In one of the fiery oratories for which he was well-known, the late Hugo Chávez once stated his belief that "the American empire is the greatest menace to our planet." While his detractors have often sought to paint his rhetorical flourishes as a manifestation of unprovoked and unpopular extremism, to his death Chávez remained extremely popular with the majority of the Venezuelan people.Read the rest of the article here.
Indeed, far from being an outlier, Chávez fit well within the spectrum of both Central and Latin American popular opinion. While his style may have been his own, his beliefs and worldview regarding US interventionism were reflected in other leaders throughout the region. Looking at the history of US engagement in Latin America, it becomes evident why such a situation exists. From overthrowing democratically elected leaders, operating death squads, and torturing civilians, the history of US involvement in the region has understandably helped create a widespread popular backlash that persists to this day.
The primary theatre of war has since switched from Latin America to the Middle East, but many of the same tactics of that period – which caused so much devastation and engendered so much visceral anger – seem to have been redeployed on the other side of the world. As reported this week by the Guardian, recent investigations have suggested that Pentagon officials at the highest levels oversaw torture facilities during the war in Iraq. The allegations are decidedly gruesome: rooms used for interrogating detainees stained with blood; children tied into extreme stress positions with their bodies beaten to discoloration.
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Comment: The trial of dirty wars is an ongoing legacy of American foreign policy. It was President Eisenhower who gave the order to eliminate Patrice Lumumba. Assassinating foreign leaders is not new to Obama and George W. Bush did not invent the art of lying as a basis for going to war.
In effect, the US assassinated Saddam Hussein. Muammar Gadaffi suffered a similar fate.
No wonder that Venezuela's Vice-President Nicolás Maduro thinks the US used germ warfare to kill President Hugo Chávez.
Ron Ridenour in a thought provoking article entitled "Hugo Chávez: Victim of US Germ Warfare?" (Dissident Voice: March 8) argues that Maduro's allegation may not be as outrageous as many in the West might think:
Who can forget the legacy of Agent Orange in Vietnam? What kind of politics thinks it necessary to use biological warfare to kill and maim innocents and contaminate their agricultural fields and drinking water for generations?"It is not as though the US never uses bacteriological warfare to murder, or attempt to murder its enemies—most having democratically chosen leaders—as well as spreading diseases that randomly kill or disable masses of people, kill their animals and destroy crops."
The US is a dirty war machine and it is taking its tactics, once again, to the African theater.
Even as I write here the US is sending more troops and drones into key interest areas in Africa. In the coming months there will be increased interventions of the Somalia, Libya and Mali kind. Leaders, some of them elected leaders, will be toppled and proxy groups will be armed in this latest extension of the dirty wars strategy.
Obama will continue his drone assassinations as he indicated in his State of the Union Speech:
"Where necessary, through a range of capabilities, we will continue to take direct action against those terrorists who pose the gravest threat to Americans ..."The US has no specific strategy for domination. It never has. In Vietnam like Nicaragua like Granada like Iraq like Libya and now Syria it has always been unmitigated and immoral violence.
Dirty wars are an assumed constitutional right of the warmongers that make up the ruling political elite.
And, as William Blum argues, America's "war lovers" are determined to pursue their passion.
This is not a conspiracy theory. It is the greatest assault on humanity in modern times - if not ever.
Onward!
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