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The Divine Right of Dark-hearted Despots

Greg Maybury from PoxAmerikana

This essay was in part, inspired by — and written in memory of — William Blum (1932-2018). Blum was a comrade-in-arms, and himself one of the great keyboard warriors of his time. We all had much to learn from this man about courage, integrity, tenacity, and resilience in the service of truth. His trenchant opposition to the ruthless and relentless exploitation of other countries and their people by his own country the United States of America is possibly best exemplified by his book America’s Deadliest Export: Democracy, the Truth About US Foreign Policy, and Everything Else. This is also dedicated to the good people of Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Venezuela, Iran, Burundi, Rwanda, (the Republic of) Zaire, and all other countries who’ve been the ‘beneficiaries’ of America’s noble ‘n global experiment in the export of democracy. The world would not be the place it is today without it, for which, we are told, we must remain forever thankful.

Brief

When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it, and a moral code that glorifies it’.
Frederic Bastiat

With everything that is presently transpiring in the U.S., it’s clear America’s foreign policy agents provocateurs du jour are seeking their next big fix, a reality underscored by the fact they also have Iran in their sights, with the blowback in Ukraine and Syria still a work in progress. Regime change — the wrecking ball in the foreign policy toolbox — continues to permeate the rarefied atmosphere of the Imperial Capitol, with Venezuela holding pole position on the D.C.-based Democracy Busters dance-card.

It seems though that with every successive effort by the U.S. and its proxies to destabilize countries and dethrone their elected leaders, they pay less attention to disguising their real motives and covering their tracks, and more attention to ignoring their failures and downplaying their disasters. That this reality should awaken more folks to the hollowness and hubris of America’s much-touted rep as a “force for good in the world” or a “beacon of freedom” is a given for those of us with a more clear-eyed view of how much chaos, destruction, and geopolitical instability this default policy prescription engenders.

Greg Maybury invites one and all to re-arrange the furniture in their geopolitical living room, and consider the following: nothing is going to change in the execution of U.S foreign policy, until pretty much everything else does.

The Low-life Lion King of the Congo

A bit like Neil Young does from time to time, I’ve recently been delving into the archives. And as it turns out, I have a lot of unpublished material, some of which I’m pleased to report — not coincidentally perhaps — is as relevant, if not even moreso, today.

Now one of the trending issues is regime change, America’s default, bi-partisan foreign policy gambit that’s been in play since at least 1945. What with the events taking place in Venezuela*, along with plans afoot by the Regime Renovators du jour Elliot Abrams, Mike Pompeo, and John Bolton and their ilk to wipe Iran off the map, it seemed an opportune time to strap on the parachute and jump down the memory hole of history in order to get a handle on what all the fuss is about.

(*See the blog Washington Babylon for Ken Silverstein’s current reportage on Venezuela. From what I can deduce, it’s hard to beat.)

I should note that the core of this narrative was penned back around 2014, now with some updates and editorial revisions. It was intended then — as it is now — to provide another perspective on Uncle Sam’s incurable addiction to meddling in the affairs of other nations, and the blowback from doing so. I should also add the following: One of the factors prompting this post was my recent discovery of a powerful (limited season, highly recommended) Netflix drama series called Black Earth Rising.

And as noted, another is the shadow and portent of “regime change”, rarely far removed from the foreign policy public discourse in Washington at least for those with an ear for these things, this time around it seems especially so. (One feels that the younger generation is really beginning to wise up to this reality, and though such reflections are important, space precludes a deeper discussion herein. Backatcha on this.)

The backdrop to this narrative are the events which took place in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (aka Zaire), a modern-day catastrophe which had its genesis back as far as the early fifties, but whose dark history of colonial and imperial exploitation goes back several centuries. Without further ado, the following is my bespoke take on the DRC/Zaire, whilst keeping at the forefront of our minds in the process, America’s more recent role in keeping the home fires burning in same, wherever the “home fires” require ‘lighting’ and ‘fuelling’. Such as in Venezuela now, Libya in 2011, Syria in 2012, and in 2014 in Ukraine, to name just a few infamous, more contemporary examples.

The stories of US involvement in the political affairs of foreign countries are as legion as they are of course familiar. At least they are for those of us with few illusions about America’s status as “a force for good in the world”, and places such as Cuba, Guatemala, and Iran are prime examples. Yet throughout the years the Cuban revolution was taking place on America’s doorstep, there were plenty of others brewing on every continent on the Big Blue/Green Ball. One of the most significant of these was in Joseph Conrad territory — the geographical heart of deepest, darkest Africa, specifically the Belgian Congo (later DRC/Zaire).

In 1960 a BC independence movement started gaining momentum, and between then and 1965 the CIA was intimately involved in an ongoing effort to influence the outcome of events in order to advance freedom, democracy, and self-determination in this ‘tin-pot, piss-ant, third-world backwater’, regardless of whether they wanted it or not. As we will see said “outcome” was very ugly indeed. Like Guatemala, Cuba and Iran et al. to name just an unfortunate few, the blowback had a very long shelf-life and a very deep impact.

His Imperious Majesty Leopold II of Belgium: One of History’s Greatest Unsung Mass Murderers, & role model for Dictators and Despots to come.

The BC was a colonial outpost of Belgium from the latter part of the 19th century, initially under the barbarous, infamously despotic, truly genocidal King Leopold II, who pillaged, raped, purged, looted, pilfered, rampaged, plundered and burned his way through the African country throughout his reign until 1908. A particularly despicable, nasty, vile piece of work was His Royal Highness, ‘Low-life Leo’.

If Belgium dragged the chain in succumbing to its own imperial and colonialist ambitions, like so many of its European cohort had already don, it is in the Congo where it tried to make up the ground. That’s putting it mildly. For Leopold’s part, it is generally accepted he presided over the deaths of upwards of 10 million Congolese people (‘give’ rather than ‘take’ a ‘mill’ by most accounts).

Arguably he was one of the worst advertisements for colonialism, imperialism, monarchism, exploitation, and despotism (by any measure a big call). If ever there was a more villainous manifestation of a monarch exercising the divine right of kings in the last one hundred and fifty years, I cannot think of one off hand. For that matter, whilst the historical concept of the DRK itself might have been considered passe by Leopold’s time, no-one told him. More likely he simply ignored it, or didn’t get the memo.

In the mass murder ‘popularity stakes’, this dude was up there with the aspiring, tragically unrequited Viennese artist Adolph Hitler, snapping at The Man of Steel’s heels, and in retrospect giving The Great Helmsman Mao a run for his yuan. He makes the more recent genocidal maniac Cambodia’s Pol Pot look like an underachiever by way of comparison. But unlike the aforementioned, he does not enjoy household name status in the history books, or in popular culture.

Interestingly, the BC, a major exporter of uranium during the Second World War, supplied the ‘juice’ to the Americans used in the A-bombs dropped in Japan. This was not of course, the last time a uranium-producing African nation would figure large in a world-changing foreign policy decision taken by the Americans. It also held vast amounts of still relatively untapped high-value mineral and resource wealth (e.g. gold, copper, cobalt). This attracted the attention of the US (natch!), especially at the height of the Cold War, when said war was possibly much more about laissez-faire economics, energy, and other high value and/or strategic resources than it was about political ideology.

During the 1950s, as there was in the post-World War Two, post-colonial period, there was widespread nationalist fervour fomenting in the country. There were years of unrest, political bickering, and nit-picking between ethnic and tribal groups and other political forces, over who the main muchachos would be in any new independent government. Most importantly though it was over who would get the main spoils, and/or of course who would get to keep them and profit from them. As it came to be, this scenario is a familiar one and one that would be repeated monotonously with varying degrees of tragedy in most emerging, independent African nations throughout subsequent years. To say little of other places on the imperial itinerary.

Patrice Lumumba — His Assassination has been described by the Guardian as ‘the most important’ of the 20th century.

In 1960 the country eventually achieved its full independence from Belgium, and Patrice Lumumba became the popularly elected Prime Minister. For his part Lumumba let it be known that he was not a very happy camper at the way his people had been treated over the years and how his country had been ruthlessly exploited. Nothing new here in this sentiment: It was a constant refrain from most countries in the post-colonialist, nationalist era.

Lumumba appeared to be leaning towards Moscow with the possibility that the country could be taken over by godless, liberty challenged communists, or fall into their Geopolitical Orbit. “Appeared” is the operative word here, as like it so often is; such fear mongering was an expedient gambit with ulterior motives, much like terrorism has been more recently. History now tells us that with many former colonies, it was not so much ideology that drove the nationalist ambitions of the former colonies of empire; it was attaining true political independence, sovereignty, and authentic control over their internal affairs. In almost all cases their former colonial masters and their new ‘besties’ the Americans had decidedly different ideas. This was especially the case with countries like the DRC, which was sitting on mountains of much sought after resources and minerals.

Either way, any leaning towards Moscow would just not do, and this information understandably set a cat amongst the hawks in Langley and Washington. Perhaps not surprisingly, it was revealed later on some members of the then Eisenhower administration had ‘interests’ in the mineral and resource wealth of the country, a frequently recurring motif underpinning America’s unrelenting efforts to assert that “right to protect” and from there export that aforementioned “democracy” etc. so they could eventually import these resources to America at bargain basement prices. It also scared the local anti-communist, right-wing elements in the country including in the Army, especially the top brass who wore asbestos underpants under their MilFats (military fatigues), were highly tuned to the geopolitical and economic imperatives in relation to guaranteeing their future, and who would clearly benefit from a takeover of government. Oh, and did I say they were pro-American?

This was of course music to the CIA’s ears. PLU’s – not Peace, Love and Understanding here mind you – they doubtless were thinking “People Like Us!” And the CIA was only too eager to assist. If the purportedly communist elements took over, there was no doubt this would threaten the political fortunes and personal and financial interests of those making foreign policy in the US (shades of things to come) and presumably their fellow travelers in US and Congolese mining and resource sectors and other vested local and international interests. The go-to guys at the CIA got to work…as they invariably do. Lumumba was eventually ousted and later offed (i.e. assassinated). And a former Army chieftain Joseph-Desire Mobutu — later rebranding himself as Mobutu Sese Soko — assumed control.

And speaking of being “offed” and “ousted” — albeit in his case, in one fell swoop — it is important to note here that the president at the time of Lumumba’s assassination was none other than John Fitzgerald Kennedy (aka JFK), who’d only just begun to get comfortable in his new digs on Pennsylvania Ave. As noted earlier, by most accounts the assassination of Lumumba was a train already in motion when Kennedy arrived at the White House. For his part, JFK was famously anti-colonialist, anti-imperialist to his boot-straps, and ostensibly supported the DRC’s independence. We’ll explore his role later on.

Dark Days in the Dark Continent (Regime Renovators Redux)

The former president of Zaire, Mobutu Sese Seko. Tried to show Low-Leo a clean pair of heels in mass murder.

Not unlike his former colonial masters in their own colonialist ambitions, Mobutu initially dragged the chain on demonstrating his despotic disposition. But when he did get going he was unstoppable and quickly made up for any lost ground. To grease the wheels of power and keep them spinning in his favor, he bribed many of his potential challengers and rivals thereby giving new meaning to the old adage of ‘keep(ing) [your] friends close, and [your] enemies closer’. Although not a new concept in history, this was a dictum apparently finding favor with many other dictators of the time. Probably still does. It’s in the job description. Especially if one seeks security of tenure. And who better to provide that security than old Uncle Sam.

For those political opponents who were less compliant or corruptible, Mobutu reportedly presided over their public executions in front of Coliseum-sized crowds, or in simple, crude, tried and true tyrant style had them and their families tortured and/or murdered then disposed of on the QT. And then he really dug in his heels. By the end of the decade, he was unchallenged master of the Congo universe, and yet slowly but surely turned his country into an economic, social, environmental, political, and human rights basket case, another black hole in the post-imperial African continental universe! This was a man who successive US presidents called “America’s beacon of hope” in the region or similar sentiments. Go figure!

Over time Mobutu’s regime morphed into a ‘klepto-bruto-kakocracy’ of the first order. He maintained a personal fleet of Mercedes limos, and went on frequent shopping trips to Paris, London and Milan on the Concorde (he even had a special airfield built for the plane) with his large entourage of wives/concubines and scores of cloying hacks, flacks, lackeys and subservient minions sticking to his belligerent black-ass like baby-shit to a blanket. He had dozens of mansions and palaces, and amassed an estimated $5bn dollars stashed in his own personal Swiss bank accounts all of which one can only presume he was keeping for a rainy day in case the road ahead got a little too bumpy.

That he went on to become one of Africa’s most enduring if not endearing despots, is a matter of public record, even if said “public” is largely oblivious to this grossly tragic and criminal exercise in regime redemption and how it all played out over three decades and three countries. And it was all achieved with the blessing of the consecutive powers that be in Washington, regardless of whether they were Democratic or Republican. Deja vu, all over again!

Although the ride did eventually get quite bumpy for Mobutu, any karma due him took its time in arriving. In the interim, he caused a lot of people a lot of grief over a very long period of time and an equally broad expanse of geography. The post-colonial world was never going to be a pretty sight anywhere it could be found on the planet (even without ts he meddling of the major powers), and this is one country where that observation really hits home, in a continent full of similar basket cases and less than pretty sights. For over the three decades whilst Mobutu ruled the country (renamed Zaire in the meantime), the living conditions of most of his people deteriorated rapidly and dramatically, and they were the lucky ones that survived the seemingly eternal, existential, deathly inferno he brought to life with merciless gusto.

Though he never came close, Mobutu was prepped to show Low-life Leo a clean pair of heels in the mass murder and brutality stakes. Now no-one really knows how many of his countrymen he butchered himself. If one is wondering where Robert Mugabe (Zimbabwe) and Idi Amin (Uganda) and their despotic ilk got their delusions of bloody grandeur from back in their heyday, then Mobutu is your go-to man!

In the early 1990s though, it all started to go pear-shaped for the by now similarly pear-shaped despot, with even the Americans turning against him. It all began to go decidedly the same way for a lot of other people as well. Tribal connections in Africa are deep and very complex and are rarely respective of national borders or sovereign boundaries, most of which have been redrawn dramatically, arbitrarily, and frequently in the past 100-150 odd years. This has mainly been since the rent-seeking white man showed up to collect said rent.

Since the 1972 genocides and even further back than that, there have always been ethnic tensions — ‘diplo-speak’ for different tribes slaughtering each other en masse — within and without the three countries. That these were either exploited deliberately or incidentally fuelled by the interference of major western powers is a given, especially the U.S.

(A full account of the events that took place in this region around this time is beyond the scope of this essay. For a deeper elucidation, and one which is almost at complete odds with the current official “genocide” narrative, go here and here.

Christopher C Black, a Toronto based international criminal lawyer, is one of the go-to sources herein, with the scars to prove it by his own account. The James Corbett interview below is a must-listen in this respect. Black spent 14 years successfully defending former Rwandan Gendarmerie General Augustin Ndindiliyimana at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).

In that time, Black uncovered copious evidence about what really happened in the so-called “100 Days” of 1994 and the four-year civil war that led up to it. Black shares that information in this podcast and deconstructs the lies that continue to be propagated about the Rwandan genocide.)

That the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) originally chalked up the coup in Zaire (nee the DRC) as a victory then, and saw the rise of Mobutu as beneficial to the region was clear. A “victory” for what and “beneficial” to whom though are questions that many are still asking even to this day. It is uncertain though whether the current Langley Gang is asking the same questions after all these years.

Chances are that today’s CIA spooks would not be even able to pinpoint Zaire/DRC on a map, let alone have any collective recollection of the role their predecessors had in the recent history of the ravaged, impoverished, at once bled dry and blood-soaked country. Or in the region. Or on the whole continent. Or of any of the others mentioned in the The Great American Regime Redemption narrative. That’s why we’re here down in the memory hole!

Our Son of a Bitch (Not Theirs)

To underscore just how much the US courts and panders to their roster of client dictators past and present, it is perhaps at Ronald (The Gipper) Reagan‘s tenure we might ‘have a gander’. Like most US presidents, Reagan turned a blind eye to the shenanigans of the despots on their diplomatic dance-card. One of the most infamous of these folks was to be sure the aforementioned Mobutu.

Mobutu was the man that The Gipper – who three times hosted him at official White House gatherings, and ignored repeated criticisms of his human rights record – called a “voice of good sense and goodwill”. Small wonder they called him – i.e. Reagan – the Great Communicator. If people believed this shit (and it seemed most did at the time), they’d believe anything. Either that or Ronnie had once again begun to show the effects of Alzheimer’s, and he really had swallowed the whole jar of jelly beans as it were in one fell swoop.

Now some less than kind souls have even suggested the Gipper rode into the White House with at least Alzheimer’s early onset. Or he’d simply forgotten the details of the briefing he received from the good folks on the Zaire/DRC desk down at Foggy Bottom. Or maybe Reagan actually was engaging in some FDR-type realpolitik, that being: ‘he may be a son of a bitch, but he’s our son of a bitch’. Hard to know for sure!

More likely though in true neo-con tradition, he chose to ignore it, or didn’t consider the deprivation of human rights on a national scale or persecution, denial of human rights, exploitation, mass incarceration, and murder of its citizens all that much of a big deal. In fact, The Gipper’s Ambassador to the UN, Jeanne Kirkpatrick (aka the Fairy Godmother of Neo-cons and an Amazonian Cold Warrior of the first order), was once quoted as saying that ‘America could be justified in its defense of totalitarian regimes if it served the defense of liberty and the national interest’. This was a refrain we have come to hear many times since.

Now the concept of the “national interest” for the US has always been one that’s a moving feast at the best and worst of times, and the above statement would have had the Grandmaster Minter of political double-speak George Orwell spinning in his eternally designated bolthole. We don’t know if Kirkpatrick was referring to people like Mobutu and his ilk in particular when she framed this pearl of foreign policy wisdom or had people like him in mind, but he clearly would not have been completely out of the frame. It’s also just as uncertain how Mobutu might have served the “liberty” and/or the “national interest” of either the US or Zaire however it might have been defined, or for that matter the other countries in Africa that suffered blowback from his poisonous, sclerotic, genocidal and cataclysmic reign, most notably Rwanda and Burundi.

It’s also not known if Mobutu had the same understanding of “liberty” and “national interest” as those that he detained, assassinated, murdered, terrorized, raped, tortured, mutilated, plundered, imprisoned, pillaged and just plain neglected throughout his time in office. The lucky ones – if they can in any logically considered sense be defined as such – are presumably the ones he did neglect. He might not have destroyed as many lives as King Leo, but he gave it his best shot.

With his death in disgraced exile in Morocco of prostate cancer in 1997, Mobutu’s belligerent, brutal ‘blackass’ was no more, and the moment of his passing presumably came not a nanosecond too soon for those who did survive him, with what remained of their lives and their families and tribes and their communities. It’s still further unknown what these folk and their descendants think now about the leaders, institutions, and nations without whose support the long-since deceased, yet still reviled Mobutu relied upon to keep him in power would have had a considerably shorter shelf-life than he did if not for them interfering in their affairs. America, this is your foreign policy dollar working for you, now and then.

Now if King Leopold in the Belgian Congo was the poster boy/template for the ugly, vicious, ruthless, colonialist/imperialist period of centuries-old European empire, then Mobutu in Zaire went on to assume the role of his future political doppelganger in the equally ugly, vicious, ruthless, post-colonial, post-imperial, nationalist, and independence periods, a period that the U.S. (you know, the world’s greatest democracy and “beacon of freedom”?) called the shots on. The CIA adopted him, nurtured him, and egged him on all the way. After all, he believed in Freedom™ and Democracy™ and Liberty™ and all that other All-American (Bull)Shit™ too didn’t he? What’s not to like?

For his part — and we might say, his final part — The Gipper played the role of an Alzheimer’s victim who eventually ‘buys the ranch’ for real in 2004, riding off into the sunset for the very last time. No doubt like most presidents before and after him, he did so oblivious to, or unconcerned about, the blowback that unfolded as a result of his country’s policies under his ‘regime’.

Mobutu was of course only one in a veritable conga-line of client dictatorships whose unerring, unquestioning support by America of them and the respective ruling elites and their cadres of the many and various regimes helped unleash mayhem, destruction, exploitation, torture, murder, misery, deep-seated ethnic, religious and racial division, and genocide upon their people and societal disorder, political dysfunction and economic catastrophe upon their nations.

As for Reagan, true to form the Old Ham just wouldn’t get off the stage, being of the ripe old age of 93 when they eventually carted him off to Boot Hill. Still a bit of a ‘B’ movie exit by many measures, certainly for many who might consider his presidency a bit, well, ‘B’ movie. Not all it’s cracked up to be then? But try telling that to the Raging, Rabid, Raving, Righteous ideologues of Neo Americon (sic) Century, and you will get ‘short-shrifted’ PDQ. You know who I’m talking about here cupcakes: the aforementioned Pompeos, the Boltons, the Abrams, and all the rest of their hacks, flacks, and lackeys on either side of the Potomac and beyond. He was their savior back in the day….for which we should all be forever grateful (not). The most depressing thing though is that the current cabal almost makes The Gipper look and sound like a bleeding heart liberal democrat and anti-imperialist…I did say “almost” didn’t I?…

The photo above was taken on 13 February 1961, when U.S. Ambassador to the UN Adlai Stevenson called president Kennedy to belatedly report Patrice Lumumba’s assassination. The photo was taken at the very moment JFK received the news.

To bring our narrative up to speed with current events and take it full circle — especially those that have to do with regime change and America’s interferences in the affairs of other countries for reasons generally unrelated to concerns on the part of the U.S. about freedom, democracy, liberty, and the much ballyhooed rule of law — we have to once again parachute back down the memory hole. This time though we look at JFK and his connection to the Lumumba story. The whole mess in the DRC was as earlier indicated all about the filthy lucre (or in au courant parlance, “it’s all about the ‘Benjamins’”).

The DRC was/is one of the most resource-rich nations certainly on the Dark Continent if not in the world. Few national entities can hold their own against the combined powers of the large multi-national corporations and the governments of countries like Britain, France, and America, when you have something they want. As Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela is currently finding out. All things considered, Lumumba never stood a chance of surviving as PM of the newly independent nation. The former had a very different definition of what it meant to be independent than the latter and his supporters. His assassination was preordained by the Eisenhower administration, and by most accounts, Kennedy was totally unaware of this.

It is also notable that JFK himself was infamously offed by the regime changers of his own era, those who felt threatened by his stance on any number of issues. One of the motives for his dispatch could well have been the president’s supportive position on post-colonial nationalism and the increasing — and to their former imperial overlords, annoying — assertiveness of their former colonies, along with their desire for independence with all the fruit that came with it. By supporting these stances, this by definition meant that Kennedy was perceived to be no friend of empire.

But notwithstanding his campaign rhetoric, it’s no surprise that current POTUS Donald Trump has fully embraced the regime changers agenda. As I have observed elsewhere on occasion, Trump is after all the consummate ‘chancer’. He knows which side on which to butter his bagel. Which brings to mind the late, great comedian Bill Hicks‘ pitch-black routine about a hypothetical induction session given by the powers that be behind the throne to all new occupants of the White House. In Hicks’ fanciful — yet at the same time still frighteningly plausible — scenario, the new POTUS (let’s imagine it’s The Donald) is ushered into the Situation Room to watch a video. As the first few frames come up, it becomes immediately obvious even to Trump this is a cinematic rendition of the events in Dallas on November 22, 1963, circa lunchtime.

Unlike previous footage of this memorable event, this ‘version’ has never been made public, and presents a scenario that is completely at odds with the official narrative. The new president slowly but surely braces himself, fuelled by ever increasing shock and unease as he watches the unfolding moving images reveal a mise-en-scène very different to the more familiar Zapruder footage.

In this version he witnesses several shooters perpetrating a deadly crossfire — none of whom are located anywhere near the Texas School Book Depository Building, and one of whom mos def is situated behind the white picket fence at the top of the grassy knoll and looks nothing like Lee Harvey Oswald — all of which confirms for him unequivocally that every conspiracy theorist who’s ever attached their name to the JFK assassination after rejecting the Warren Commission report was indeed right after all. As the presentation comes to the end, there is silence in the room; after he’s recovered a measure of composure, one of the presenters asks the freshly minted POTUS if he has any questions. He dutifully replies: “Nah I’m good; let’s go bomb Damascus!” We get the picture, even if my retelling loses something in the translation.

Pissing in the Information Pool (aka Imperial Public Relations)

President of Venezuela Nicholas Maduro – The Empire’s bete noir du jour. It’s all about the oil….again!

Insofar as the situation in Venezuela goes, placing to one side the reality that hell has no fury like an empire scorned, it is perhaps instructive to consider other reasons as to why Uncle Sam has such a ‘hard on’ for the country and its current, ‘recalcitrant’ leader Nicholas Maduro. Firstly, a little backstory. As most folks know, every regime change cum military operation comes with its own unique identifier, a brand if one likes, to use marketing terminology. It’s uncertain if the U.S. Military-Industrial Complex™—which knows a thing or three about marketing to be sure, possibly much more than they do about actually winning wars—has contrived a specific nomenclature for any possible offensive operation in Venezuela.

But it’s unlikely to compete with the one some bright spark in the George Bush administration conjured up—in what can only be described as an inspired flash of lateral thinking—when they decided to invade Iraq in 2003 and ‘renovate’ Saddam Hussein’s regime from the inside out. In its hegemonic zeal, Bush and Co. neglected (amongst many other things it should be noted), to pay close attention to the optics of its brand, and the message said brand might unintentionally convey to the public if one does not get one’s ducks flying in the same direction and at the same speed on such important details. This is especially important if one is looking to disguise the real objectives underpinning one’s not so benevolent intentions. As anyone who works in marketing or public relations will tell you, it’s all about the “optics”: Perception is nine-tenths of reality! Or put it another way: perception is to a marketer what location is to a realtor…

All of which is to say, the planned, ultimately disastrous, monumentally expensive invasion and occupation of Iraq was originally designated—wait for it—as Operation Iraqi Liberation, or “OIL” for short. (No folks I am not making this shit up…As the inimitable and irrepressible Walter Brennan might have opined back in the day, “that’s no brag, that’s fact!”) It was apparently some time before the penny dropped and it was hastily rebranded Operation Iraqi Freedom (or “OIF”), lest folks get the wrong idea. I don’t know about you dear readers but when to comes to acronyms, I much prefer “OIL” to “OIF”; it rolls off the tongue a lot easier for one thing.

In any event, this linguistic ‘wardrobe malfunction’ went on to a achieve the distinction of becoming one of the great exemplars of the Freudian slip to be found anywhere in anyone’s political history, recent or not so. And in Venezuela, like in Iraq, make no mistake: It’s also all about the OIL. The lucky (or depending on your POV, unlucky) Venezuelans have more of the ‘Texas Tea’ than Saudi Arabia!…

That they also have much more “democracy” and “freedom” too than the Saudis is a given, with even the occasional fair and free election, (and insofar as one can gather, fewer public beheadings). Though admittedly none of this might be considered a huge achievement by some folks for any country regardless of the measure of their authoritarian persuasion to which they might or might not be inclined. Not that that reality has ever really counted for much in Washington, now or then.

…Like Superman does with his underpants then, these days the regime renovators wear their ‘Freudian slips‘ on the outside; indeed, they all but seem to ‘wear’ them with pride, like a wannabe Hollywood starlet sashaying down the red carpet on Oscar night in some famous couturier’s new frock. When it comes to understanding the mindset of these folks, it appears they have resurrected then contrived their own bespoke version of the aforementioned Divine Right of Kings. Either that or like Superman, they really believe they are fighting for Truth™, Justice™, and the American Way™, all three of which are literally by definition a moving feast at the best of times in U.S. political discourse. And they see it is their God-given right—nay responsibility—to protect and save the rest of the planet’s denizens from themselves.

Such then is how they view their exceptional, indispensable place within the geopolitical firmament. The French in their imperial heyday called it their “mission civilisatrice”. The scribe cum poet laureate of imperial excess Rudyard Kipling referred to it as the “White Man’s Burden”, one which he suggested none too subtly America would have to pick up after the British Empire ran out of puff. Which would suggest the Americans mos def did get the memo this time.

More accurately, we might simply describe it as pillaging, raping, plundering, rampaging, burning, looting, exploitation, and rampant desecration, and wholesale destruction of communities, regions, and nations and their natural and human resources in order to enrich themselves and their fellow elites in their own countries simply because they can. Sounds like a pretty good day’s work if/when you can both get it, and get away with it eh? As Desmond Tutu of South Africa once put it:

When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said: “Let us pray”. We closed our eyes…When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.’

Sounds about right to me.

We should round out this diatribe with an admonishment from the late, great Chalmers Johnson, a man who like William Blum, was no fan of his country’s relentless, ruthless empire building, and one who knew a thing or three about “blowback”. ‘Although most Americans may be largely ignorant of what was, and still is, being done in their names, all are likely to pay a steep price — individually and collectively — for their nation’s continued efforts to dominate the global scene.’

One only needs to be able to read, have some basic research skills, and a willingness to have the scales pulled from their eyes, to understand where Johnson was coming from.

Yet the last word must go to Blum (to whom said diatribe is dedicated), though it does echo similar sentiments to Johnson’s: ‘No matter how paranoid or conspiracy-minded you are, what your government is doing is actually worse than you can imagine’.

Greg Maybury is an Australian based freelance journalist, alternative media entrepreneur, filmmaker and blogger, and partially rehabbed history teacher. His broad areas of exploration and analysis are the U.S. political economy, foreign affairs, social and economic history, international relations, the national security state, the media, and American society and culture in general. His articles and essays have appeared on a diverse range of alternative and independent news sites here in Australia, the U.S. and elsewhere.

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George Cornell
George Cornell
Mar 22, 2019 11:02 AM

The header quotation owes to the Canadian economist John Kenneth Galbraith who described trickle-down theory as “the less than elegant metaphor that if one feeds the horse enough oats, some will pass through to the road for the sparrows.”

tutisicecream
tutisicecream
Mar 21, 2019 4:19 PM

Parachuting the memory hole Greg good read and true to form parascending the ubiquitous shit tropes of the empire of dim-dumb. The burger and fries dinner at the end of history.

Anyone who believes the slather that comes out of the Bolt-on brain needs their head boiling in piss along with his, but then that’s the foremost global beacon of democracy for you -exceptional?. Where an unelected technocrat of the most rabid bent can get hold of the levers of power not once but three times in his 40 year career!

mark
mark
Mar 21, 2019 3:13 PM

If you go to Brussels or Ostend today you can see a lot of public buildings Leopold built with the loot from the Congo.
Between 1890-1910, the first 20 years of Belgian rule, 10 million perished, half the population of the Congo Basin.
Massacre, mutilation, torture, systematic rape and slavery were standard practice for over two decades in extracting the coveted rubber and ivory.
An area of a million square miles was one big concentration camp.
Leopold claimed he was doing all this out of pure altruism, for the benefit of the poor Africans, and wasn’t making a franc out of it. All out of the goodness of his heart.
The so called 1940s “holocaust” was pretty trivial by comparison.
But of course you won’t find Congo holocaust museums on every street corner, with every other Tuesday a holocaust memorial day. Or a new Hollywood holocaust blockbuster every fortnight. But then again there aren’t many Congolese in Hollywood.
Most of England’s National Trust country houses were built with sugar money from West Indies slave plantations. They could give blacks free admission as their Reparations.

Mobutu’s full chosen name was Mobutu Sese Seko Na Wa Za Banga, roughly translated as “the cock that leaves no hens alone.”

George Cornell
George Cornell
Mar 22, 2019 11:23 AM
Reply to  mark

Mark I am not sure trivial is a word to use in the context of any mass extermination but it may be that the Congolese Holocaust was not only larger but consumed a larger percent of the population, Accepting the 6 million figure, vs a prewar population of Jewish people of 16,6 M worldwide, estimates of the Oongolese loss seem greater both in absolute and relative terms.

However, both are horrible and quibbling about this is only prompted by the relentless campaigns to portray what happened in WWII as the biggest, and baddest, and worst. This seems to belittle other atrocities and improving the balance seems the only worthwhile reason to entertain the accounting. The Fraudian’s rebirth as a neocon organ wrapped in social work disguise has been long enough that their pronouncements represent historical landmarks, as in their selection of the defining event of the 20th century – Freedland.

BigB
BigB
Mar 22, 2019 1:04 PM
Reply to  George Cornell

Holocaust relativism is morally repugnant, especially when the aim is to cheapen the Shoah in relation to other Holocausts. Denying there was more than one Holocaust is equally as bad. And the ‘Holocaust Industry’ – to use Finkelstein’s title – as a ‘moral touchstone’ is reprehensible too. But it is no excuse for Holocaust relativism. All Holocausts from all ages need to be treated equally, with the same respect.

Having said that: who among us has a mobile phone? If so, it almost certainly contains tantalum. That almost certainly came from the Congo (DRC). That almost certainly comes at the cost of 8-10 million human lives. That’s fifteen hundred people a day – for a phone.

Actually, no one knows the number of dead perpetrated by Clinton-puppet Kagame and Museveni in overthrowing Mobutu – installing Kabila – for the control of diamonds, oil, and coltan. It did not happen. Especially with Samantha Power doing the counting (see link). It is a forgotten Holocaust – suppressed and censored out of existence.. Who would buy a phone at such a price? So the Holocaust was disappeared. The Black Agenda Report and a few journalists, such as Keith Harmon Snow, were the only ones who ever revealed the truth. Monbiot did, to give him so due. But only by deforming his narrative to make Kagame both a victim and a genocidiaire-in-chief. You could have dropped the victim, George. Kagame was only ever a war criminal and murderer. But that is ‘genocide denial’ to say that.

Anyway, Holocaust relativism is a moralistic slippery slope. Best to check what we have in our pocket first.

https://dissidentvoice.org/2008/02/over-five-million-dead-in-congo-fifteen-hundred-people-daily/
https://blackagendareport.com/congo-genocide-54-million-dead-interview-sylvestre-mido

George Cornell
George Cornell
Mar 22, 2019 2:20 PM
Reply to  BigB

I think we are on the same page or at least at the same chapter. But the reality is that the mention of the Shoah in the MSM is almost invariably in its own context rather than the surely more edifying context of human genocide in general. So when have you seen in the MSM, or barely elsewhere a thoughtful treatment of genocide which includes Pol Pot, Rwanda, the Congo and the Shoah among others? I am sure one could be found but the denominator is enormous. I am dismayed at the vigour of the responses to the apparently blasphemous suggestions this is a broader issue with far too many unknown antecedents.The lack of awareness of what has happened in the Congo over the last 130 years highlights the point. Suppressing the others is not threatening the memory of the Shoah, it is disrespectful to those who died in it.

Indeed the competition for baddest has been strengthened by the inane number-counting, much of which as you point out is inexact. Most of this relativism comes from Shoah promoters and from Holocaust deniers, when the real and educational common themes go virtually unmentioned. It’s as if 4 million is not enough and it must be six, or if it is not six but 4 it is ok..

There are basic computational and moral principles based on the numbers games and even religious fantasies about the afterlife fail to distinguish among single, mass, and genocidal murder. Indeed there is a thermal limit to how hot hell could be and still be felt. More heat is ineffective, just like competing millions of genocidal victims should be, not to mention neural habituation.

Thanks for the links and pointing out the more recent tragedies.

mark
mark
Mar 22, 2019 4:30 PM
Reply to  George Cornell

The real “holocaust” was the extermination of native Americans in North and South America. Well over 100 million victims.
Every country has a holocaust skeleton in its closet.
Native Americans/ Spain, Portugal, France, Britain, America.
Libya/ Italy.
Algeria/ France.
Tanzania and Namibia/ Germany.
Congo/ tiny Belgium.
Slave Trade.
Armenia/ Turkey.
Ireland/ England.
China/ Japan.
Palestine/ Zionists.
Gaul, Dacia, Carthage/ Imperial Rome.
And literally hundreds of others.
Genocides are ten a penny.

The “Juden Uber Alles” Hollywood approach is an insult to the memory of hundreds of millions of other victims.

BigB
BigB
Mar 22, 2019 7:52 PM
Reply to  mark

Mark

I could not agree more. In fact, it was the very point I was making. So why can it not be said without any relative distinction?

Why is the Native American Holocaust “real”? Are the others less real?

And why the quotation marks for the ‘so called’ “holocaust”?

“The so called 1940s “holocaust” was pretty trivial by comparison.”

‘So called’? What is the correct universalised appellation if “holocaust” is incorrect?

When is a ‘so called’ “holocaust” ‘pretty trivial by comparison’? By what criteria do we downgrade a universal human atrocity to lower category? And what is that lower category for “so call “holocausts””?

I’m intrigued to know.

mark
mark
Mar 22, 2019 11:09 PM
Reply to  BigB

There are hundreds of holocausts. The biggest one was the native Americans. It dwarfs everything else in human history. For me, that is “The Holocaust.”

My objection is that so much else has been, and is being, airbrushed out of history.
I’ll give you an example. Something that very few people know about, because it is not taught, or publicised, or the subject of Hollywood epics. British rule in Ireland.

In 1641, the population of Ireland was 1,500,000. By 1652, it was 600,000.
500,000 massacred and perished in war, 400,000 enslaved.
The 400,000 were driven into the west of the country, and rounded up like livestock. They were branded, and loaded on to slave ships, and sold to plantations in the West Indies and America at slave auctions. They were treated worse than black slaves. Most slaves at the time were Irish. The African slave trade hadn’t really taken off. An Irish slave cost £5, an African slave £50. Cheap Irish slave women were bred with expensive African male slaves.

Just one example of many. But how many people know anything about it? One in 100? One in 1,000?
That’s the point.

BigB
BigB
Mar 23, 2019 12:40 AM
Reply to  mark

I share Scottish and Irish ancestry – so I am one of your ‘1 in a 1,000’ …but thanks for the recap.

It still does not answer why the 1940s “holocaust” was “so called”. Whatever happened in Ireland or elsewhere: either a holocaust is a holocaust, or it is not. Those are the rules of logic: tertium non datur. How can a holocaust be “so called”? It is a simple question.

George Cornell
George Cornell
Mar 23, 2019 1:06 PM
Reply to  BigB

Big B, I agree none of them should be trivialised. But they have been trivialised for much of my lifetime. Hollywood movies displaying the natives as treacherous savages, with incredibly bad aims, leering at white women. Virtually no awareness of the Congo tragedies in the West, etc. Slavery has enjoyed a marquee slot in mainstream media recently, but after centuries of neglect.

The Holocaust industry as so clearly detailed by Finkelstein has included decades in which nearly 50% of books reviewed by NY review of books or Times Lit Rev. were about the Holocaust. As Abba Eban said there’s no business like Shoah business – Annie get your gun paraphrased.

So my question to you, and pls don’t take offense is, do you really think that the promotion of the Holocaust as the biggest and baddest, needs you to defend it against skeptics who express legitimate reservations about its uniqueness and horribleness and the neglect of the many others? It seems to me the defense/attack side has plenty of volunteers. What is a more pressing issue is the general ignorance of context and of history of genocides, actively suppressed by those who want their own experience to be seen as peerless.

BigB
BigB
Mar 24, 2019 10:57 AM
Reply to  George Cornell

George

I’m not at all offended: these questions need to be aired. The ‘Holocaust Industry’ has grown out of all proportion, there is no doubt about that. Jackie Walker dared to mention (while she was being secretly filmed) that the Afro-Caribbean Holocaust deserved inclusion on International Holocaust Day. For that, she was suspended from the Labour party, a forced exclusion that continues to this day. In accepting the IHRA definitions: Labour colluded in the promotion of ‘the’ Holocaust (singular) to the Holocaust Hall of Fame. These are just examples of how dehumanising it is to have one Holocaust that downgrades all other Holocausts. Including the secret Holocaust in the DRC that is ongoing.

There is only one correct response from all this death and dehumanisation: never again. There were roughly two schools of Holocaust remembrance: the Elie Wessel and the Hadjo Meyer. The Hadjo Meyer lifelong ‘Never Again’ campaign was politically disowned. This is a human tragedy. The ‘moral touchstone’ evangelical promotion and protectionism of apartheid and slow genocide of the Palestinian people is a cancer of modern society: one that needs to be addressed and healed. Every day it continues: we are all lessened.

So, that’s one side. The Holocaust Industry has made any criticism of the Holocaust politically, morally, socially taboo. It has venerated Wessel and forgotten Meyer. This is flat out wrong, not least that if we cannot talk about it: it can only multiply. There is the need to ‘downgrade’ the Holocaust in the artificial league table of Holocausts. That we can ever have entered into a taxonomy of Holocausts is in itself repugnant. We are talking about the cruel death of billions of people that leaves virtually no one untouched. There is the basis of a Common Human response to genocides as soon as we learn to stop discriminating and ranking them.

Here we get into some very murky water. Affirming the recognition of the ‘so called (1940s) “holocaust”‘ can in no way be extended to affirming the subsequent Holocaust Industry – which has relativistically ‘cashed in’ on very real suffering and weaponised it. Warped in order to justify the perpetration of suffering. The oppressed have assumed the mantle and actualised oppression: justified by their former oppressed status. This can only lead to a perpetual cycle of oppressed/oppressor violence and perpetuated genocides.

So there are two separated – but obviously causally linked – sequences of events: the very real human tragedy of the Shoah – and its subsequent exceptionalist promotion. At what point does the Shoah become ”so called”: or “pretty trivial by comparison”? Never would be my answer. The way to tackle the Holocaust Industry is not to trivialise the Shoah. That only promotes the Holocaust Industry by dialectical legitimation. To honour the Shoah, and co-honour all unnecessary suffering has become a moral dilemma. One that is not aided by calling the Shoah “so called”.

Ben Trovata
Ben Trovata
Mar 23, 2019 2:27 AM
Reply to  mark

” Theoretically,under the Act of 1652 some eighty thousand persons were liable to the death penalty.About two hundred of the most prominent leaders were actually executed; but thousand of young Irish men and women were shipped out as slaves to the sugar plantations in Barbados and to Jamaica,which had recently been conquered from Spain.” — ‘A Hist.of Mod. Ire.,p.81 “

Gezzah Potts
Gezzah Potts
Mar 21, 2019 1:04 PM

A lenghty but brilliant article Greg. Nothing much changes, does it? Its still all about power, control and unadulterated greed of the very few – the 0.1℅ and their hangers on. “The spirit is smothered, as it were, by ignorance, but so soon as ignorance is destroyed, spirit shine forth, like the sun when released from clouds” Thomas Sankara. We have a precious resource right here. Its called OffGuardian. It is a tool for us to remove our ignorance; to shine a light on the vampires of this Planet, those who have the blood of millions upon millions on their hands, those who rape and pillage entire countries for their never ending greed. Yesterday it was 16 years since the destruction of Iraq began. An entire country demolished. Over a million human beings snuffed out or crippled. And who has been held to account for this? George Bush? Dick Cheney? Tony Blair? John Howard? Rumsfeld? Anyone? No one. Not one of these mass murderers has spent even one day in jail. The utter moral bankruptcy of the West, drowned in self righteous bullshit. “The business of obscuring language is a mask behind which stands the much greater business of plunder” Frantz Fanon.

George Cornell
George Cornell
Mar 21, 2019 12:56 PM

The Congolese genocide perpetrated by Leopold and the Belgians is remarkable for its amazingly low profile. It is interesting to read how Leopold conned his European contemporaries to let him pillage the Congo cIaiming he was there for humanitarian purposes. Very similar to the US modus operandi. I would be surprised if as many as 5% of Americans are familiar with it.

In terms of sheer numbers, at least ten million, it dwarfs the Holocaust, and rivals the number of enslaved blacks sent to the New World by European traders. The US Empire is trying to outdo Leopold and may have already done. Why is this story so unknown? The Fraudian deleted my post saying what I just stated above, because it violated community standards. Was it the use of the word dwarf ? Or something else?

Seamus Padraig
Seamus Padraig
Mar 21, 2019 1:41 PM
Reply to  George Cornell

The Fraudian deleted my post saying what I just stated above, because it violated community standards. Was it the use of the word dwarf ?

Yes. They now prefer to be called ‘little people’, you hater! 😀 😀 😀

George Cornell
George Cornell
Mar 21, 2019 8:07 PM
Reply to  Seamus Padraig

The verb has a long tame history but one can’t be careful enough.

Schlüter
Schlüter
Mar 21, 2019 11:14 AM

See also:
“Crimes on Congo, from Destruction to Destroyed Independence”: https://wipokuli.wordpress.com/2013/02/22/crimes-on-congo-part-1-from-destruction-to-destroyed-independence/
Regards

harry stotle
harry stotle
Mar 21, 2019 8:45 AM

Patrice Lumumba was a colossal figure in world history – yet how many in the west know his murder was orchestrated by the most senior, and powerful figures in US political and intelligence circles (namely President Eisenhower, and head of CIA Allen Dulles)

In many respects this tragic episode is a blue-print for the way the US responds whenever threats are perceived to its economic or geopolitical interests – a blue print that illustrates all too clearly how the US invariably sides with violent and anti-democratics forces, forces that are all too willing to sell out their countrymen for personal enrichment, aided by their US backers (Mobutu being an arch example).

Eisenhower and Dulles invented a feeble context to rationalise the cold blooded murder of Lumumba (lying to themselves and others) by claiming he was a ‘communist’, both well aware that he wasn’t: he was a democrat, Congo’s first elected leader who after years of oppression finally insisted on a right to national, and self determination.

The Americans had already set up (in Manhattan) the ‘Africa-America Institute’ to sponsor the education and development of future African leaders – in other words a forum controlled by the CIA designed to groom the next generation of emerging political wannabes.

When the net started to close on Patrice Lumumba he was pursued through the jungle by Mobutu’s security rottweiler Captain Gilbert Pongo, the sort of monster the US love to manipulate because they know in every volatile part of the world there are others just like him, men who have no qualms about inflicting torture or murder.

Lumumba nearly escaped the clutches of his rabid pursuer but by the time he reached a small village there was only one fishing boat available to ferry him across the river. While crossing Pongo finally caught up with Lumumba’s stranded wife and child who had fled with him and were waiting for the fishing boat to return.

Patrice heard the screams of his wife so went back – with US assistance he was ultimately rendered to Katanga a region that had broken from the Congo and was known to be against Lumumba’s democratic aspirations – there he was beaten to death.

Was Eisenhower or Dulles punished – of course not.
Were they castigated in the media – oh, get real.
Did the US employ false pretexts to justify illegal actions – yup.
Did they line up gangsters to subvert democracy – of course they did.
Did the US develop business networks and educational forums in order to cultivate future compliance – hell, yes.
Was rendition a moral problem for the US establishment – nope.
How about torture – no, the US developed cutting edge techniques in this sphere.
Was the country (the Congo) left in a better or worse state after US intervention – worse, much, much worse.

Now tell me in what way does the treatment of Patrice Lumumba, a great man ruined by US greed or the fate of the Congo differ from all the other instances when imperial power has been exported in the service of corporate fascism – and more importantly why are so many in the west blind to this recurring pattern (with the likes of John Bolton, Mike Pompeo and Elliot Abrams being just the latest manifestation in Venezuela).

Lumumba said “The colonialists care nothing for Africa for her own sake. They are attracted by African riches and their actions are guided by the desire to preserve their interests in Africa against the wishes of the African people. For the colonialists all means are good if they help them to possess these riches” – the Guardian say Lumumba’s murder was the most important assassination of the 20th century.
They may be right – so what a pity they still haven’t learned the importance of what his death tell us about the corrupt nature of US power, and how it continues to play out to this very day with the same degree of media inertia and compliance.

lynette cracknell chaplin
lynette cracknell chaplin
Mar 21, 2019 10:30 AM
Reply to  harry stotle

It is strongly believed that Aldo Moro was assasinated by the CIA and Kissinger because of his intentions of making a historic compromise with Belenguer who was the leader of the Italian communist party. Without a doubt this assasination as well as the Gladio project changed the course of Italian politics

George Cornell
George Cornell
Mar 21, 2019 1:03 PM
Reply to  harry stotle

I was informed by African national representatives at an international meeting that there are more than a dozen Lumumbas, just known to Africans, who were martyred by the CIA for having continental leadership aspirations.

Gezzah Potts
Gezzah Potts
Mar 21, 2019 1:38 PM
Reply to  George Cornell

George Cornell: Amilcar Cabral, Pio Gama Pinto, Thomas Sankara, Eduardo Mondlane are four I can think of George, and of course we know what was done to Gaddafi, including Killary Clinton’s delighted reaction.

Gezzah Potts
Gezzah Potts
Mar 21, 2019 1:45 PM
Reply to  George Cornell

George Cornell: Amilcar Cabral, Thomas Sankara, Pio Gama Pinto, Eduardo Mondlane are four I can think of George, and of course, we all know what was done to Gaddafi, including Killary Clinton’s cackling reaction. Out of curiosity, who were the others you were told about.

George Cornell
George Cornell
Mar 21, 2019 4:13 PM
Reply to  Gezzah Potts

Well I am not an African and know of no others. Thanks for those four names. If it helps, my informants were from Senegal, Chad, Mauritania, Gabon, Togo, Côte D’Ivoire, Cameroon, and maybe a couple of others united by being part of what was called French Equatorial Africa.

You may be interested in their answer to my question , “Who was the best colonial master?”
Unanimously they answered what I did not ask, that the worst were the Belgians. The best? England. Second worst? France, who still squeezes gold out of Chad, one of the poorest countries in the world. There is plenty of shame to spread all around.

Marilyn Goodman
Marilyn Goodman
Mar 21, 2019 7:56 AM

What a wonderful article… I laughed and laughed… A great way to remember things of course. I dont do facebook but David my husband will put it on his. I met Bill Blum in the 70’s as a young Marxist.. now an older Marxist at a rally when we were all still reeling from Allende’s murder at the hands of the CIA… Bill was a truly great guy. Keep up the good work. Love the Off Guardian… So very pleased I cancelled my Guardian subscription after 40 years. Marilyn.

Paul
Paul
Mar 21, 2019 10:35 AM

But surely it’s not a laughing matter … I gave up around half-way because I couldn’t stand any more of Maybury’s self-indulgent, self-consciously ‘clever’ verbal pyrotechnics and unnecessary repetitiveness.

The Blum quotes and the JFK photo I will value – though unfortunately it’s not just the 1% of the super-rich who have corrupted the world. It’s the 50+% (a guess) of the ‘comfortably off’, mostly in Western societies, who don’t want ‘the good times’ to end and have too often looked on silently as the looting and mass murder continued from country to country.

The slogan of the UK Column News seems appropriate: qui tacet consentire videtur: “those who remain silent will be seen [or held] to have consented”.

Where are the protests against the arrival and stationing of American nuclear bombers at Fairford (one of which has apparently just carried out a stupidly provocative mock bombing run against part of the Russian navy)?

Gezzah Potts
Gezzah Potts
Mar 21, 2019 9:20 PM
Reply to  Paul

Paul: completely agree with you that too many in the West just don’t want to know what is being done in their name. Even when you tell people what’s happening in Yemen or Venezuela or Syria, they: A) change the subject. B) repeat verbatim what they heard in the MSM. C) fully ignore what you said.

Fair dinkum
Fair dinkum
Mar 21, 2019 7:00 AM

The vast majority of Americans, like most ordinary working folk around the world, are reasonable people.
It only takes a few psychopaths, and they are always leaders, CEOs and military careerist, to completely and utterly destroy humanity.

George Cornell
George Cornell
Mar 21, 2019 1:05 PM
Reply to  Fair dinkum

Yes, were it a democracy, they would need to shoulder the blame. But they need to accept some of it.

Wilmers31
Wilmers31
Mar 21, 2019 6:27 AM

Can you mention Mobutu without mentioning Manafort?

“” When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it, and a moral code that glorifies it’.””
That is what I experienced in Germany after reunification – our land plundered through corrupt authorization, given to France with the help of the US (see David Brooks).

I was positively disposed towards the US but they have a tendency to be so ruthless that even little old souls like me will despise them and what they stand for.

Heil Freedom and Democracy!