http://killinghope.org/bblum6/aer77.html
The Anti-Empire Report
January 6th, 2010 by William Blumwww.killinghope.org<http://www.killinghope.org/>
The American elite
Lincoln Gordon died a few weeks ago at the age of 96. He had graduated
summa cum laude from Harvard at the age of 19, received a doctorate
from Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, published his first book at 22,
with dozens more to follow on government, economics, and foreign
policy in Europe and Latin America. He joined the Harvard faculty
at 23. Dr. Gordon was an executive on the War Production Board
during World War II, a top administrator of Marshall Plan programs
in postwar Europe, ambassador to Brazil, held other high positions
at the State Department and the White House, a fellow at the Woodrow
Wilson International Center for Scholars, economist at the Brookings
Institution, president of Johns Hopkins University. President Lyndon
B. Johnson praised Gordon's diplomatic service as "a rare combination
of experience, idealism and practical judgment".
You get the picture? Boy wonder, intellectual shining light,
distinguished leader of men, outstanding American patriot.
Abraham Lincoln Gordon was also Washington's on-site, and very
active, director in Brazil of the military coup in 1964 which
overthrew the moderately leftist government of JoC#o Goulart and
condemned the people of Brazil to more than 20 years of an unspeakably
brutal dictatorship. Human-rights campaigners have long maintained
that Brazil's military regime originated the idea of the desaparecidos,
"the disappeared", and exported torture methods across Latin America.
In 2007, the Brazilian government published a 500-page book, "The
Right to Memory and the Truth", which outlines the systematic
torture, rape and disappearance of nearly 500 left-wing activists,
and includes photos of corpses and torture victims. Currently,
Brazilian President Luiz InC!cio Lula da Silva is proposing a
commission to investigate allegations of torture by the military
during the 1964-1985 dictatorship. (When will the United States
create a commission to investigate its own torture?)
In a cable to Washington after the coup, Gordon stated b in a remark
that might have had difficulty getting past the lips of even John
Foster Dulles b that without the coup there could have been a "total
loss to the West of all South American Republics". (It was actually
the beginning of a series of fascistic anti-communist coups that
trapped the southern half of South America in a decades-long
nightmare, culminating in "Operation Condor", in which the various
dictatorships, aided by the CIA, cooperated in hunting down and
killing leftists.)
Gordon later testified at a congressional hearing and while denying
completely any connection to the coup in Brazil he stated that the
coup was "the single most decisive victory of freedom in the
mid-twentieth century."
Listen to a phone conversation between President Johnson and Thomas
Mann, Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, April
3, 1964, two days after the coup:
MANN: I hope you're as happy about Brazil as I am.
LBJ: I am.
MANN: I think that's the most important thing that's happened in
the hemisphere in three years.
LBJ: I hope they give us some credit instead of
hell.1<http://killinghope.org/bblum6/aer77.html#note-1>
So the next time you're faced with a boy wonder from Harvard, try
to keep your adulation in check no matter what office the man
attains, even b oh, just choosing a position at random b the
presidency of the United States. Keep your eyes focused not on these
"liberal" ... "best and brightest" who come and go, but on US foreign
policy which remains the same decade after decade. There are dozens
of Brazils and Lincoln Gordons in America's past. In its present.
In its future. They're the diplomatic equivalent of the guys who
ran Enron, AIG and Goldman Sachs.
Of course, not all of our foreign policy officials are like that.
Some are worse.
And remember the words of convicted spy Alger Hiss: Prison was "a
good corrective to three years at Harvard."
Mothers, don't let your children grow up to be Nobel Peace Prize
winners
In November I wrote:
Question: How many countries do you have to be at war with to be
disqualified from receiving the Nobel Peace Prize?
Answer: Five. Barack Obama has waged war against only Pakistan,
Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia. He's holding off on Iran until he
actually gets the prize.
Well, on December 10 the president clutched the prize in his
blood-stained hands. But then the Nobel Laureate surprised us. On
December 17 the United States fired cruise missiles at people in
... not Iran, but Yemen, all "terrorists" of course, who were,
needless to say, planning "an imminent attack against a U.S.
asset".2<http://killinghope.org/bblum6/aer77.html#note-2> A week
later the United States carried out another attack against "senior
al-Qaeda operatives" in
Yemen.3<http://killinghope.org/bblum6/aer77.html#note-3>
Reports are that the Nobel Peace Prize Committee in Norway is now
in conference to determine whether to raise the maximum number of
wars allowed to ten. Given the committee's ignoble history, I imagine
that Obama is taking part in the discussion. As is Henry Kissinger.
The targets of these attacks in Yemen reportedly include fighters
coming from Afghanistan and Iraq, confirmation of the warnings long
given b even by the CIA and the Pentagon b that those US interventions
were creating new anti-American terrorists. (That's anti-American
foreign policy, not necessarily anything else American.) How long
before the United States will be waging war in some other god-forsaken
land against anti-American terrorists whose numbers include fighters
from Yemen? Or Pakistan? Or Somalia? Or Palestine?
Our blessed country is currently involved in so many bloody imperial
adventures around the world that one needs a scorecard to keep up.
Rick Rozoff of StopNATO has provided this for us in some
detail.4<http://killinghope.org/bblum6/aer77.html#note-4>
For this entire century, almost all these anti-American terrorists
have been typically referred to as "al-Qaeda", as if you have to
be a member of something called al-Qaeda to resent bombs falling
on your house or wedding party; as if there's a precise and meaningful
distinction between people retaliating against American terrorism
while being a member of al-Qaeda and people retaliating against
American terrorism while NOT being a member of al-Qaeda. However,
there is not necessarily even such an animal as a "member of
al-Qaeda", albeit there now exists "al-Qaeda in Iraq" and "al-Qaeda
in the Arabian Peninsula". Anti-American terrorists do know how to
choose a name that attracts attention in the world media, that
appears formidable, that scares Americans. Governments have learned
to label their insurgents "al-Qaeda" to start the military aid
flowing from Washington, just like they yelled "communist" during
the Cold War. And from the perspective of those conducting the War
on Terror, the bigger and more threatening the enemy, the better b
more funding, greater prestige, enhanced career advancement. Just
like with the creation of something called The International Communist
Conspiracy.
It's not just the American bombings, invasions and occupations that
spur the terrorists on, but the American torture. Here's Bowe Robert
Bergdahl, US soldier captured in Afghanistan, speaking on a video
made by his Taliban captors: He said he had been well-treated,
contrasting his fate to that of prisoners held in US military
prisons, such as the infamous Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. "I bear
witness I was continuously treated as a human being, with dignity,
and I had nobody deprive me of my clothes and take pictures of me
naked. I had no dogs barking at me or biting me as my country has
done to their Muslim prisoners in the jails that I have
mentioned."5<http://killinghope.org/bblum6/aer77.html#note-5>
Of course the Taliban provided the script, but what was the script
based on? What inspired them to use such words and images, to make
such references?
Cuba. Again. Still. Forever.
More than 50 years now it is. The propaganda and hypocrisy of the
American mainstream media seems endless and unwavering. They can
not accept the fact that Cuban leaders are humane or rational.
Here's the Washington Post of December 13 writing about an American
arrested in Cuba:
"The Cuban government has arrested an American citizen working on
contract for the U.S. Agency for International Development who was
distributing cellphones and laptop computers to Cuban activists.
... Under Cuban law ... a Cuban citizen or a foreign visitor can
be arrested for nearly anything under the claim of 'dangerousness'."
That sounds just awful, doesn't it? Imagine being subject to arrest
for whatever someone may choose to label "dangerousness". But the
exact same thing has happened repeatedly in the United States since
the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. We don't use the word "dangerousness".
We speak of "national security". Or, more recently, "terrorism".
Or "providing material support to terrorism".
The arrested American works for Development Alternatives, Inc.
(DAI), a US government contractor that provides services to the
State Department, the Pentagon and the US Agency for International
Development (USAID). In 2008, DAI was funded by the US Congress to
"promote transition to democracy" in Cuba. Yes, Oh Happy Day!, we're
bringing democracy to Cuba just as we're bringing it to Afghanistan
and Iraq. In 2002, DAI was contracted by USAID to work in Venezuela
and proceeded to fund the same groups that a few months earlier had
worked to stage a coup b temporarily successful b against President
Hugo ChC!vez. DAI performed other subversive work in Venezuela and
has also been active in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and other hotspots.
"Subversive" is what Washington would label an organization like
DAI if they behaved in the same way in the United States in behalf
of a foreign government.6<http://killinghope.org/bblum6/aer77.html#note-6>
The American mainstream media never makes its readers aware of the
following (so I do so repeatedly): The United States is to the Cuban
government like al-Qaeda is to the government in Washington, only
much more powerful and much closer. Since the Cuban revolution, the
United States and anti-Castro Cuban exiles in the US have inflicted
upon Cuba greater damage and greater loss of life than what happened
in New York and Washington on September 11, 2001. Cuban dissidents
typically have had very close, indeed intimate, political and
financial connections to American government agents. Would the US
government ignore a group of Americans receiving funds or communication
equipment from al-Qaeda and/or engaging in repeated meetings with
known leaders of that organization? In the past few years, the
American government has arrested a great many people in the US and
abroad solely on the basis of alleged ties to al-Qaeda, with a lot
less evidence to go by than Cuba has had with its dissidents' ties
to the United States, evidence usually gathered by Cuban double
agents. Virtually all of Cuba's "political prisoners" are such
dissidents.
The Washington Post story continued:
"The Cuban government granted ordinary citizens the right to buy
cellphones just last year." Period.
What does one make of such a statement without further information?
How could the Cuban government have been so insensitive to people's
needs for so many years? Well, that must be just the way a
"totalitarian" state behaves. But the fact is that because of the
disintegration of the Soviet bloc, with a major loss to Cuba of its
foreign trade, combined with the relentless US economic aggression,
the Caribbean island was hit by a great energy shortage beginning
in the 1990s, which caused repeated blackouts. Cuban authorities
had no choice but to limit the sale of energy-hogging electrical
devices such as cell phones; but once the country returned to energy
sufficiency the restrictions were revoked.
"Cubans who want to log on [to the Internet] often have to give
their names to the government."
What does that mean? Americans, thank God, can log onto the Internet
without giving their names to the government. Their Internet Service
Provider does it for them, furnishing their names to the government,
along with their emails, when requested.
"Access to some Web sites is restricted."
Which ones? Why? More importantly, what information might a Cuban
discover on the Internet that the government would not want him to
know about? I can't imagine. Cubans are in constant touch with
relatives in the US, by mail and in person. They get US television
programs from Miami. International conferences on all manner of
political, economic and social subjects are held regularly in Cuba.
What does the American media think is the great secret being kept
from the Cuban people by the nasty commie government?
"Cuba has a nascent blogging community, led by the popular commentator
Yoani SC!nchez, who often writes about how she and her husband are
followed and harassed by government agents because of her Web posts.
SC!nchez has repeatedly applied for permission to leave the country
to accept journalism awards, so far unsuccessfully."
According to a well-documented
account7<http://killinghope.org/bblum6/aer77.html#note-7>, SC!nchez's
tale of government abuse appears rather exaggerated. Moreover, she
moved to Switzerland in 2002, lived there for two years, and then
voluntarily returned to Cuba. On the other hand, in January 2006 I
was invited to attend a book fair in Cuba, where one of my books,
newly translated into Spanish, was being presented. However, the
government of the United States would not give me permission to go.
My application to travel to Cuba had also been rejected in 1998 by
the Clinton administration.
"'Counterrevolutionary activities', which include mild protests and
critical writings, carry the risk of censure or arrest. Anti-government
graffiti and speech are considered serious crimes."
Raise your hand if you or someone you know of was ever arrested in
the United States for taking part in a protest. And substitute "pro
al-Qaeda" for "counterrevolutionary" and for "anti-government" and
think of the thousands imprisoned the past eight years by the United
States all over the world for ... for what? In most cases there's
no clear answer. Or the answer is clear: (a) being in the wrong
place at the wrong time, or (b) being turned in to collect a bounty
offered by the United States, or (c) thought crimes. And whatever
the reason for the imprisonment, they were likely tortured. Even
the most fanatical anti-Castroites don't accuse Cuba of that. In
the period of the Cuban revolution, since 1959, Cuba has had one
of the very best records on human rights in the hemisphere. See my
essay: "The United States, Cuba and this thing called
Democracy".8<http://killinghope.org/bblum6/aer77.html#note-8>
There's no case of anyone arrested in Cuba that compares in injustice
and cruelty to the arrest in 1998 by the United States government
of those who came to be known as the "Cuban Five", sentenced in
Florida to exceedingly long prison terms for trying to stem terrorist
acts against Cuba emanating from the
US.9<http://killinghope.org/bblum6/aer77.html#note-9> It would be
lovely if the Cuban government could trade their DAI prisoner for
the five. Cuba, on several occasions, has proposed to Washington
the exchange of a number of what the US regards as "political
prisoners" in Cuba for the five Cubans held in the United States.
So far the United States has not agreed to do so.
Notes
1. Michael Beschloss, Taking Charge: The Johnson White House Tapes
1963-1964 (New York, 1997), p.306. All other sources for this section
on Gordon can be found in: Washington Post, December 22, 2009,
obituary; The Guardian (London), August 31, 2007; William Blum,
"Killing Hope", chapter 27
b)<http://killinghope.org/bblum6/aer77.html#link-1> 2. ABC News,
December 17, 2009; Washington Post, December 19, 2009
b)<http://killinghope.org/bblum6/aer77.html#link-2> 3. Washington
Post, December 25, 2009 b)<http://killinghope.org/bblum6/aer77.html#link-3>
4. Stop NATO, "2010: U.S. To Wage War Throughout The
World<http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/12/31/2010-u-s-to-wage-war-throu...>",
December 30, 2009. To get on the StopNATO mailing list write to
r_roz...@yahoo.com<mailto:r_roz...@yahoo.com>. To see back issues:http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/b)<http://killinghope.org/bblum6/aer77.html#link-4>
5. Reuters, December 25, 2009
b)<http://killinghope.org/bblum6/aer77.html#link-5> 6. For more
details on DAI, see Eva Golinger, "The ChC!vez Code: Cracking US
Intervention in Venezuela" (2006) and her
website<http://www.chavezcode.com/>, posting for December 31, 2009
b)<http://killinghope.org/bblum6/aer77.html#link-6> 7. Salim
Lamrani, professor at Paris Descartes University, "The Contradictions
of Cuban Blogger Yoani
Sanchez<http://monthlyreview.org/mrzine/lamrani111209.html>", Monthly
Review magazine, November 12, 2009
b)<http://killinghope.org/bblum6/aer77.html#link-7> 8.http://killinghope.org/bblum6/democ.htm
b)<http://killinghope.org/bblum6/aer77.html#link-8> 9.http://killinghope.org/bblum6/polpris.htm
b)<http://killinghope.org/bblum6/aer77.html#link-9>
b
William Blum is the author of:
* Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War
2 * Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower * West-Bloc
Dissident: A Cold War Memoir * Freeing the World to Death: Essays
on the American Empire
Portions of the books can be read, and signed copies purchased, atwww.killinghope.org<http://www.killinghope.org/>
Previous Anti-Empire Reports can be read at this website.
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