in dealing with Western “partners” and are also clearly to its detriment. A case in point is Baku’s decision to release Emin Huseynov, a “journalist and human rights activist” avidly promoted by kindred soul Christiane Amanpour, who was facing serious criminal charges. Huseynov is now in Switzerland whence he is predictably conducting a subversive campaign against the Azeri government that released him, amply supplied with Western funds. A classical mistake, of course, which even the legendary Putin did not manage to avoid when he ordered the release of his designated oligarch nemesis Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who is now plotting against him – another awkward coincidence – also from Switzerland.

If the hegemon so values “stability,” further and related questions can appropriately be raised. If stability is the goal, why shake up the Azeri status quo by unleashing agents of influence such as Ilgar Mammadov — leader of the foreign cultivated ReAl Movement? Is Washington so naïve as to be out of the loop about Baku’s success in uncovering the financing scheme for ReAl – the most radical and aggressive of Azerbaijan’s opposition organizations? Is the State Department blissfully ignorant of the incendiary rhetoric of another of its “dissident” favorites, Natiq Jafarli, in the social media? If they are aware, why are they incessantly supplying them with money?

SERBIA

[dropcap]W[/dropcap]e now cross over from the Caspian to the Danube, from Azerbaijan to Serbia, to briefly check out the comparative situation in our other case study, and to see how it complements the picture about the way the imperial total obedience fixation functions.

A fundamental difference between the two leaderships must be stressed at this point. Whatever insouciant (to use Craig Paul Roberts’ apposite term) flirting the Azeris may have engaged in with their Western “partners,” they were always mindful of their country’s national interest. Their Serbian counterparts, on the other hand, never entertained any such concerns because they were entirely bought and paid for from the start.

The steady drumbeat of Western articulated criticism, with identical refrains and – more importantly – exactly the same fingerprints as in Azerbaijan, is now mounting against the Serbian government. Yet what rather markedly distinguishes that government from its Azeri counterpart is that [1] regardless of the tainted source, all the harsh criticisms levelled against it so far are absolutely and provably correct, and have been manifestly so for a very long time before the drumbeat was turned on, and [2] while from the imperial perspective, on the scale of disobedience, the Azeri government may indeed be guilty of some policy deviations, their Serbian colleagues are absolutely blameless of that charge, having been humbly compliant to a fault. But regardless, pending completion of some important unfinished tasks, the Serbian regime is now in line to be unceremoniously thrown under the bus. The recent arriviste presidential inauguration bacchanal in Belgrade, involving the pitiless slaughter of thousands of helpless beasts, intended to put no less than a kilo of beef on the plate of each of the 6,000 lucky invitees, a veritable animal Srebrenica (tactfully, the government has withheld information on whether guests were also provided with doggy bags at public expense), was quickly overshadowed by a wave of professionally organized and well financed anti-government demonstrations, which erupted the very next day after the Serbian president’s extraordinary electoral triumph was proclaimed. A slap in the face such as only Western “partners” are capable of administering.

The reasons for the no-holds-barred assault on President Aliev are clear enough: his moderate attempts to bring his country’s policy in line with the reality of its geopolitical environment and, most importantly, national interest. But his Serbian colleague, and his corrupt clique, cannot possibly be held accountable for any such offense. Far from being disobedient, they are in fact happy plantation slaves, singing contentedly as they pick the cotton for their master. Where did they go wrong and how can they now correct the error of their ways?

Their error turns out to be not that they were unwilling in principle, but that they have left the impression of being insufficiently avid to fulfill the master’s tasks by the deadlines that were set for them. There are three such absolute priority tasks: recognizing in the name of Serbia the NATO created mafia state of Kosovo, joining NATO, and cutting even the slender remaining ties to Russia, in the name of EU’s foreign policy coordination.

The fulfillment of these tasks, a tall order for anyone, to be sure, in a staunchly pro-Russian and anti-NATO country like Serbia, has now been prioritized and is on track for completion some time in 2018.

Barring the intervention of some unanticipated circumstances, there is little doubt that Serbia’s servile – and now justifiably desperate – leadership will make an earnest effort to please their masters in the puerile expectation that such compliance, to their country’s gravest detriment, will help remove the sword of regime change now hanging over their heads.

We shall, of course, follow these developments with great attention, but without prejudging the outcome some probabilities can be identified in advance. There is no example in empirical experience where imperial trust, once willfully or inadvertently lost, was ever successfully restored. Serbia’s venal and moronic leaders can take it for granted that they have been written off. The best they can hope for is for the executioner’s sword to be delayed long enough for them to complete their disreputable assignments. After that, they will be given one remaining task which none of their Western interlocutors so far has been honest enough to disclose to them. It is to take the blame for the disastrous consequences and the ruthless betrayal of their people and to be driven out of office so that a new set of quislings, of unsullied reputation, can take over to carry on unhindered with the heinous work of treason.

Is there an escape from the obedience school? There most assuredly is an escape, and the positive example of Azerbaijan demonstrates that, taking into account all the mistakes that have been made along the way.

A fundamental danger for Azerbaijan is that – in its quest for total control and in order to install at any cost a reliable pro-Western regime – the hegemon will not hesitate to also incidentally undermine the foundations of the Azeri secular state. Some movement in that direction can already be detected in the form of large scale investment in radical religious propaganda.

It goes without saying that the battle for Azerbaijan (in its own way every bit a “prize,” just as the Ukraine was said to be a few years ago, in the famous words of Western think tank functionary Carl Gershman) will continue at a furious pace. Imperial political warfare specialists are developing and adapting strategies designed to implant in strategically important Baku a fully subservient set of players, ensuring the country’s permanent and unequivocal pro-Western orientation. The pressure on the Azeri government will therefore continue unabated and material designed to compromise President Aliev and his staff will continue to be publicized (another proof that the playbook is virtually the same is that lately a number of close associates of the Serbian president have also come out with scintillating exposes). In the division of labor, Brussels’ role will be to issue ultimatums insisting on fundamental changes in Azerbaijan’s internal policy, with emphasis on “democracy” and alleged persecution of local “civil society.”

However, due to the operation of the law of unintended consequences that may in the end prove to be a very counter-productive approach. By pushing Azerbaijan into a corner the West may leave it no other practical solution than to pursue all-out integration with regional blocks. (For obvious geographical reasons, in Serbia’s case such a maneuver would be much more difficult to execute.) The contours of a triangular entente of Azerbaijan, Russia, and Iran are already visible, and coincidentally a new and interesting Russia – Turkey geopolitical axis is also taking shape. Time will tell, but these regional geopolitical realignments may in the end lead to the formation of a new block of cooperating regional states – including Russia, Iran, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Kazakhstan – that would be guaranteed to increase the displeasure of imperial strategists.

To which the reminder might be added that Azerbaijan and Russia are petroleum and gas exporting countries. Moscow and Baku are jointly building pipelines, thus depriving the US of the European market for its expensive liquefied natural gas. They are assisted in that project by Turkey as a vital transit country.

One may suppose that with Azerbaijan it is a matter of utmost importance for Europe to refrain from interfering in its internal affairs and to cease addressing it using the rhetoric of ultimatums. As luck would have it, such a turnaround should also suit Europe, assuming that it has drawn the lessons from collective policy mistakes it committed in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon.

About the Author

Born in Belgrade, Serbia (1950), STEFAN KARGANOVIC is a U.S. citizen. Graduate of the University of Chicago and Indiana University School of Law. Member of several defense teams at the International Criminal Tribunal For the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Founder and president of NGO “Srebrenica Historical Project,” registered in the Netherlands and in Serbia. Currently engaged in research on events that took place in Srebrenica in July 1995. Author and co-author of several books on Srebrenica and the technology of “color revolution.”

STEFAN KARGANOVIC—The reasons for the no-holds-barred assault on President Aliev are clear enough: his moderate attempts to bring his country’s policy in line with the reality of its geopolitical environment and, most importantly, national interest. But his Serbian colleague, and his corrupt clique, cannot possibly be held accountable for any such offense.

Ai Weiwei is an amusing self-promoter whose vehicle is Western gullibility.

HELP ENLIGHTEN YOUR FELLOWS. BE SURE TO PASS THIS ON. SURVIVAL DEPENDS ON IT.

INTRODUCTION BY PATRICE GREANVILLE

CBS and the US machine of disinformation would like us to believe this about this man. Watch closely:

CBS Sunday Morning

Published on Oct 15, 2017

Rita Braver catches up with Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, whose latest exhibition is his largest undertaking yet: an installation in all five boroughs of New York City titled "Good Fences Make Good Neighbors."

BUT the reality, as usual, is quite different. Weiwei is a basically a con artist, a figure deliberately used (with his eager consent) by the US disinformation machine as part of its new information war on China, a war of lies and slanders that has been going on already for several years, but which is now, in the wake of America's setbacks in Syria, being revved up even more in compliance with the empire's goals of harassment and destabilisation of Russia and China, something Obama, loyal servant of the Deep State, kicked off with his deviously labeled "Pivot to Asia". The charge, as usual (for a sociopathic empire that has killed tens of millions, and destroyed dozens of nations, plunging countless people into the most horrid misery), is that China is guilty of "human rights abuses." That's right, China. Or so say prominent, widely paraded "dissidents of convenience" like Ai Weiwei, the latest Chinese media darling.

In any case, our special editor for Asia affairs, Godfree Roberts, has the lowdown on Weiwei. Here it is:

Ai Weiwei is an amusing self-promoter whose vehicle is Western gullibility.

By Godfree Roberts

In 1983, he was expelled from a New York design school for chronic absenteeism, forfeited his visa and was an illegal immigrant in the US for much of his time there. He was charged with doing construction work without a license and worked as a ‘tourist guide’ in the 42nd Street Red Light district, apparently earning commissions as a pimp. He then spent two years gambling in Atlantic City, buying free chips from bus tourists and reselling them.

The son of high-ranking cultural official and poet, he came to international attention when he claimed to have designed Beijing’s Birds Nest Olympic Stadium, despite the fact that architect Li Xinggang’s model of of the Bird’s Nest was adopted in April, 2003, long before Ai attempted to join the design team in 2006.

When he publicly threatened to boycott the Games, he made a serendipitous discovery: Western critics were delighted by an artist who condemned both China and the Beijing Olympics. The US. promptly awarded Ai a permanent Green Card in return for his willingness to insult China, art commissions flowed, and media sought his wisdom on every topic.

Encouraged by the attention, Ai claimed that China had made no progress of any kind in the previous 30 years, that the country had more poor people than ever, that everything was worse and that government leaders were stealing all its citizens’ money.. ‘China has no hope, no dreams, no future’; it is ‘a broken vehicle that will soon disintegrate’.

The Global Times Chinese Edition commented plaintively: "China needs a multiplicity of voices and for this reason diverse opinions should not be suppressed. Ai Weiwei, however, has gone too far in mimicking American ways and his behavior is naive and childish”.

The media loved him but, at the height of his notoriety, journalists suddenly abandoned him and raced to report on one of the greatest natural disasters in modern history: the Sichuan earthquake that killed 100,000 people in 24 hours, left 370,000 injured and 5 million homeless over an area of 200,000 square miles.

The government reported that more than 7,000 inadequately engineered schoolrooms had collapsed and The Christian Science Monitor explained why, “Earthquake engineers say that constructing a building to resist a quake of magnitude 7 or 8 is possible but is often considered cost prohibitive…Schools are particularly vulnerable because they are mid-sized buildings, smaller projects for contractors that are paid by [local] government bureaucracies. Two recent earthquakes in Indonesia and in Kashmir also resulted in a disproportionate [number of] student deaths.”

Local mayors explained that the schools had been built in the 1980s, when parents were desperate to get their children out of buildings like caves that seeped water during winter rains, “We didn’t have much money back then and the schools were the best we could afford”.

Ai followed the journalists to Sichuan with an irresistible story: Chinese authorities were guilty of negligence and malfeasance and thousands of children had died because Party corruption had led to shoddy construction. He set up an installation of the dead children’s names, posted the lists on his blog and created an exhibition with children's backpacks symbolizing their deaths. Ai gathered credulous journalists each day, eager to receive his revelations, ignoring the obvious fact that it would take many months even to find, identify and count the dead, let alone ascribe causes for their deaths.

Thousands of soldiers, health officials and engineers spent months locating and identifying 100,000 bodies and a year completing surveys and mortality analyses.

The final report showed that virtually all the children who were in school during the worst quake survived twice as well as adults: 99.8% of children under 14 survived.

But, by the time the report was released, Ai was a millionaire living in Germany and Western journalists who followed there hung on his every word. His global renown rose further and his artworks sold for millions.

When Chinese tax authorities charged him with failing to declare $2.3 million income he posted bail of $1.3 million cash and appealed, claiming victimization and began public fundraising for his defense.

Such are Western media’s Chinese human rights heroes.

About the Author

GODFREE ROBERTS serves as Special Contributing Editor for Asia Affairs. A longtime resident of Thailand, Dr Roberts, originally from Australia, is an expert on Asia affairs, with a particular interest in geopolitics, economics as well as science and technology.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

GODFREE ROBERTS—The Global Times Chinese Edition commented plaintively: “China needs a multiplicity of voices and for this reason diverse opinions should not be suppressed. Ai Weiwei, however, has gone too far in mimicking American ways and his behavior is naive and childish”.

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“Color Revolution” Comes Home? Are Americans Also the Victims of “Regime Change”?

by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers

The longstanding U.S. practice of staging “color revolutions” against unwanted governments around world has inevitably come home to roost. Donald Trump’s presidency is the target, “not only based on his policies but also through manufactured crises such as RussiaGate.” Phony progressives serve the aims of the War Party by providing a “pink” veneer to the color-coded regime change apparatus.

This article previously appeared in Popular Resistance and Global Research.

“We have to remember that the root issue is plutocracy and the US has two plutocratic parties, often referred to as ‘The Duopoly’.”

The United States has perfected the art of regime change operations. The US is the largest empire in world history with more than 1,000 military bases and troops operating throughout the world. In addition to military force, the US uses the soft power of regime change, often through ‘Color Revolutions.’ The US has been building its empire since the Civil War era, but it has been in the post-World War II period that it has perfected regime change operations.

Have the people of the United States been the victims of regime change operations at home? Have the wealthiest and the security state created a government that serves them, rather than the people? To answer these questions, we begin by examining how regime change works and then look at whether those ingredients are being used domestically.

Color Revolutions and Regime Change Operations

Almost from the start, the CIA’s role has been more than intelligence gathering. It has been a key player in putting in place governments friendly to the United States and conducting other operations, e.g. the CIA is currently involved in drone strikes.

One of the first regime change operations of the CIA was Operation Ajax conducted in Iran, and led by Kermit Roosevelt, the grandson of Teddy Roosevelt, who was president when the US solidified its global empire ambitions. The CIA was founded in 1947 and the regime change coup in Iran was 1953. Greg Maybury writes in “Another Splendid Little Coup“: “Placing to one side an early dress rehearsal in Syria in 1949, the Iran coup was the first post-War exercise in regime change upon the part of Anglo-American alliance…” Just this month the US government released documents showing the CIA and State Department’s planning and implementation of the coup against the democratically-elected prime minister of Iran, Mohammed Mossadegh. This release supplements one from 2013 that did not reveal the full role of the US in the coup.

“The Iran coup was the first post-War exercise in regime change upon the part of Anglo-American alliance.”

The Iran coup was crude compared to more modern efforts but had the ingredients that have become common – civil society protests against the government, media reports supporting the protests, agents within the government supporting the coup and replacement of the government with a US-friendly regime. The Iran coup may have been the most costly mistake in US foreign policy because it undermined a secular democratic government in Iran that could have been the example for the region. Instead the US installed the brutal Shah of Iran, whose rule ended in the 1979 revolution, in which, as Maybury reports, the US was also implicated because it felt the Shah had overstayed his welcome.

The Iran coup was perceived as a great CIA success, so it was copied in other Middle Eastern countries as well as countries in Latin America, Africa, and the Caribbean. Regime change is still a major tool of US foreign policy. There is a long-term ongoing coup campaign in Venezuela, with its most recent episode last week in which a helicopter attack on the Supreme Court was tied to the US DEA and CIA. The US has allied with oligarchs, supported violent protests and provided funds for the opposition, which has also worked to undermine the Venezuelan economy — a tactic the US has used in other coups, e.g. the coup of Allende in Chile.

“There is a long-term ongoing coup campaign in Venezuela.”

The coup in Ukraine, which the media falsely calls a ‘democratic revolution,’ was, as the head of the ‘private CIA’ firm Stratfor says, “the most blatant coup in history.” The CIA and State Department played the lead roles.

Victoria Nuland, an assistant secretary of state under Clinton, bragged that the US spent $5 billion to build civil society opposition against a government that leaned toward Russia. The government funded civil society opposition through US AID, which is the open vehicle for what the CIA used to do covertly, along with the National Endowment for Democracy. This funding was used to build oppositional civil society groups and create destabilization. They focused on the issue of corruption, which exists in every government, and built it up to a centerpiece for regime change. The US allied with extremist right-wing groups in Ukraine.

The US picked the new leaders of Ukraine. This included Petro Poroshenko, whom U.S. officials refer to as “Our Ukraine (OU) insider Petro Poroshenko” in a classified diplomatic cable from 2006 . The selected Prime Minister was Arseniy Yatsenyuk. Before the coup, Victoria Nuland told the US Ambassador to Ukraine that ‘Yats’ should be the prime minister. And, the Finance Minister was Natalia Jaresko, a long-time State Departmentofficial who moved to Ukraine after the US-inspired coup, the Orange Revolution, to become a conduit for US funding of civil society through her hedge fund. She was a US citizen whom Poroshenko made a Ukrainian on the day she was appointed Finance Minister. To top it off, former Vice President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, and fmr. Secretary of State John Kerry’s longtime financial ally, Devon Archer, were put on the boardof the largest private gas corporation in the Ukraine. Yet, the US media refuses to call this complete take over of the country by the United States a coup and instead describes Russia as the aggressor.

The US has perfected regime change operations from the 1950s up through today. The standard method of operation is finding an issue to cause dissent, building opposition in a well funded civil society ‘movement’, manipulating the media, putting in place US friendly leaders and blaming US opposition for the coup to hide US involvement. This approach is consistent no matter which party is in power in the US.

The Kleptocratic Oligarch Coup In The United States

[dropcap]L[/dropcap]et’s apply the lessons from around the world to the United States. There is no question the US is an oligarchy. We say no question because recent political studies have proven it in multiple ways.

One difference in the US is that money plays an outsized influence in US elections. The wealthy can buy the government they want through campaign donations and by anonymous spending but the tools of color revolutions are still needed to legitimize the government. Legitimacy is getting harder to buy. Many realize we live in a mirage democracy. The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs reported in 2016 the extent of the loss of legitimacy of US government:

“Nine in 10 Americans lack confidence in the country’s political system, and among a normally polarized electorate, there are few partisan differences in the public’s lack of faith in the political parties, the nominating process, and the branches of government.”

Jimmy Carter has pointed to the “unlimited bribery” of government as turning the US into an oligarchy. The government needs to use the tools of regime change at home in order to create an veneer of legitimate government.

The Donald Trump presidency, which we regularly criticize, brings a lot of these tools to the forefront because Trump beat the system and defeated the elites of both parties. As a result, Democratic Party propaganda is being used to undermine Trump not only based on his policies but also through manufactured crises such as RussiaGate. The corporate media consistently hammers home RussiaGate, despite the lack of evidence to support it. Unlike the Watergate or Iran-Contra scandals, there is no evidence that Trump colluded with Russia to get elected. And, the security state – the FBI and the agencies that conduct regime change operations around the world – is working to undermine Trump in a still unfolding domestic coup.

Civil society also has a strong role. John Stauber writes that:

“The professional Progressive Movement that we see reflected in the pages of The Nation magazine, in the online marketing and campaigning of MoveOn and in the speeches of Van Jones, is primarily a political public relations creation of America’s richest corporate elite, the so-called 1%, who happen to bleed Blue because they have some degree of social and environmental consciousness, and don’t bleed Red. But they are just as committed as the right to the overall corporate status quo, the maintenance of the American Empire, and the monopoly of the rich over the political process that serves their economic interests.”

“Democratic Party propaganda is being used to undermine Trump not only based on his policies but also through manufactured crises such as RussiaGate.

Civil society groups created or aligned with the Democratic Party are defining the new form of false-resistance as electing Democrats. The Democrats, as they have done throughout history as the oldest political party, know how to control movements and lead them into ineffectiveness to support the Democratic Party agenda. We described, in “Obamacare: The Biggest Insurance Scam in History,” how this was done skillfully during the health reform process in 2009. This new resistance is just another tool to empower the elites, not resistance to the oligarchic-kleptocrats that control both parties. In fact, a major problem in progressive advocacy is the funding ties between large non-profits and corporate interests. The corruption of money is seen in organizations that advocate for corporate-friendly policies in education, health care, energy and climate, labor, and other issues.

Color Revolution Tools Used In The US

Now the tools the US uses for regime change around the world are being used at home to funnel activist energy and efforts into the Democratic party and electoral activities. In order to resist this new “resistance” we need to be aware of it and how it operates. We need to see through propaganda, such as RussiaGate, and attempts to manipulate the masses through scripted events that are portrayed as organic, such as the recent “sit in” by Rep. John Lewis and Sen. Cory Booker on the Capitol steps, or through highly emotional cultural content that portrays the plutocratic parties as parties of the people. We have to remember that the root issue is plutocracy and the US has two plutocratic parties, often referred to as “The Duopoly.”

We must continue to focus on the issues that are in crisis such as the economy, health care, education, housing, racism, inequality and militarization at home and abroad. We must fight for these issues independent of political party. We must be clear and uncompromising in our demands so that we are not taken off track. And we must have a clear vision of the future that we want to see.

Anonymous’s blog

About the Author

Popular Resistance is a co-convener of the People’s Congress of Resistance. The People’s Congress will bring people together from around the US to meet in Washington, DC this September to outline a vision from the grassroots. A draft of that vision will be circulated over the next few months so that many people will provide input. Check out the People’s Congress here and get involved however you are able.

Parting shot—a word from the editors
The Best Definition of Donald Trump We Have Found

In his zeal to prove to his antagonists in the War Party that he is as bloodthirsty as their champion, Hillary Clinton, and more manly than Barack Obama, Trump seems to have gone “play-crazy” -- acting like an unpredictable maniac in order to terrorize the Russians into forcing some kind of dramatic concessions from their Syrian allies, or risk Armageddon.However, the “play-crazy” gambit can only work when the leader is, in real life, a disciplined and intelligent actor, who knows precisely what actual boundaries must not be crossed. That ain’t Donald Trump -- a pitifully shallow and ill-disciplined man, emotionally handicapped by obscene privilege and cognitively crippled by white American chauvinism. By pushing Trump into a corner and demanding that he display his most bellicose self, or be ceaselessly mocked as a “puppet” and minion of Russia, a lesser power, the War Party and its media and clandestine services have created a perfect storm of mayhem that may consume us all.— Glen Ford, Editor in Chief, Black Agenda Report

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Script For Plans To Destroy Bolivarian Revolution Was Written In Washington

HELP ENLIGHTEN YOUR FELLOWS. BE SURE TO PASS THIS ON. SURVIVAL DEPENDS ON IT.

Above Photo: Protests in Venezuela have become more violent and better organized as projected in non-conventional warfare strategy. Photo: AVN

By Sergio Alejandro Gómez, www.en.granma.cu

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he U.S. doctrine of non-conventional war is based on manipulating citizens to encourage confrontations with authorities, to achieve the strategic objectives of a foreign power without having troops on the ground.
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BREAKING the law, creating a parallel government, organizing alternative economic institutions, harassing public officials, destroying property, hoarding of goods, marching, obstructing social events, boycotting elections, disrupting schools, using false identities, seeking arrests, launching hunger strikes, and overwhelming the state administrative systems – are only a few of the 198 methods to overthrow governments proposed by CIA coup expert Gene Sharp, more than 40 years ago. (Many or all of these approaches were put into practice as early as 1973 during the campaign to harass and overthrow the duly elected government of Chilean president Salvador Allende.).

Finding just one of these techniques that has not been used against Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution is difficult.

These last several years, President Nicolás Maduro’s administration has faced particularly intense attacks and the implementation of so-called Non-Conventional War, based on psychological manipulation, social protest, coups, and irregular armed struggle.

Unlike traditional conflicts, non-conventional wars are based on promoting confrontations between authorities and the population, to undermine the government’s ability to function, leading to its demise without the use of a foreign military intervention.
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Perhaps the clearest example of this kind of warfare is the operation carried out by U.S. and Western powers against the government of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. Bands of opponents, armed and advised from abroad, carried out the dirty work on the ground, while NATO provided air support, and the transnational corporate media manipulated the facts presented to the public.

VENEZUELA, A CASE STUDY

As soon as the possibility of an independent leader like Hugo Chávez winning the Presidency came onto the horizon – in the country with the world’s greatest proven oil reserves – a strategy to overthrow him was activated.

Given the fact that the corrupt 4th Republic was entirely discredited, the first steps were taken to organize a new opposition and recruit younger leaders. It was the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) that channeled funds to create political parties and train many of the leaders of the current Democratic Unity Coalition (MUD).

The same day that three million people marched in Caracas to show support for Nicolás Maduro, much less attended opposition protests dominated headlines. Photo: teleSUR Photo: TELESUR

U.S. Special Forces manuals, like Training Circular 18-01, define seven different stages of non-conventional war. The first few are devoted to “psychological preparation,” to unify the population in opposition to the government, and “initial contact” by special services agents on the ground. Subsequent stages include the extension of anti-government actions, moving toward a “transition,” during which the national government’s control of the country is challenged.

Despite the defeat of the 2002 coup attempt – by a massive mobilization of the Venezuelan people – the idea of taking the streets was never abandoned. Chávez was confronted by protests and sabotage, of different proportions, until his very last days.

When the Bolivarian leader died in March of 2013, and his successor Nicolás Maduro took the reins, the right wing and their foreign advisers activated the most aggressive tactics of their non-conventional war strategy, in hopes of dealing the revolution a final blow.
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MORE THAN STREET BARRICADES

The mounting violence of protests taking place recently in Venezuela is reminiscent of the street barricades and fighting (guarimbas) which occurred in February of 2014, leaving 43 dead and more than 800 injured.

At that time, extremists, who emerged in protests allegedly composed of students, went so far as to string cables across streets to decapitate motor cycle riders, and caused millions of dollars in damage to public property, with the objective of sowing panic and paralyzing the country.

But this last wave of violence appears to be better organized and more extensive. Some of the scenes reported are totally senseless, defying all logic.

The attack by armed opposition gangs on the Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías Maternal-Infant Hospital, with 54 children inside, would qualify as a war crime before any international court.

It is not difficult to identify the organized groups in marches – holding shields, wearing gas masks, and waving blunt objects. If the protests are supposed to be peaceful, why do these youth come prepared for a fight?

A video recently released by Venezuelan authorities shows a dozen youth wearing hoods and making Molotov cocktails, during a march in the comfortable East Caracas neighborhood of Altamira.

After the arrest of Nixon Leal, a violent subject linked to several MUD leaders,

Vice President Tareck El Aissami presented evidence about how the armed bands are organized to carry out open confrontations with the government in Caracas and other important cities, clearly following the steps outlined in non-conventional war strategy.

Threats to authorities are not only physical, but are also meant to humiliate, as seen in the recent practice of using human excrement to fabricate homemade bombs called “Puputovs”.
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THE SOLUTION

The Venezuelan right, traditionally divided given its personal rifts, with various individuals competing for power, is, on the contrary, united in following the non-conventional script written in Washington. Violence is the only common ground.

Repeated calls for street demonstrations, despite the fact that more than 40 lives have already been lost in this round of guarimbas, along with the opposition’s refusal to participate in the Constituent Assembly, make clear, once again, that the only solution the opposition offers is an end to the revolution, by any means and regardless of consequences.

The continuity of the social project begun by Hugo Chávez – which has forever changed the reality of this country to benefit the poor – is not all that is at stake.

The success of the opposition strategy would become a nefarious reference point for the use of non-conventional warfare, one that would be added to the list of coups, military interventions, and secret operations which bear the trademark signs of Washington at work in Latin America.

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Does the Washington Establishment Seek War with Russia?

Dispatches from Eric Zuesse

Which does the Washington’s Establishment prefer: a U.S. President who wants to reach new agreements with Russia, or a U.S. President who wants to replace all of Russia’s allies?

What we’ve been having recently is solely Presidents who want to replace all of Russia’s allies — and they’ve been succeeding at that, so far:

They replaced Saddam Hussein.

They replaced Muammar Gaddafi.

They replaced Viktor Yanukovych.

They’re still trying to replace Bashar al-Assad, and also Iran’s leadership.

There still is question, however, as to whether U.S. President Donald Trump will continue this string; and many in America’s ‘news’media consider him to be too favorable toward Russia. The aristocracy own the few ‘news’media that have substantial audiences in the U.S., and their advertisers are also overwhelmingly owned by them; and the politicians’ campaigns tend also to be receiving most of their money from them; so, generally, it’s considered political suicide to buck what the few billionaires are rather united on in America, and what they seem quite united on right now is that Mr. Trump isn’t sufficiently anti-Russian. For a government official in this country to view Russia as even potentially an ally instead of an enemy, is increasingly viewed as treasonous in America, and any contacts that Mr. Trump might have been trying to nurture so as to establish an alliance with Russia on anything — even merely an alliance against international jihadists — is being treated in America’s press as treasonous — as if Russia were still the entire U.S.S.R.; and communism were still a threat, and there still existed the Soviet Union’s military alliance, the Warsaw Pact, as being a counter-weight to America’s NATO alliance. But those assumptions about Russia are obviously false. So: do America’s billionaires still simply want to conquer Russia, instead of to be allied with it, even in that limited way, as a global alliance to crush jihadists?

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The newsmedia pick up from the Democrats and the other neoconservatives, and therefore Trump is being pressed hard on his being ‘Putin’s stooge’ or even ‘Putin’s Manchurian candidate,’ though the presumption in those statements is that Russia is doomed to be America’s enemy unless America outright conquers it — and this is a war-mongering and arrogant presumption for the U.S. government to be making about Russia, and it’s also very far from being a realistic assumption about Russia. Will Russia tolerate having all of its allies overthrown by the U.S. (a project that the U.S. has already come close to completing)? How many more U.S. nuclear missiles will Russia accept being placed near and on its borders in formerly allied countries that now are in NATO — that are in the anti-Russia military club, but were formerly in the U.S.S.R., or else in its Warsaw Pact? If you were a Russian, would you now be scared?

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Trump made clear during his campaign, that he wants to be allied with Putin’s consistent war against “radical Islamic terrorism” — no one can challenge that Putin has always, and consistently, been uncompromisingly determined to oppose that — never to arm nor train jihadists like the U.S. and its Saudi ‘ally’ the Saud family, do (in order to overthrow Russia’s allies).

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So: which of the two is scary — the Hillary Clinton and John McCain crowd, the neocons, who dominate both Parties and want to crush Russia; or the few people in Washington who (at least until Trump became elected) were that crowd’s enemies? It’s looking like Trump has joined the neocons, after an election in which he was opposed by them.

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As soon as Trump became elected, his fear of being dubbed ‘Putin’s stooge’ or ‘Putin’s Manchurian candidate’ caused him to appoint a national-security team who were hell-bent on replacing Russia’s remaining allies, Iran and Syria. But even this hasn’t been enough to satisfy the neocons who run both Parties, and the newsmedia. Trump has been trying to accommodate the people who are doing all they can to bring him down, but it doesn’t seem to be appeasing them. The Washington Establishment has terrified him away from his campaign promise of creating an alliance with Russia to cooperate together in wiping out jihadism — and jihadism is something that didn’t even exist in modern times until the U.S. and its Saud allies introduced it into Afghanistan in 1979 to overthrow the secular, Soviet-allied leader of that country, Nur Muhammed Taraki. This joint effort with the Sauds created jihadism in the modern age. Zbigniew Brzezinski said of his and the CIA’s and the Sauds’ achievement, in a 1998 interview, “Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it?” It became the model for what they’re now doing to Syria (which is causing all those refugees into Europe).

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Trump had said that his top national-security priority would be against jihadism, not against Russia and its allies. But, so far, his foreign policy in this regard seems more like what had been widely anticipated in the event of a Hillary Clinton win. (Even Trump’s focus against “radical Islamic terrorism” is directed now almost exclusively against seven mainly Shiite nations that America’s Saudi allies — who are fundamentalist Sunnis and hate Shia muslims — despise. So: it’s no different from Hillary Clinton’s. And two of those Shiite-run nations, Iran and Syria, are backed by Russia; so, Trump might just be continuing his predecessor’s pro-Saud policy there.) Yet nonetheless, the neoconservatives press on with investigations of whether Trump is a secret Russian agent. The leading headline in the Wall Street Journal on March 30th was “Trump’s Rapid Rapprochement Plans With Russia Fade” and the report noted that Trump’s appointees are advising him against any relaxation of the previous President’s anti-Russia policies, but failed to indicate that (with the exception of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson), all of them are long-committed neoconservatives and NATO enthusiasts. Either candidate Trump’s ameliorative statements regarding Russia were intended merely in order to win votes, away from the super-hawk Hillary Clinton, from some independents and Bernie Sanders supporters, or else Trump is very easy for the Cold War Establishment (the “neoconservatives,” today’s Washington Establishment in both Parties) to manipulate.
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What does the Washington Establishment really want? What is their real demand? Putin’s head on a stake? Or. do they really want Trump’s head on a stake, for some entirely different reason? The motivations that they are stating for wanting to replace Trump by his Vice President, Mike Pence — a rabid neoconservative — don’t make sense; and, the ‘evidence’ they’re basing this campaign on, is, as of yet, after months of trying, still more smears than authentic evidence. And it’s based on false allegations regarding America’s and Russia’s respective involvements in Ukraine and in Syria. Clearly, there are ulterior motives behind this coordinated bipartisan lying campaign. And they seem to be winning — whatever their real motivations are.

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Is this a palace coup? And, if so, what’s the real motivation for it? Why do they want Mike Pence to be the U.S. President? What’s their real goal in this bipartisan campaign to replace Trump with Pence?

About the author

They're Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST'S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.

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