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Syria or Southeast Asia – The West lied, lies, and always will

Andre Vltchek

I’m sitting at the splendid building of the Singapore National Library, in a semi-dark room, microfilm inserted into a high-tech machine. I’m watching and then filming and photographing several old Malaysian newspapers dating back from October 1965.

These reports were published right after the horrible 1965 military coup in Indonesia, which basically overthrew the progressive President Sukarno and liquidated then the third largest Communist party on Earth, PKI (Partai Komunis Indonesia). Between one and three million Indonesian people lost their lives in some of the most horrifying massacres of the 20th century. From a socialist (and soon to be Communist) country, Indonesia descended into the present pits of turbo-capitalist, as well as religious and extreme right-wing gaga.

The United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Holland and several other Western nations, directly sponsored the coup, while directing both the pro-Western treasonous factions in the military, as well as the religious leaders who stood, from the start, at the forefront of the genocide.

All this information is, of course, widely available in the de-classified archives of both the CIA and U.S. State Department. It can be accessed, analyzed and reproduced. I personally made a film about the events, and so have several other directors.

But it isn’t part of the memory of humanity. In Southeast Asia, it is known only to a handful of intellectuals.

In Malaysia, Singapore or Thailand, the Indonesian post-1965 fascism is a taboo topic. It is simply not discussed. “Progressive” intellectuals here are, like in all other ‘client’ states of the West, paid to be preoccupied with their sex orientation, with gender issues and personal ‘freedoms’, but definitely not with the essential matters (Western imperialism, neo-colonialism, the savage and grotesque forms of capitalism, the plunder of local natural resources and environment, as well as disinformation, plus the forcefully injected ignorance that is accompanied by mass amnesia) that have been shaping so extremely and so negatively this part of the world.

In Indonesia itself, the Communist Party is banned and the general public sees it as a culprit, not as a victim.

The West is laughing behind the back of its brainwashed victims. It is laughing all the way to the bank.

Lies are obviously paying off.

No other part of the world has suffered from Western imperialism as much after WWII, as Southeast Asia did, perhaps with two exceptions, those of Africa and the Middle East.

In so-called Indochina, the West murdered close to ten million people, during the indiscriminate bombing campaigns and other forms of terror – in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. The abovementioned Indonesian coup took at least 1 million human lives. 30% of the population of East Timor was exterminated by the Indonesian occupation, which was fully supported by the West. The Thai regime, fully subservient to the West, killed indiscriminately its leftists in the north and in the capital. The entire region has been suffering from extreme religious implants, sponsored by the West itself, and by its allies from the Gulf.

But the West is admired here, with an almost religious zeal.

The U.S., British and French press agencies and ‘cultural centers’ are spreading disinformation through local media outlets owned by subservient ‘elites’. Local ‘education’ has been devotedly shaped by Western didactic concepts. In places like Malaysia, Indonesia, but also Thailand, the greatest achievement is to graduate from university in one of the countries that used to colonize this part of the world.

Victim countries, instead of seeking compensation in courts, are actually admiring and plagiarizing the West, while pursuing, even begging for funding from their past and present tormentors.

Southeast Asia, now obedient, submissive, phlegmatic and stripped off the former revolutionary left-wing ideologies, is where the Western indoctrination and propaganda scored unquestionable victory.

*

The same day, I turned on the television set in my hotel room, and watched the Western coverage of the situation in Idlib, the last stronghold of the Western-sponsored terrorists on Syrian territory.

Russia has called for an emergency UN Security Council meeting warning that the terrorists might stage a chemical attack, and then blame it, together with the West, on the forces of President Bashar al-Assad.

NATO battleships have been deployed to the region. There can be no doubt – it has been a ‘good old’ European/North American scenario at work, once again: ‘We hit you, kill your people, and then bomb you as a punishment’.

Imperialist gangsters then point accusative fingers at the victims (in this case Syria) and at those who are trying to protect them (Russia, Iran, Hezbollah, China). Just like in a kindergarten, or a primary school; remember? A boy hits someone from behind and then screams, pointing at someone else: “It was him, it was him!” Miraculously, until now, the West has always gotten away with this ‘strategy’, of course, at the cost of billions of victims, on all continents.

That is how it used to be for centuries, and that is how it still works. That is how it will continue to be, until such terror and gangsterism is stopped.

*

For years and decades, we were told that the world is now increasingly inter-connected, that nothing of great importance could happen, without it being immediately spotted and reported by vigilant media lenses, and ‘civil society’.

Yet, thousands of things are happening and no one is noticing.

Just in the last two decades, entire countries have been singled-out by North America and Europe, then half-starved to death through embargos and sanctions, before being finally attacked and broken to pieces: Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya to mention just a few. Governments of several left-wing nations have been overthrown either from outside, or through their own, local, servile elites and media; among them Brazil, Honduras and Paraguay. Countless Western companies and their local cohorts are committing the unbridled plunder of natural resources in such places as Borneo/Kalimantan or the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), totally ruining tropical forests while murdering hundreds of species.

Are we, as a planet, really inter-connected? How much do people know about each other, or about what is done to their brothers and sisters on different continents?

I have worked in some 160 countries, and I can testify without the slightest hesitation: ‘Almost nothing’. And: ‘Less and much less!’

The Western empire and its lies, has managed to fragment the world to previously unknown extremes. It is all done ‘in the open’, in full view of the world, which is somehow unable to see and identify the most urgent threats to its survival. Mass media propaganda outlets are serving as vehicles of indoctrination, so do cultural and ‘educational’ institutions of the West or those local ones shaped by the Western concepts. That includes such diverse ‘tools’ as universities, Internet traffic manipulators, censors and self-censored individuals, social media, advertisement agencies and pop culture ‘artists’.

*

There is a clear pattern to Western colonialist and neo-colonialist barbarity and lies:

Indonesian President Sukarno and his closest ally the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI) were trying to build a progressive and self-sufficient country. Therefore, they had to be stopped, government overthrown, party members massacred, PKI itself banned and the entire country privatized; sold to foreign interests. The overwhelming majority of Indonesians are so brainwashed by the local and Western propaganda that they still blame the Communists for the 1965 coup, no matter what the CIA archives say.’

Mossadegh of Iran was on the same, progressive course. And he ended up the same way as Sukarno. And the whole world was then charmed by the butcher, who was put to power by the West – the Shah and his lavish wife.

Chile in 1973, and thereafter, the same deadly pattern occurred, more evidence of how freedom-loving and democratic the West is.

Patrice Lumumba of Congo nationalized natural resources and tried to feed and educate his great nation. Result? Overthrown, killed. The price: some 8 million people massacred in the last two decades, or maybe many more than that (see my film: Rwanda Gambit). Nobody knows, or everyone pretends that they don’t know.

Syria! The biggest ‘crime’ of this country, at least in the eyes of the West, consisted of trying to provide its citizens with high quality of life, while promoting Pan-Arabism. The results we all know (or do we, really?): hundreds of thousands killed by West-sponsored murderous extremists, millions exiled and millions internally displaced. And the West, naturally, is blaming Syrian President, and is ready to ‘punish him’ if he wins the war.

Irrational? But can global-scale fascism ever be rational?

The lies that are being spread by the West are piling up. They overlap, often contradict one another. But the world public is not trained to search for the truth, anymore. Subconsciously it senses that it is being lied to, but the truth is so horrifying, that the great majority of people prefer to simply take selfies, analyze and parade its sexual orientation, stick earphones into its ears and listen to empty pop music, instead of fighting for the survival of humanity.

I wrote entire books on this topic, including the near 1,000-page : “Exposing Lies Of The Empire”.

This essay is just a series of thoughts that came to my mind, while I was sitting at a projector in a dark room of the Singapore National Library.

A rhetorical question kept materializing:

Can all this be happening?” “Can the West get away with all these crimes it has been committing for centuries, all over the world?”

The answer was clear: ‘But of course, as long as it is not stopped!’

And so, A luta continua!

First published by NEO – New Eastern Outlook
Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He has covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. Three of his latest books are Revolutionary Optimism, Western Nihilism, a revolutionary novel “Aurora” and a bestselling work of political non-fiction: “Exposing Lies Of The Empire”. View his other books here. Watch Rwanda Gambit, his groundbreaking documentary about Rwanda and DRCongo and his film/dialogue with Noam Chomsky “On Western Terrorism”. Vltchek presently resides in East Asia and the Middle East, and continues to work around the world. He can be reached through his website and his Twitter.

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eddie
eddie
Sep 28, 2018 12:32 AM

Communist China; check. Communist Viet Nam; check. Communist Laos; check.
Pro-Communist Cambodia; check. Anti-western Thai military junta; check. Pro-Communist Mynmar junta; check.
Has the paper-tiger lost the hearts & minds of the people yet?
OH, there must be a military solution to this 21st-century intransgience.
Quick, somebody phone the Pentagon & CIA !

Hope
Hope
Sep 27, 2018 3:13 PM

This was simultaneously grim reading and an invigorating call to action. Thank you. A luta continua indeed.

vexarb
vexarb
Sep 27, 2018 11:21 AM

Sorry to counter this gloomy thread a little, but “it’s being so cheerful as keeps me going”. Somereaders might remember my flurry of posts on the Nicaragua thread, re China in Uncle $cam’s Back Yard helping Nicaragua and Venezuela. Now PacificNorthWest in today’s SyrPer updates this with some good news:

“In another setback for the empire….Venezuela’s Maduro secures $5bn Chinese loan & joins Beijing’s new Silk Road initiative.

That will help Venezuela make it through the all out economic warfare it has been subjected to by the US and the nations that go along with the US policy of economically isolating Venezuala and imposing economic and financial (plus covert special operations) warfare upon it.

+18”

mark
mark
Sep 28, 2018 5:49 PM
Reply to  vexarb

Nicaragua has been in the neocon cross hairs ever since China put forward a project to build a second Panama canal through the country. The neocons became overnight born again environmentalists railing against the project.

vexarb
vexarb
Sep 27, 2018 7:54 AM

Jesus answered, “A certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who both stripped him and beat him, and departed, leaving him half dead. By chance a certain priest was going down that way. When he saw him, he passed by on the other side. In the same way a Levite also, when he came to the place, and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan, as he travelled, came where he was. …”

Vltchek is the man who comes and sees and does not turn his face the other way.

But where are the Good Samaritans in this world of Anglo Zio Capitalist robber barons with their complaisant fiefdoms? Where are the Forces of good? The Red Cross / Crescent? Some offices of UN? OxFam? Some exceptional Leaders who turn up mysteriously and survive even more mysteriously such as Stalin, Mao, Attlee, Castro, Lee Kwan Liu, Dr.Assad, President Putin, the Iranian Guardians? From random statistics there ought to be also millions of Good Samaritans in humble positions working away at practical good — the salt of the Earth.

“A Good Man in Hell” — could he change Hell?

mark
mark
Sep 28, 2018 6:13 PM
Reply to  vexarb

The Red Cross received $500 million in donations after the Haiti earthquake that killed thousands. All there was to show for it were SEVEN simple prefab huts. Where did the money go? Nobody knows. One of life’s mysteries. Certainly a lot of the Haiti relief money went into the pockets of the Clinton clan through the Clinton Foundation. Amnesty International/ Medecins Sans Frontieres and similar bogus NGOs spend most of their time shilling and agitating for invasions of Libya, Syria and anywhere else the neocons want to do a spot of “humanitarian” bombing with some nice British cluster bombs and American star spangled democracy bombs. Save The Children ran a bogus vaccination campaign for children in Pakistan where they were collecting DNA samples for the CIA to target their drone strikes. As a result, genuine health workers have been targeted as spies and vaccination of children has ended, with polio, which was virtually eradicated, making a comeback. Polio doesn’t respect borders and it could re emerge over here as well. (This was just before STC gave Blair their “Humanitarian of the Year” award.) Oxfam’s party piece is making children in poor countries have sex with animals for the fun of it.

Worth bearing in mind when the chuggers are trying to sign you up for a £10 a month direct debit.

mark
mark
Sep 27, 2018 5:09 AM

We have been lied to about everything by the creeps and utter scum who pose as politicians and their tame media hacks for decades. JFK, Tonkin Gulf, Operation Gladio, 9/11, Northern Ireland violence, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Ukraine, MH17, Skripal, “terrorist” attacks, the list is endless. You have to wonder if any of the historical record is true. You can’t take anything at face value any more. If they lie about all these things, what else have they lied about? What about the Holocaust? Was that a Skripal type hoax? Anything is possible.

milosevic
milosevic
Sep 29, 2018 7:51 PM
Reply to  mark

“As the emaciated bodies are laid in the mass grave, it’s quite obvious that they died of starvation and disease.”

No sign of genocidal gas chambers, then.

http://www.unz.com/runz/american-pravda-holocaust-denial/

manfromatlan
manfromatlan
Sep 29, 2018 8:46 PM
Reply to  milosevic

http://chrisspivey.org/international-red-cross-records-put-the-holocaust-death-toll-of-camp-inmates-at-271301/
International Red cross records put the Holocaust death toll of camp inmates at 271,301

(Enclosed) is a photo taken of the liberation of Dachau.

The inmates hardly look at deaths door do they? Yet this was at the time of greatest hardship for them.

Historical Revisionism is a great intellectual pursuit, don’t ya think?

manfromatlan
manfromatlan
Sep 27, 2018 4:47 AM

Predictably, Antonyl is here to throw smoke. Predictably, I’m here to correct the record 🙂
It’s “the US and its allies”

https://www.internationalaffairs.org.au/australianoutlook/australias-role-in-the-1965-66-communist-massacres-in-indonesia/
Australia’s Role in the 1965-66 Communist Massacres in Indonesia

Declassified documents have shown that the US and its allies played a significant role in these killings, as the US provided weapons, communications equipment and lists of known communists. As an ally of the US, the Australian Embassy and the Department of External Affairs acted in a way that made Australia an accomplice, by helping to create the conditions that allowed the massacres to take place.

https://www.academia.edu/14056328/New_Zealand_and_the_30_September_coup_attempt_1965-1966
New Zealand’s response to the 30 September coup attempt, 1965-1966

Like its Western allies, the New Zealand government accepted the official Indonesian Army line that the 30 September coup attempt was a failed communist bid to overthrow the Indonesian government since it fitted its anti-communist threat narrative.

manfromatlan
manfromatlan
Sep 27, 2018 5:54 AM
Reply to  manfromatlan

Not the only being complicit in the purges of leftists that killed up to a millionIndonesians, Australia’s role continued with Suharto’s bloodbath in East Timor.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/jan/28/indonesia.world
Our model dictator
by
John Pilger

The death of Suharto is a reminder of the west’s ignoble role in propping up a murderous regime.

In my film Death of a Nation, there is a sequence filmed on board an Australian aircraft flying over the island of Timor. A party is in progress, and two men in suits are toasting each other in champagne. “This is an historically unique moment,” says one of them, “that is truly uniquely historical.”
This was Gareth Evans, Australia’s then foreign minister. The other man was Ali Alatas, the principal mouthpiece of the Indonesian dictator General Suharto, who died yesterday. The year was 1989, and the two were making a grotesquely symbolic flight to celebrate the signing of a treaty that would allow Australia and the international oil and gas companies to exploit the seabed off East Timor, then illegally and viciously occupied by Suharto. The prize, according to Evans, was “zillions of dollars”.

Beneath them lay a land of crosses: great black crosses etched against the sky, crosses on peaks, crosses in tiers on the hillsides. Filming clandestinely in East Timor, I would walk into the scrub, and there were the crosses. They littered the earth and crowded the eye. In 1993, the foreign affairs committee of Australia’s parliament reported that “at least 200,000” had died under Indonesia’s occupation: almost a third of the population. Yet East Timor’s horror, foretold and nurtured by the US, Britain and Australia, was a sequel. “No single American action in the period after 1945,” wrote the historian Gabriel Kolko, “was as bloodthirsty as its role in Indonesia, for it tried to initiate the massacre.” He was referring to Suharto’s seizure of power in 1965-6, which caused the violent deaths of up to a million people.

To understand the significance of Suharto is to look beneath the surface of the current world order: the so-called global economy and the ruthless cynicism of those who run it. Suharto was our model mass murderer – “our” is used here advisedly. “One of our very best and most valuable friends,” Thatcher called him. For three decades the south-east Asian department of the Foreign Office worked tirelessly to minimise the crimes of Suharto’s gestapo, known as Kopassus, who gunned down people with British-supplied Heckler & Koch machine guns from British-supplied Tactica “riot control” vehicles.

Yarkob
Yarkob
Sep 27, 2018 10:33 AM
Reply to  manfromatlan

Yes, the Antipodes seem to have got away with, literally, murder many times. East Timor (and PNG before, during and still, to this day) get nary a mention in our esteemed fourth estate. Australia, especially, seems to be able to get involved, Forrest Gump-like but under the radar, in every major abuse of western imperialism, and not only is it not taught in schools, it’s not even spoken about in Australia. Aus is like the deniables in spook world. Those amiable aussies with their kangaroos and cork hats

Antonyl
Antonyl
Sep 27, 2018 3:22 AM

The West? Please narrow that down: the Establishments of the US, UK and France mainly. Germany, Denmark, Norway, Switzerland, Finland, Sweden, Austria, Spain, Portugal etc. stayed fully out of of all that.: so < 1% of “the West”.

harry stotle
harry stotle
Sep 27, 2018 9:12 AM
Reply to  Antonyl

Yes, the west – ever since the industrial revolution territories in Asia, Africa, and South America have been systematically exploited by numerous western governments including France, Germany, Britain, The US, Belgium, etc.

Endless fig-leaves have been invented to rationalise military intervention, black-ops, and the oppression of indigenous populations in order to access/control the resources in these territories.

Needless to say commentors BTL are immediately memory-holed by Guardian moderators if they dare challenge what Pinter described as ‘the vast tapestry of lies’ – most recently on any discussion concerning Venuzuela, Putin, antisemitism, the White Helmets, or dubious accusations about Assad ‘gassing his own people’.

Jen
Jen
Sep 27, 2018 11:47 PM
Reply to  Antonyl

It’s my understanding that Denmark as the colonial power in Iceland (up to the mid-1940s) was hardly much better than Britain and France in the 20th century or Spain and Portugal in Latin America during the 16th to 19th centuries. During Danish rule, Iceland was restricted to trading with Danish traders and merchants. As might be expected, those traders and merchants bought cheaply but sold dear. The result was impoverishment of the Icelandic people over centuries which made them vulnerable to famine and starvation caused by crop failures which in turn were the result of climatic shifts or volcanic eruptions.

As the colonial power over Greenland, Denmark seems not to have done very much for the people there. Lack of adequate infrastructure, high suicide and child sexual abuse rates, six out of seven political parties there wanting independence: what’s been going on over the years?
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/independence-dilemma-for-greenland-voters