Cantankerous Buddha: coup

Showing posts with label coup. Show all posts

20170130

Trial Balloon for a Coup?

The theme of this morning’s news updates from Washington is additional clarity emerging, rather than meaningful changes in the field. But this clarity is enough to give us a sense of what we just saw happen, and why it happened the way it did.

I’ll separate what’s below into the raw news reports and analysis; you may also find these two pieces from yesterday (heavily referenced below) to be useful.

News Reports

(1) Priebus made two public statements today. One is that the ban on Muslims will no longer be applied to green card holders. Notably absent from his statement was anything about people with other types of visa (including long-term ones), or anything about the DHS’ power to unilaterally revoke green cards in bulk.

The other was that the omission of Jews from the statement for Holocaust Remembrance Day was deliberate and is not regretted.

A point of note here is that Priebus is the one making these statements, which is not normally the Chief of Staff’s job. I’ll come back to that below.

(2) Rudy Giuliani told Fox News that the intent of yesterday’s order was very much a ban on Muslims, described in those words, and he was among the people Trump asked how they could find a way to do this legally.

(3) CNN has a detailed story (heavily sourced) about the process by which this ban was created and announced. Notable in this is that the DHS’ lawyers objected to the order, specifically its exclusion of green card holders, as illegal, and also pressed for there to be a grace period so that people currently out of the country wouldn’t be stranded — and they were personally overruled by Bannon and Stephen Miller. Also notable is that career DHS staff, up to and including the head of Customs & Border Patrol, were kept entirely out of the loop until the order was signed.

(4) The Guardian is reporting (heavily sourced) that the “mass resignations”of nearly all senior staff at the State Department on Thursday were not, in fact, resignations, but a purge ordered by the White House. As the diagram below (by Emily Roslin v Praze) shows, this leaves almost nobody in the entire senior staff of the State Department at this point....

https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/trial-balloon-for-a-coup-e024990891d5

20161023

Hillary Clinton and the Brutal Murder of Gaddafi

On October 20, 2011, Libya’s Muammar al-Gaddafi was brutally murdered by a mob of NATO-backed ‘rebels’, after first being beaten and violated in the most barbaric fashion. History leaves no doubt that not only was the Libyan leader murdered on this day but Libya itself.

The regime-change crew who dominate Western governments have a long indictment sheet against their names. Since 9/11 they have wrought havoc and human misery on a grand scale in their determination to reshape and own a world that has never been theirs to own. Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya – Syria currently embroiled in a pitiless conflict for its survival as a secular, non-sectarian state – this is the miserable legacy of nations which speak the language of democracy while practising the politics of domination.

Of the aforementioned victims of Western imperialism, there is a strong argument to be made that Libya’s destruction constitutes an especially grievous crime. After all, in 2010, the year before it experienced its ‘revolution’, the United Nations Development Programme considered Libya a high development country in the Middle East and North Africa. In concrete terms this status translated to a literacy rate of 88.4%, a life expectancy of 74.5 years, gender equality, and various other positive indicators. In addition, Libya enjoyed 4.2% economic growth in 2010 and could boast of foreign assets in excess of $150 billion.

Compare this record to Libya in 2016. According to testimony provided by US Army General David Rodriguez to the US Senate Armed Services Committee in March, it is a failed state, with the general estimating it would take ‘“10 years or so” to achieve long-term stability in what is a “fractured society”’.

There is currently no single government or authority in Libya whose writ runs in the entire country. Instead three competing authorities control their own fiefdoms. The internationally recognized government is the Government of National Accord (GNC), led by Fayez al-Sarraj, is based in the capital, Tripoli. There is also the Government of National Salvation, led by Khalifa Ghwell, which is also based in Tripoli. The third centre of power, meanwhile, is located in Tobruk in the east of the country. It is headed by an anti-Islamist general, Khalifa Haftar, who leads the Libyan National Army (LNA). Economically, oil revenues, responsible for 90% of revenue under Gaddafi, have halved, violence is widespread, and since 2011 Daesh has managed to gain a foothold, though in recent months the terrorist organization has come under huge pressure in its stronghold of Sirte from forces representing the GNC...

http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/10/21/hillary-clinton-and-the-brutal-murder-of-qaddafi/

20161006

WARS, CONSPIRACIES AND SIDNEY BLUMENTHAL

As we head into the home stretch of the presidential campaign, ever-greater scrutiny will be directed at the candidates, their policy decisions and their political and personal connections. While both the war in Libya and Hillary Clinton’s handling of her private email server have been a focus of the media since the primaries, little has been made of how her emails shed light on the build-up and ultimate failure of the war in Libya.

At the center of those emails is Sidney Blumenthal, a longtime Clinton ally and aide.

Though it is not clear that any of the emails sent between them suggest illegal conduct, their correspondence raises serious ethical concerns — including the possibility that Blumenthal was pushing Clinton to support a war whose pursuit might end up benefiting him financially.

A Taste for Conspiracies

Blumenthal got his start in politics campaigning locally for John F. Kennedy in 1960. He left Chicago to attend Brandeis University, outside of Boston, and while there joined the anti-Vietnam war group Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). After graduating, he became part of the circle of progressive journalists emerging in the Boston area in the 1970s.

He spent much of his career writing for The Washington Post and The New Yorker. He met the Clintons in 1987, but did not join the Clinton administration until Bill Clinton’s second term in 1996.

Over the years, Blumenthal was known for two things: his books about conspiracies behind the assassination of both President John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. — and his loyalty to Bill and Hillary Clinton.

In 2003, he wrote a book claiming that the Clinton White House had been the victim of serial right-wing conspiracies. Reviewing the book for The Nation, journalist Tom Wicker said it could sometimes be “detailed and fascinating” but failed to provide any dispassionate or objective account of the Clinton years...

http://whowhatwhy.org/2016/09/28/wars-conspiracies-sidney-blumenthal/

20160903

Wiki: 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état

The 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état was a covert operation carried out by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that deposed the democratically elected Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz and ended the Guatemalan Revolution.[1] Code-named Operation PBSUCCESS, it installed the military dictatorship of Carlos Castillo Armas, the first in a series of U.S.-backed dictators who ruled Guatemala.

A popular revolution against the U.S.-backed dictator Jorge Ubico[2][3][4] in 1944 had led to Guatemala's first democratic election and the beginning of the Guatemalan Revolution.[5] The elections were won by Juan José Arévalo who wanted to turn Guatemala into a liberal capitalist society.[6] He implemented social reforms which included a minimum wage law, increased educational funding and near-universal suffrage. Arévalo's defense minister Jacobo Árbenz was elected President in 1950, and continued the social reform policies, as well as instituting land reform, which sought to grant land to peasants who had been victims of debt slavery prior to Arévalo. Despite their moderate policies, the Guatemalan Revolution was widely disliked by the United States government, which was predisposed by the Cold War to see it as communist, and the United Fruit Company (UFC), whose hugely profitable business had been affected by the end to brutal labor practices.[7][8] The attitude of the U.S. government was also influenced by a propaganda campaign carried out by the UFC.[9]

U.S. President Harry Truman authorized Operation PBFORTUNE to topple Árbenz in 1952, with the support of Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza García, but the operation was aborted when too many details became public. Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected U.S. President in 1952, promising to take a harder line against communism; the close links that his staff members John Foster Dulles and Allen Dulles had to the UFC also predisposed him to act against Árbenz. Subsequently declassified CIA documents stressed the importance of physically eliminating "Communists and collaborators" perceived as loyal to Árbenz.[10] Eisenhower authorized the CIA to carry out Operation PBSUCCESS in August 1953. The CIA armed, funded, and trained a force of 480 men led by Carlos Castillo Armas. The force invaded Guatemala on 18 June 1954, backed by a heavy campaign of psychological warfare, including bombings of Guatemala City and an anti-Árbenz radio station claiming to be genuine news. The invasion force fared poorly militarily, but the psychological warfare and the possibility of a U.S. invasion intimidated the Guatemalan army, which refused to fight. Árbenz resigned on 27 June, and following negotiations in San Salvador, Carlos Castillo Armas became President on 7 July 1954.

The coup was widely criticized internationally, and created lasting anti-U.S. sentiment in Latin America. Castillo Armas quickly took dictatorial powers, banning all political parties, torturing and imprisoning political opponents, and reversing the social reforms of the Guatemalan Revolution. A series of U.S.-backed authoritarian governments ruled Guatemala until 1996. The repression sparked off the Guatemalan Civil War between the government and leftist guerrillas, during which the military committed massive human rights violations against the civilian population, including a genocidal campaign against the Maya peoples.[11] The coup has been described as the definitive deathblow to democracy in Guatemala.[10]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d%27état

20160510

Wiki: The Business Plot

The Business Plot (also known as The White House Coup) was a political conspiracy (see Congressional Record) in 1933 in the United States. Retired Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler claimed that wealthy businessmen were plotting to create a fascistveterans' organization and use it in a coup d'état to overthrow President of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt, with Butler as leader of that organization. In 1934, Butler testified before the United States House of Representatives Special Committee on Un-American Activities (the "McCormack-Dickstein Committee") on these claims.[1] No one was prosecuted.

At the time of the incidents, news media dismissed the plot, with a New York Times editorial characterizing it as a "gigantic hoax".[2] While historians have questioned whether or not a coup was actually close to execution, most agree that some sort of "wild scheme" was contemplated and discussed.[3][4][5][6]...

On July 17, 1932, thousands of World War I veterans converged on Washington, D.C., set up tent camps, and demanded immediate payment of bonuses due to them according to the World War Adjusted Compensation Act of 1924 (the original act made the bonuses initially due no earlier than 1925 and no later than 1945). Walter W. Waters, a former Army sergeant, led this "Bonus Army". The Bonus Army was encouraged by an appearance from retired Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler; as a popular military figure of the time, Butler had some influence over the veterans. A few days after Butler's arrival, President Herbert Hoover ordered the marchers removed, and U.S. Army cavalry troops under the command of General Douglas MacArthur destroyed their camps....

...Some historians have said concerns over the gold standard were also involved; Jules Archer, in The Plot to Seize the White House, wrote that with the end of the gold standard, "conservative financiers were horrified. They viewed a currency not solidly backed by gold as inflationary, undermining both private and business fortunes and leading to national bankruptcy. Roosevelt was damned as a socialist or Communist out to destroy private enterprise by sapping the gold backing of wealth in order to subsidize the poor."[10]...

...During the McCormack–Dickstein Committee hearings, Butler testified that Gerald C. MacGuire [12] attempted to recruit him to lead a coup, promising him an army of 500,000 men for a march on Washington, D.C., and financial backing.[13] Butler testified that the pretext for the coup would be that the president's health was failing.[14]

Despite Butler's support for Roosevelt in the election[7] and his reputation as a strong critic of capitalism,[15] Butler said the plotters felt his good reputation and popularity were vital in attracting support amongst the general public and saw him as easier to manipulate than others.

Though Butler had never spoken to them, Butler implicated several prominent businessmen and veteran leaders as backers of the plot. The committee chose not to publish these allegations because they were hearsay.[16][17]...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot

http://kenhirsch.net/prescottbush.html

http://valleyofsilicon.com/00_Google_resume/SmedlyButler-Coup5.pdf

20160415

Hillary Clinton "We Came, We Saw, He Died" (Gaddafi)

20160321

Hillary must answer for Honduras: Another assassination raises more questions about her involvement in coup

This article originally appeared on AlterNet.
The early March assassination of Honduran social movement leader Berta Cáceres provoked international outcry, and calls for 2016 presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton to discuss her support of the country’s 2009 coup, which ousted democratically elected president Manuel Zelaya and escalated the violent repression of human rights defenders.

Now, just days after the Clinton campaign dismissed these demands for accountability as “simply nonsense,” Nelson Garcia, a member of the same indigenous justice organization Cáceres was part of, has been shot to death. An outspoken activist with the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous organizations of Honduras (COPINH), Garcia, 30, was killed by “unknown assailants” this week following the violent eviction of families in the community of Rio Chiquito in Rio Lindo, according to a COPINH statement emailed to AlterNet.

The organization reports that “approximately 100 police, 20 members of the militarized police, 10 soldiers, and several members of the DGIC (investigative police)” participated in the eviction by invading “the territory that had been recuperated by 150 families.” Such testimony points to direct government culpability in the eviction and raises questions about who was behind the assassination.

“Comrade Nelson García was an active militant of COPINH, defending the right to habitation,” said the organization. “We remember him for his active participation in the process of recuperating the land and founding the community of Río Chiquito. We lament this new death, thirteen days after the vile assassination of our General Coordinator Berta Cáceres.”

Cindy Wiesner, national coordinator for the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, told AlterNet that the U.S. should step up and come clean. “Both former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama must take responsibility for the financial and political support to the 2009 military coup and to the current Honduran government that is fueling abuses by military personnel and the use of death squads against organizers, journalists, and students—especially those at the forefront of defending land, territory and natural resources,” said Wiesner...

http://www.salon.com/2016/03/18/hillary_must_answer_for_honduras_partner/