Venezuela: VS verandering van regime mislukt >> de Venezolanen wacht een VS invasie

Na alle moeite die de VS zich al 20 jaar getroost om een eind te maken aan het democratisch gekozen socialistisch bewind van Venezuela, wijst alles erop dat de VS bezig is met Peru, Colombia en Brazilië, van wie de laatste twee landen grenzen aan Venezuela, een invasie voor te bereiden in dat land........

Er hebben in 2017 al vier grote militaire oefeningen plaats gevonden in Latijns Amerika en zelfs de NAVO schijnt nu een militaire basis te hebben in Brazilië, waarschijnlijk dezelfde als de 'tijdelijke' militaire VS basis in Brazilië, in de buurt waar Venezuela, Brazilië en Colombia aan elkaar grenzen...... Zoals gezegd: vorig jaar hebben er maar liefst 4 grote militaire oefeningen plaatsgevonden, met deelname van Colombia, Brazilië en Peru, alles o.l.v. de VS..... Eén van die oefeningen, 'Operation: America United' was zelfs de grootste militaire oefening ooit gehouden in Midden- en Zuid-Amerika (Latijns Amerika).........

Overigens heeft de VS al militaire bases in Colombia en het Caraïbisch gebied, onderhoudt daarnaast innige banden met andere landen in de buurt van Venezuela, wat dat betreft is Venezuela al omsingeld met VS militaire bases (uiteraard speelt ook Nederland weer 'een mooie rol' in deze...)

De VS is al meer dan 18 jaar bezig met een economische oorlog tegen Venezuela, al heeft deze tot nu toe weinig of niets opgeleverd wat betreft 'regime change'. Al onder 'vredesduif' Obama heeft de VS deze oorlog verscherpt en VS bedrijven 'dringend aangeraden' hun supermarktketens in Venezuela niet langer te bevoorraden. Hetzelfde deed de VS met buitenlandse investeerders en je weet het waarschijnlijk wel, als de VS dreigt, gehoorzamen de bedrijven en instellingen, daar ze het anders wel kunnen vergeten als bedrijf of instelling........

Als gevolg van deze boycot is er niet alleen een groot tekort aan levensmiddelen, maar bijvoorbeeld ook aan medicijnen. Daarmee kan de VS ten overvloede nog eens worden aangewezen als een terreurstaat, die schijt heeft aan ellende onder de gewone bevolking en aan mensenrechten, zoals dit gestolen land al zo vaak elders heeft laten zien, maar zeker in Zuid- en Midden-Amerika.......

De gewelddadige demonstraties in Venezuela van vorig jaar, werden ook al door de VS georganiseerd, waar zelfs gewapende groepen uit het buitenland werden ingezet tegen politie en leger van Venezuela......

In 2002 heeft er al een militaire coup plaatsgevonden in Venezuela, die met hulp van de (arme) bevolking de kop werd ingedrukt, een coup die zoals gewoonlijk werd geregisseerd door de CIA.......

Een militaire coup nu lijkt zeer onwaarschijnlijk ,daar het leger voor het overgrote deel achter de socialistische regering Maduro staat.

Lees het volgend uitstekende en sterk onderbouwde artikel dat duidelijk maakt waar de VS mee bezig is t.a.v. Venezuela, een artikel van Kevin Zeese en Maragaret Flowers, door Anti-Media overgenomen van Consortium News:

US Regime Change Fails in Venezuela: Military Coup or Invasion Next?

February 14, 2018 at 10:27 am

Written by Consortium News

(CN) — Several signals point to a possible military strike on Venezuela, with high-ranking officials and influential politicians making clear that it is a distinct possibility.

Speaking at his alma mater, the University of Texas, on February 1, Secretary of State Tillerson suggested a potential military coup in in the country. Tillerson then visited allied Latin American countries urging regime change and more economic sanctions on Venezuela. Tillerson is also reportedly considering banning the processing or sale of Venezuelan oil in the United States and is discouraging other countries from buying Venezuelan oil.

In a series of tweets, Senator Marco Rubio, the Republican from Florida, where many Venezuelan oligarchs live, openly called for a military coup in Venezuela. “The world would support the Armed Forces in #Venezuela if they decide to protect the people & restore democracy by removing a dictator,” the former presidential candidate tweeted.

How absurd — remove an elected president with a military coup to restore democracy? Does that pass the straight face test? This refrain of Rubio and Tillerson seems to be the nonsensical public position of U.S. policy.

The U.S. has been seeking regime change in Venezuela since Hugo Chavez was elected in 1998. Trump joined Presidents Obama and Bush before him in continuing efforts to change the government and put in place a U.S.-friendly oligarch government.

They came closest in 2002 when a military coup removed Chavez. The Commander-in-Chief of the Venezuelan military announced Chavez had resigned and Pedro Carmona, of the Venezuelan Chamber of Commerce, became interim president. Carmona dissolved the National Assembly and Supreme Court and declared the Constitution void. The people surrounded the presidential palace and seized television stations, Carmona resigned and fled to Colombia. Within 47 hours, civilians and the military restored Chavez to the presidency. The coup was a turning point that strengthened the Bolivarian Revolution, showed people could defeat a coup and exposed the US and oligarchs.

U.S. Regime Change Tactics Have Failed In Venezuela

The U.S. and oligarchs continue their efforts to reverse the Bolivarian Revolution. The United States has a long history of regime change around the world and has tried all of its regime change tools in Venezuela. So far they have failed.

Economic War

Destroying the Venezuelan economy has been an ongoing campaign by the US and oligarchs. It is reminiscent of the US coup in Chile which ended the presidency of Salvador Allende. To create the environment for the Chilean coup, President Nixon ordered the CIA to “make the economy scream.”

Henry Kissinger devised the coup noting a billion dollars of investment were at stake. He also feared the “the insidious model effect” of the example of Chile leading to other countries breaking from the United States and capitalism. Kissinger’s top deputy at the National Security Council, Viron Vaky, opposed the coup saying, “What we propose is patently a violation of our own principles and policy tenets .… If these principles have any meaning, we normally depart from them only to meet the gravest threat … our survival.”

These objections hold true regarding recent US coups, including in Venezuela and Honduras, Ukraine and Brazil, among others. Allende died in the coup and wrote his last words to the people of Chile, especially the workers, “Long live the people! Long live the workers!” He was replaced by Augusto Pinochet, a brutal and violent dictator.

For decades the US has been fighting an economic war, “making the economy scream,” in Venezuela.

Wealthy Venezuelans have been conducting economic sabotage aided by the US with sanctions and other tactics. This includes hoarding food, supplies and other necessities in warehouses or in Colombia while Venezuelan markets are bare. The scarcity is used to fuel protests, e.g. “The March of the Empty Pots,” a carbon copy of marches in Chile before the September 11, 1973 coup. Economic warfare has escalated through Obama and under Trump, with Tillerson now urging economic sanctions on oil.

President Maduro recognized the economic hardship but also said sanctions open up the opportunity for a new era of independence and “begins the stage of post-domination by the United States, with Venezuela again at the center of this struggle for dignity and liberation.” The second-in-command of the Socialist Party, Diosdado Cabello, said, “[if they] apply sanctions, we will apply elections.”

Opposition Protests

Another common US regime change tool is supporting opposition protests. The Trump administration renewed regime change operations in Venezuela and the anti-Maduro protests, which began under Obama, grew more violent. The opposition protests included barricades, snipers and murders as well as widespread injuries. When police arrested those using violence, the US claimed Venezuela opposed free speech and protests.

The opposition tried to use the crack down against violence to achieve the U.S. tactic of  dividing the military. The U.S. and western media ignored opposition violence and blamed the Venezuelan government instead. Violence became so extreme it looked like the opposition was pushing Venezuela into a Syrian-type civil war. Instead, opposition violence backfired on them.

Violent protests are part of U.S. regime change repertoire. This was demonstrated in the U.S. coup in Ukraine, where the U.S. spent $5 billion to organize government opposition including U.S. and EU funding violent protesters. This tactic was used in early US coups like the 1953 Iran coup of Prime Minister Mossadegh. The U.S. has admitted organizing this coup that ended Iran’s brief experience with democracy. Like Venezuela, a key reason for the Iran coup was control of the nation’s oil.

Funding Opposition

There has been massive U.S. investment in creating opposition to the Venezuelan government. Tens of millions of dollars have been openly spent through USAID, the National Endowment for Democracy and other related US regime change agencies. It is unknown how much the CIA has spent from its secret budget, but the CIA has also been involved in Venezuela. Current CIA director, Mike Pompeo, said he is “hopeful there can be a transition in Venezuela.”

The United States has also educated leaders of opposition movements, e.g. Leopoldo López was educated at private schools in the US, including the CIA-associated Kenyon College. He was groomed at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and made repeated visits to the regime change agency, the National Republican Institute.

Elections

While the US calls Venezuela a dictatorship, it is in fact a strong democracy with an excellent voting system. Election observers monitor every election.

In 2016, the economic crisis led to the opposition winning a majority in the National Assembly. One of their first acts was to pass an amnesty law. The law described 17 years of crimes including violent felonies and terrorism committed by the opposition. It was an admission of crimes back to the 2002 coup and through 2016. The law demonstrated violent treason against Venezuela. One month later, the Supreme Court of Venezuela ruled the amnesty law was unconstitutional. U.S. media, regime change advocates and anti-Venezuela human rights groups attacked the Supreme Court decision, showing their alliance with the admitted criminals.

Years of violent protests and regime change attempts, and then admitting their crimes in an amnesty bill, have caused those opposed to the Bolivarian Revolution to lose power and become unpopular.  In three recent elections Maduro’s party won regional,  local and the Constituent Assembly elections.

The electoral commission announced the presidential election will be held on April 22. Maduro will run for re-election with the United Socialist Party. Opposition leaders such as Henry Ramos and Henri Falcon have expressed interest in running, but the opposition has not decided whether to participate. Henrique Capriles, who narrowly lost to Maduro in the last election, was banned from running for office because of irregularities in his campaign, including taking foreign donations. Capriles has been a leader of the violent protests. When his ban was announced he called for protests to remove Maduro from office. Also banned was Leopoldo Lopez, another leader of the violent protests who is under house arrest serving a thirteen year sentence for inciting violence.

Now, the United States says it will not recognize the presidential election and urges a military coup. For two years, the opposition demanded presidential elections, but now it is unclear whether they will participate. They know they are unpopular and Maduro is likely to be re-elected.

Is War Against Venezuela Coming?

A military coup faces challenges in Venezuela as the people, including the military, are well educated about US imperialism. Tillerson openly urging a military coup makes it more difficult.

The government and opposition recently negotiated a peace settlement entitled “Democratic Coexistence Agreement for Venezuela.” They agreed on all of the issues including ending economic sanctions, scheduling elections and more. They agreed on the date of the next presidential election. It was originally planned for March, but in a concession to the opposition, it was  rescheduled for the end of April. Maduro signed the agreement even though the opposition did not attend the signing ceremony. They backed out after Colombian President Santos, who was meeting with Secretary Tillerson, called and told them not to sign. Maduro will now make the agreement a public issue by allowing the people of Venezuela to sign it.

Not recognizing elections and urging a military coup are bad enough, but more disconcerting is that Admiral Kurt Tidd, head of Southcom, held a closed door meeting in Colombia after Tillerson’s visit. The topic was “regional destabilization” and Venezuela was a focus.

A military attack on Venezuela from its Colombian and Brazilian borders is not far fetched. In January, the NY Times asked, “Should the US military invade Venezuela?” President Trump said the US is considering US military force against Venezuela. His chief of staff, John Kelly, was formerly the general in charge of Southcom. Tidd has claimed the crisis, created in large part by the economic war against Venezuela, requires military action for humanitarian reasons.

War preparations are already underway in Colombia, which plays the role of Israel for the US in Latin America. The coup government in Brazil, increased its military budget 36 percent, and participated in Operation: America United, the largest joint military exercise in Latin American history. It was one of four military exercises by the US with Brazil, Colombia and Peru in Latin America in 2017. The US Congress ordered the Pentagon to develop military contingencies for Venezuela in the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act.

While there is opposition to US military bases, James Patrick Jordan explains, on our radio show, the US has military bases in Colombia and the Caribbean and military agreements with countries in the region; and therefore, Venezuela is already surrounded.

The United States is targeting Venezuela because the Bolivarian Revolution provides an example against U.S. imperialism. An invasion of Venezuela will become another war-quagmire that kills innocent Venezuelans, U.S. soldiers and others over control of oil. People in the United States who support the self-determination of countries should show solidarity with Venezuelans, expose the U.S. agenda and publicly denounce regime change. We need to educate people about what is really happening in Venezuela to overcome the false media coverage.

Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers co-direct Popular Resistance. [This article originally appeared at https://popularresistance.org and is republished with authors’ permission.]

By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers / Republished with permission / Consortium News / Report a typo

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Ter herinneren aan de enorme agressie van de VS: 'VS buitenlandbeleid sinds WOII: een lange lijst van staatsgrepen en oorlogen..........' en:  'List of wars involving the United States'

Zie ook:
'Halliburton en Chevron hebben groot belang bij 'regime change' in Venezuela'

'Mike Pence (vicepresident VS) gaf Guaidó, de door de VS gewenste leider, groen licht voor de coup in Venezuela'

'VS coup tegen Maduro in volle gang........'

'VS weer op oorlogspad in Latijns-Amerika: Venezuela het volgende slachtoffer.......'

'Als de VS stopt met spelen van 'politieagent' en het vernielen van de wereld, zullen de slechte krachten winnen......'

'VS zet Latijns-Amerikaanse landen tegen elkaar op en is bezig met voorbereiding invasie Venezuela'

'Trump wilde naast de economische oorlogsvoering tegen Venezuela dat land daadwerkelijk militair aanvallen......'

'Venezolaanse regionale verkiezingen gehekeld door westen, terwijl internationale waarnemers deze als eerlijk beoordeelden..........'

'Venezuela: 'studentenprotest' wordt uitgevoerd door ingehuurde troepen.........' 

'Venezuela: Target of Economic Warfare'

'Venezuela moet en zal 'verlost' worden van Maduro, met 'oh wonder' een dikke rol van de VS en de reguliere westerse media'

'Venezolaanse regering treedt terecht op tegen de uiterst gewelddadige oppositie!!'

'Venezuela ontwricht, wat de reguliere media u niet vertellen........'

'VS steunt rechtse coalitie (MUD) in Venezuela.........'

'Venezuela’s US-Backed Opposition Turns Up The Violence Following Assembly Vote'

'10 Things You Need to Know About the Terrorist Attack in Venezuela'

'Venezuelans in the Streets to Support Constituent Assembly'

'What Mainstream Media Got Wrong About Venezuela's Constituent Assembly Vote' (met mogelijkheid tot directe vertaling)

'The Left and Venezuela' (met mogelijkheid tot directe vertaling)

'Rondje Venezuela schoppen op Radio1.........'

'Karabulut (SP) blij dat ze Maduro eindelijk ook kan schoppen.........'

'EU neemt uiterst hypocriet sancties tegen de Venezolaanse regering Maduro.........'

'Abby Martin Busts Open Myths on Venezuela's Food Crisis: 'Shelves Fully Stocked'' (zie ook de video in dat artikel!)

'Venezuela: de anti-propaganda van John Oliver (en het grootste deel westerse massamedia) feilloos doorgeprikt'

Wetenschappers 'ontdekken' verborgen onder het oerwoud een oude Mayastad voor 10 miljoen mensen!

Middels een aangepaste techniek hebben wetenschappers in Guatemala een Mayastad ontdekt, waar naar schatting 10 miljoen mensen moeten hebben gewoond! Overigens was deze stad al bekend, men had deze echter veel kleiner ingeschat.

Middels de aangepaste Lidar 'mapping techniek' ontdekte men dat de stad onder het oerwoud veel groter was dan eerder verondersteld. De stad moet bewoond zijn geweest van 1.000 jaar voor onze jaartelling tot 900 jaar daarna.

Bij mijn weten was er nergens anders ter wereld een stad zo groot in die tijd en men heeft al ontdekt hoe men een dergelijke bevolking kon voeden en dat was voor die tijd een huzarenstuk.

Niet verder geluld, lees het verhaal over de hoogwaardige cultuur die een dergelijke stad bouwde en haar bewoners goed moet hebben weten te dienen:

Scientists Discover Ancient Mayan City of 10 Million People Hidden Under Jungle

February 9, 2018 at 8:06 am

Written by Amanda Froelich

(TMU) —The Earth is so vast, archaeologists are still finding remnants of lost civilizations. Most recently, researchers discovered a Mayan city, hidden in the Guatemalan jungle, which is estimated to have been home to approximately 10 million citizens.

The Guardian reports that the researchers used a high-tech aerial mapping technique to find tens of thousands of hidden structures. They include Mayan houses, buildings, defense works, pyramids, an industrial-sized agricultural field and irrigation canals. At least four major Mayan ceremonial centers with plazas were also detected by the mapping technique.

News of the lost city, which was hidden in the jungle of Guatemala’s Peten region, was announced on Thursday by an alliance of US, European and Guatemalan archaeologists who have been working in conjunction with Guatemala’s Mayan Heritage and Nature Foundation.

To supply the 10 million Mayan residents, massive food production would have been essential. Marcello A Canuto, a professor of anthropology at Tulane University, commented on this when he said, “That is two to three times more [inhabitants] than people were saying there were.”

The mapping technique is called Lidar, which stands for light detection and ranging. Contours hidden by dense foliage are found as the technology bounces pulsed laser light off the ground. The resulting images revealed that the Mayans altered the landscape in a drastic way. In some areas, 95 percent of the land was cultivated.

Said Francisco Estrada-Belli, a research assistant professor at Tulane University, “Their agriculture is much more intensive and therefore sustainable than we thought, and they were cultivating every inch of the land.” Estrada-Belli added that the ancient Mayas partly drained swampy road that hasn’t been farmed since.

Researchers suggest the civilization had a highly organized workforce. They predicted this based on the extensive defensive fences, ditch-and-rampart systems, and the constructed irrigation canals.

This unprocessed image of the jungle reveals the groundworks and buildings beneath the dense foliage. Credit: Depositphotos

As The Guardian reports, the mapping — which revealed 810 square miles (or 2,100 square kilometers) of hidden civilization — expands the area that was intensively occupied by the Maya. The culture flourished between roughly 1,000 BC and 900 AD. Many descendants still inhabit the region.

Thomas Garrison, assistant professor of anthropology at Ithaca College in New York, used the Lidar data to look for one of the roads.

“I found it, but if I had not had the Lidar and known that that’s what it was, I would have walked right over it, because of how dense the jungle is.”

Tikal. The ancient ruins are located in the rainforests of Guatemala. Credit: DepositPhotos

Garrison noted that the jungle grew over the abandoned Maya field and structures, rather than destroyed them. This is unlike some other ancient cities, whose fields, roads and outbuildings have been all but destroyed by the elements.

“The jungle, which has hindered us in our discovery efforts for so long, has actually worked as this great preservative tool of the impact the culture had across the landscape,” noted Garrison. The assistant professor says the finding “can’t be called anything other than a Maya fortress.”

To the researchers’ surprise, the structures were hiding in plain sight. “As soon as we saw this we all felt a little sheepish,” said Canuto, “because these were things that we had been walking over all the time.” 

What else might be discovered with the Lidar technology? Only time will tell!

By Amanda Froelich / Republished with permission / The Mind Unleashed / Report a typo

Rutte's verbazing over de ophef rond de liegende VVD'er Zijlstra......

Links_huftertje‏ @links_huftertje Feb 13

Hij snapt niks van al die opwinding want hij liegt zelf al jaren en blijft rustig zitten. #Halbewaarheden

       

Zie ook: 'Zijlstra heeft gelogen, liegt en zal blijven liegen, al helemaal als het over Rusland gaat.......'

       en: 'Zijlstra terecht afgetreden wegens anti-Russische propaganda, nu Rutte nog........'

Als de VS niet de VS was, zou de Verenigde Staten dit gestolen land bombarderen.........

Zoals op deze pek al veelvuldig gesteld: de VS is de grootste terreurentiteit op aarde, het middels de grootste genocide ooit* gestolen land dat alleen al vanaf WOII meer dan 22 miljoen mensen vermoordde.................

Gisteren kwam Anti-Media met een artikel onder de titel: 'If America Wasn’t America, the United States Would Be Bombing It'. Hoewel ik de opzet van deze zin begrijp, klopt deze toch niet helemaal. Immers de VS laat andere terreurstaten gewoon hun gang gaan, zolang ze maar de VS steunen.... Neem Israël en Saoedi-Arabië, die zelfs door de VS worden gesteund in de terreur die ze brengen, en door diezelfde VS worden ontzien in de VN Veiligheidsraad, als het om resoluties tegen de smerige, bloederige praktijken gaat waar deze 2 landen zich keer op keer schuldig aan maken......

Maar geen gezeik: zeker niet als je ziet dat de VS haar illegale oorlogen verdedigt door te stellen dat het voor de verdrukte volkeren opkomt en democratie wil brengen**.

Darius Shahtahmasebi schreef het artikel n.a.v. een opiniestuk van voormalig VS regeringsadviseur Edward Luttwak. Deze oorlogshitser stelde in de kop dat het tijd is voor de VS om Noord-Korea te bombarderen.

Lullig genoeg voor Luttwak, gebruikte hij argumenten die nu juist van toepassing zijn op de wandel en handel van de VS... Zo geeft Shahtahmasebi een aantal voorbeelden, zoals het gebruik van atoombommen door de VS tegen Hiroshima en Nagasaki, terwijl deze aanvallen totaal onnodig waren zoals o.a. de hoge VS militairen Nimitz en Halsey destijds betoogden.

Lees het volgende artikel van Shahtahmasebi en oordeel zelf:

If America Wasn’t America, the United States Would Be Bombing It

February 12, 2018 at 1:00 pm

Written by Darius Shahtahmasebi

(ANTIMEDIA Op-ed) — On January 8, 2018, former government advisor Edward Luttwak wrote an opinion piece for Foreign Policy titled “It’s Time to Bomb North Korea.”

Luttwak’s thesis is relatively straightforward. There is a government out there that may very soon acquire nuclear-weapons capabilities, and this country cannot be trusted to responsibly handle such a stockpile. The responsibility to protect the world from a rogue nation cannot be argued with, and we understandably have a duty to ensure the future of humanity.

However, there is one rogue nation that continues to hold the world ransom with its nuclear weapons supply. It is decimating non-compliant states left, right, and center. This country must be stopped dead in its tracks before anyone turns to the issue of North Korea.

In August of 1945, this rogue nation dropped two atomic bombs on civilian targets, not military targets, completely obliterating between 135,000 and 300,000 Japanese civilians in just these two acts alone. Prior to this event, this country killed even more civilians in the infamous firebombing of Tokyo and other areas of Japan, dropping close to 500,000 cylinders of napalm and petroleum jelly on some of Japan’s most densely populated areas.

Recently, historians have become more open to the possibility that dropping the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not actually necessary to end World War II. This has also been confirmed by those who actually took part in it. As the Nation explained:

“Fleet Adm. Chester Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet, stated in a public address at the Washington Monument two months after the bombings that ‘the atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military standpoint, in the defeat of Japan…’ Adm. William “Bull” Halsey Jr., Commander of the US Third Fleet, stated publicly in 1946 that ‘the first atomic bomb was an unnecessary experiment…. It was a mistake to ever drop it…. [the scientists] had this toy and they wanted to try it out, so they dropped it…” [emphasis added]

A few months’ prior, this rogue country’s invasion of the Japanese island of Okinawa also claimed at least one quarter of Okinawa’s population. The Okinawan people have been protesting this country’s military presence ever since. The most recent ongoing protest has lasted well over 5,000 days in a row.

This nation’s bloodlust continued well after the end of World War II. Barely half a decade later, this country bombed North Korea into complete oblivion, destroying over 8,700 factories, 5,000 schools, 1,000 hospitals, 600,000 homes, and eventually killing off as much as 20 percent of the country’s population. As the Asia Pacific Journal has noted, the assaulting country dropped so many bombs that they eventually ran out of targets to hit, turning to bomb the irrigation systems, instead:

“By the fall of 1952, there were no effective targets left for US planes to hit. Every significant town, city and industrial area in North Korea had already been bombed. In the spring of 1953, the Air Force targeted irrigation dams on the Yalu River, both to destroy the North Korean rice crop and to pressure the Chinese, who would have to supply more food aid to the North. Five reservoirs were hit, flooding thousands of acres of farmland, inundating whole towns and laying waste to the essential food source for millions of North Koreans.” [emphasis added]

This was just the beginning. Having successfully destroyed the future North Korean state, this country moved on to the rest of East Asia and Indo-China, too. As Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi has explained:

“We [this loose cannon of a nation] dumped 20 million gallons of toxic herbicide on Vietnam from the air, just to make the shooting easier without all those trees, an insane plan to win ‘hearts and minds’ that has left about a million still disabled from defects and disease – including about 100,000 children, even decades later, little kids with misshapen heads, webbed hands and fused eyelids writhing on cots, our real American legacy, well out of view, of course.”

This mass murder led to the deaths of between 1.5 million and 3.8 million people, according to the Washington Post. More bombs were dropped on Vietnam than were unleashed during the entire conflict in World War II. While this was going on, this same country was also secretly bombing Laos and Cambodia, too, where there are over 80 million unexploded bombs still killing people to this day.

This country also decided to bomb Yugoslavia, Panama, and Grenada before invading Iraq in the early 1990s***. Having successfully bombed Iraqi infrastructure, this country then punished Iraq’s entire civilian population with brutal sanctions. At the time, the U.N. estimated that approximately 1.7 million Iraqis had died as a result, including 500,000 to 600,000 children. Some years later, a prominent medical journal attempted to absolve the cause of this infamous history by refuting the statistics involved despite the fact that, when interviewed during the sanctions-era, Bill Clinton’s secretary of state,

Madeleine Albright, intimated that to this rogue government, the deaths of half a million children were “worth it” as the “price” Iraq needed to pay. In other words, whether half a million children died or not was irrelevant to this bloodthirsty nation, which barely blinked while carrying out this murderous policy.

This almighty superpower then invaded Iraq again in 2003 and plunged the entire region into chaos. At the end of May 2017, the Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) released a study concluding that the death toll from this violent nation’s 2003 invasion of Iraq had led to over one million deaths and that at least one-third of them were caused directly by the invading force.

Not to mention this country also invaded Afghanistan prior to the invasion of Iraq (even though the militants plaguing Afghanistan were originally trained and financed by this warmongering nation). It then went on to bomb Yemen, Syria, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, and the Philippines.

Libya famously had one of the highest standards of living in the region. It had state-assisted healthcare, education, transport, and affordable housing. It is now a lawless war-zone rife with extremism where slaves are openly traded like commodities amid the power vacuum created as a direct result of the 2011 invasion.

In 2017, the commander-in-chief of this violent nation took the monumental death and destruction to a new a level by removing the restrictions on delivering airstrikes, which resulted in thousands upon thousands of civilian deaths. Before that, in the first six months of 2017, this country dropped over 20,650 bombs, a monumental increase from the year that preceded it.

Despite these statistics, all of the above conquests are mere child’s play to this nation. The real prize lies in some of the more defiant and more powerful states, which this country has already unleashed a containment strategy upon. This country has deployed its own troops all across the border with Russia even though it promised in the early 1990s it would do no such thing. It also has a specific policy of containing Russia’s close ally, China, all the while threatening China’s borders with talks of direct strikes on North Korea (again, remember it already did so in the 1950s).

This country also elected a president who not only believes it is okay to embrace this rampantly violent militarism but who openly calls other countries “shitholes” – the very same term that aptly describes the way this country has treated the rest of the world for decades on end. This same president also reportedly once asked three times in a meeting, “If we have nuclear weapons, why don’t we use them?” and shortly after proposed a policy to remove the constraints protecting the world from his dangerous supply of advanced nuclear weaponry.

When it isn’t directly bombing a country, it is also arming radical insurgent groups, creating instability, and directly overthrowing governments through its covert operatives on the ground.

If we have any empathy for humanity, it is clear that this country must be stopped. It cannot continue to act like this to the detriment of the rest of the planet and the safety and security of the rest of us. This country openly talks about using its nuclear weapons, has used them before, and has continued to use all manner of weapons unabated in the years since while threatening to expand the use of these weapons to other countries.

Seriously, if North Korea seems like a threat, imagine how the rest of the world feels while watching one country violently take on the rest of the planet single-handedly, leaving nothing but destruction in its wake and promising nothing less than a nuclear holocaust in the years to come.

There is only one country that has done and that continues to do the very things North Korea is being accused of doing.

Take as much time as you need for that to resonate.

Op-ed / Creative Commons / Anti-Media / Report a typo

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*    De grootste genocide ooit werd uitgevoerd in Noord-, Midden- en Zuid-Amerika

**  'Democratie brengen', zelfs in landen waar NB een democratisch gekozen regering zat of zit, neem Syrië en Oekraïne (onder Janoekovytsj), waar de CIA eerst een opstand organiseerde, om deze te laten eindigen in een staatsgreep; deze zaak lukte wel in Oekraïne, maar niet in Syrië, waardoor deze landen wel in oorlog raakten en in chaos werden gestort......

*** De oorlog van de VS (NAVO) tegen Joegoslavië vond plaats nadat de VS op 17 januari 1991 onder de oude Bush-slachter (George H.W. Bush) de eerste VS oorlog tegen Irak begon, dit in tegenstelling tot wat Shahtahmasebi daar hierboven over heeft geschreven.

En om nog even te herinneren aan de enorme agressie van de VS, die niet op een illegale oorlog meer of minder kijkt:  'VS buitenlandbeleid sinds WOII: een lange lijst van staatsgrepen en oorlogen..........' en:  'List of wars involving the United States'

Zie ook: 'Top VS generaal stelt dat er een grote oorlog met Rusland op komst is, ofwel: WOIII......'

        en: 'Trumps atoomknop is groter dan die van Kim Yung-un, bovendien werkt de VS knop wel....... ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!'

        en: 'VN chef Guterres geeft alarmcode rood af voor de wereld in 2018 en niet alleen vanwege het milieu of klimaat......'

        en: 'Trumps uitlating over de atoomknop en de onverschilligheid bij zijn achterban, een dictatuur waardig.........'

        en: 'VS op weg naar daadwerkelijk gebruik van het kernwapen..............' (plus twee andere Engelstalige artikelen)

        en: 'VS sluit een nucleaire aanval niet uit als een mogelijke reactie op een 'cyberaanval.......''

        en: 'NAVO oefent op een nucleaire aanval tegen 'een denkbeeldige vijand', ofwel Rusland..........' (de NAVO is in feite een organisatie van de VS en is daarmee een organisatie die dan ook precies doet wat de VS wil en de VS helpt in haar grootschalige terreur )

       en: 'Pompeo (CIA opperhoofd met koperen fluit): heeft alle aanwijzingen dat Rusland de midterm verkiezingen zal manipuleren......'

En om nog even te herinneren aan de enorme agressie van de VS, die niet op een illegale oorlog meer of minder kijkt:  'VS buitenlandbeleid sinds WOII: een lange lijst van staatsgrepen en oorlogen..........' en:  'List of wars involving the United States'

Dan nog over het bedreigen van Noord-Korea door Trump met 'Fire and Fury): 'Noord-Korea verkeerd begrepen: het land wordt bedreigd door de VS, dat alleen deze eeuw al minstens 4 illegale oorlogen begon........'   en: 'Noord-Korea wil graag overleggen met de VS dat alweer de boot afhoudt.........'