rigorousintuition.ca

Source: „Standard Techniques“, British Channel 4, 1985.
Interviewees:
John Stockwell, former CIA officer and whistleblower
David MacMichael, former CIA analyst and whistleblower; co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
Fred Bridgland, British author and former Reuters war correspondent
See also: Carl Bernstein: The CIA and the Media, Rolling Stone, 1977.

Published: June 2016; updated January 2019

Belligerent Savant » Sun Feb 24, 2019 11:46 am wrote:.

Cross-post:

Belligerent Savant » Sun Feb 24, 2019 11:42 am wrote:.

Chris Murphy:

5/ Maduro is evil, and the U.S. should pursue a strategy to undermine him and prompt new elections. No one can defend what he has done to Venezuela. But it's quite a different thing for the U.S. to incite a civil war with no real plan for how it ends (sound familiar?).

What makes Maduro 'evil'? What has he done in Venezuela, specifically?

What about the SANCTIONS imposed on Venezuela by the U.S., and the resultant loss of lives/livilihoods of the Venezuelan people? Would that be considered "evil", especially if these sanctions were cynically and criminally imposed as a means to set up precisely this current "humanitarian" crisis and subsequent attempts by the U.S. [and their 'allies'] to [illegally] overthrow a sitting President of a sovereign State?

Chris Murphy either is ignorant of the larger picture or is being dishonest here. Common traits among those that take to Twitter.

A few excerpts from the report of the Independent Expert on the Promotion of a Democratic and Equitable International Order, Alfred-Maurice de Zayas (United States of America, Switzerland) on his visit to Venezuela and Ecuador form 26 November to 9 December 2017:

https://dezayasalfred.wordpress.com/201 ... d-ecuador/

In paragraph 36: “The effects of sanctions imposed by Presidents Obama and Trump and unilateral measures by Canada and the European Union have directly and indirectly aggravated the shortages in medicines such as insulin and anti-retroviral drugs. To the extent that economic sanctions have caused delays in distribution and thus contributed to many deaths, sanctions contravene the human rights obligations of the countries imposing them. Moreover, sanctions can amount to crimes against humanity under Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. An investigation by that Court would be appropriate, but the geopolitical submissiveness of the Court may prevent this.”

In paragraph 37. “Modern-day economic sanctions and blockades are comparable with medieval sieges of towns with the intention of forcing them to surrender. Twenty-first century sanctions attempt to bring not just a town, but sovereign countries to their knees. A difference, perhaps, is that twenty-first century sanctions are accompanied by the manipulation of public opinion through ‘fake news’, aggressive public relations and a pseudo-human rights rhetoric so as to give the impression that a human rights ‘end’ justifies the criminal means. There is not only a horizontal juridical world order governed by the Charter of the United Nations and principles of sovereign equality, but also a vertical world order reflecting the hierarchy of a geopolitical system that links dominant States with the rest of the world according to military and economic power. It is the latter, geopolitical system that generates geopolitical crimes, hitherto in total impunity….” He concludes: “Economic sanctions kill.”

[...]

In paragraph 40 the independent expert calls for a renewal of dialogue between the government and the opposition parties. “There is nothing more in keeping with the letter and spirit of the Charter of the United Nations than mediation. For two years, the former Spanish Prime Minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (quoted in full in annex IV), with the support of the Vatican, headed a negotiating team in the Dominican Republic which facilitated talks between the Government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and the opposition. Negotiations advanced to a balanced document entitled “Agreement of Democratic Coexistence” (quoted in full in annex III) that should have been signed by all sides on 7 February 2018. The Government signed, but, as was reported, a telephone call from Colombia frustrated the two-year negotiating process with the instruction: “Don’t sign”. Some believe that certain countries do not want to see a peaceful solution of the Venezuelan conflict and prefer to prolong the suffering of the Venezuelan people, expecting that the situation will reach the “humanitarian crisis” threshold and trigger a military intervention.”

[...]

In paragraph 30 the expert notes: “The principles of non-intervention and non-interference in the internal affairs of sovereign States belong to customary international law and have been reaffirmed in General Assembly resolutions, notably 2625 (XXV) and 3314 (XXIX), and in the 1993 Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action. Article 32 of the Charter of Economic Rights and Duties of States, adopted by the General Assembly in 1974, stipulates that no State may use or encourage the use of economic, political or any other type of measures to coerce another State in order to obtain from it the subordination of the exercise of its sovereign rights.” In paragraph 31 he highlights chapter 4, article 19, of the Charter of the OAS, which stipulates that “No State or group of States has the right to intervene, directly or indirectly, for any reason whatever, in the internal or external affairs of any other State. The foregoing principle prohibits not only armed force but also any other form of interference or attempted threat against the personality of the State or against its political, economic, and cultural elements”.

Belligerent Savant » Sun Feb 24, 2019 12:31 pm wrote:.

Also, here's an [imperfect] excerpt of the transcript for the video posted by conniption above:

https://youtu.be/ii5MlQgGXyk

Abby Martin:
Much everyone speaks with authority about the fact that there is a human rights crisis caused by the Maduro government. What is surprisingly absent
from the discourse is testimony from the human rights investigator designated by the UN to assess said crisis. Alfred De Zayas was the first UN investigator to go
to Venezuela in 21 years; he has written 13 reports for the UN Human Rights Council but his report on Venezuela was largely ignored.

Alfred De Zayas:
if you know a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and in Yemen, and in Syria, and in Sudan, and in Somalia, you wouldn't say there is humanitarian crisis in Venezuela, and at no point when I was walking the streets in Venezuela did I feel threatened, or did I see violence, or did I consider that this country was undergoing a humanitarian crisis, but I see human rights more and more being instrumentalized to destroy human rights. There is a weaponization of human rights, I see the
rule of law being instrumentalized to destroy the rule of law, and unfortunately the complicity of the mainstream media. What I am saying to you is I think it would have been sensible to say this to the BBC, it would have been sensible to say this to the New York Times, and to the Washington Post, and to the Economist, and to the Financial Times, but at no time since I returned from Venezuela and since my report was officially presented to the Human Rights Council have I been approached by any of these organs who actually have a responsibility to the people of the United States to inform.

You know, many people will say the crisis cannot be blamed on the sanctions, of course; that sanctions are being used as a scapegoat for Maduro's economic failures. offered to talk about the impacts of the sanctions thus far and the new sanctions that were just implemented on the state oil company.
What is particularly Machiavellian, what is particularly cynical, is to cause an economic crisis that threatens to become a humanitarian crisis. That's what the
United States has done through the financial blockade through the sanctions and then to say, 'oh we're going to offer you humanitarian help, we're sending over
so many tonnes of humanitarian assistance through US aid, we're sending it to Colombia and we're going to deliver it now'.

I think that here one guy [Juan Guaidó] though is being the, shall we say, the jockey; he is riding on the Trojan horse of the United States. But the solution of
the problem is much easier than the band-aid of sending some packages of food or of Medicine. The solution is in my report; what I told the Human Rights Council is that the financial blockade has had extremely adverse Human Rights impacts. Obviously the origin of the current economic crisis is in the fall, that dramatic fall, in the price of oil, but normally you will be able to fix that: a country as wealthy as Venezuela should have been able to borrow money on its enormous natural resources and then would have been able to buy and sell like anybody else, but no, the United States has made sure that wouldn't be an option, because of the threat of enormous penalties to the US Treasury, or the banks have been closing the accounts of the Venezuelan government and of the petróleos of Venezuela.

In July 2017, Citibank unexpectedly decided, without prior notice and arbitrarily, to close the bank accounts of the Central Bank of Venezuela and the Bank of Venezuela; in November 2017, again Citibank blocked the transfer for a shipment of more than three hundred thousand doses of insulin; In November 2017 the company Euroclear retained 1.65 billion dollars that the Venezuelan government had paid for the purpose of the purchase of food and medicine. Citgo, the Venezuelan state oil company based in the US, has not been able to transfer its profits outside the United States of America; It needs that money to buy food and medicine, and it is in the neighborhood -- I think by now -- of nine or ten billion dollars that have been withheld. Again, Wells Fargo Bank withheld and
cancelled payment of 7,500,000 made by Brazil to Venezuela for the sale of electricity in May 2018; the Venezuelan Minister of people's power informed that a financial transaction amounting to seven million dollars for the purchase of dialysis supplies for patients, including children and adolescents that require such treatment, had been blocked .

So you see here the immorality of it, but not only the immorality of it, there is personal criminal liability for the impact of these sanctions. I mean, I am certain that
the increase in child mortality, the increase in maternal mortality, the increased deaths for lack of insulin, or lack of antiretroviral drugs, is a direct result of this blockage so that Venezuela has not been able to purchase what its people deserve. It's not like the government doesn't want to distribute; it's
that the government is being -- through an external economic war -- is being asphyxiated, and that was the name of the game. What the United States intended to
do was to create a situation whereby the people or the military would topple the government and then the 1% could again come in and could again control the wealth of Venezuela.

Nobody cared in the 1980s and 90s that there were millions of Venezuelans dying of hunger and malnutrition; no one cared because it was a government that was palatable to Washington, and a government that was a right-wing government. The moment that a left-wing government came in power, priority number one in Washington was to topple it, and now you have the Bank of England seizing the gold right from Maduro, over a billion dollars worth, and threatening to give it to Juan Guaidó. That's yet another violation of international law. But try to bring the United States before the International
Criminal Court, or before the International Court of Justice.

What I think is important now would be for the General Assembly to adopt the resolution condemning the sanctions and asking that the sanctions be lifted because sanctions kill. I would also like to see the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court investigate to what extent the deaths that already occurred in connection with the sanctions amount to a violation of article 7 of the statute of Rome article 7 defines crimes against humanity.

Information Minister Jorge Rodriguez noted how Rubio, in his tweeted comments “three minutes” after the power outage, mentioned failure of “back-up generators” in Venezuela’s main hydroelectric plant [...]

Rodriguez mockingly ascribed “mystic skills” to Rubio because the Florida Republican senator appeared to know the precise nature of the power failure even before the Venezuelan authorities had determined it.

Ricardo Hausmann’s “Morning After” for Venezuela: The Neoliberal Brain Behind Juan Guaido’s Economic Agenda

While online audiences know YouTube comedian Joanna Hausmann from her videos making the case for regime change, her economist father has flown below the radar. His record holds the key to understanding what the U.S. wants in Venezuela.

https://www.cryptogon.com/?p=54314

U.S. Operations Manual: IMF, World Bank Part of “Unconventional Warfare” Weapons Arsenal
February 7th, 2019

Via: Mint Press:

WASHINGTON – In a leaked military manual on “unconventional warfare” recently highlighted by WikiLeaks, the U.S. Army states that major global financial institutions — such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) — are used as unconventional, financial “weapons in times of conflict up to and including large-scale general war,” as well as in leveraging “the policies and cooperation of state governments.”

The document, officially titled “Field Manual (FM) 3-05.130, Army Special Operations Forces Unconventional Warfare” and originally written in September 2008, was recently highlighted by WikiLeaks on Twitter in light of recent events in Venezuela as well as the years-long, U.S.- led economic siege of that country through sanctions and other means of economic warfare. Though the document has generated new interest in recent days, it had originally been released by WikiLeaks in December 2008 and has been described as the military’s “regime change handbook.”

https://www.corbettreport.com/interview ... an-pilato/

https://youtu.be/2dF97SoG1Ho
-

[...]

Story #1: “Operation Northwoods” False Flag Plans Turn 57 This Week

https://twitter.com/mediamonarchy/statu ... 7388049408
“Here’s how investors can gauge Boeing’s stock tragectory following the Ethiopian Airline crash”

https://twitter.com/mediamonarchy/statu ... 7730111488
Boeing 737 Max: Battle Brews over Who Should Analyze Black Boxes from Ethiopian Air Crash

https://twitter.com/LibertyBlitz/status ... 7444494336
False Flags Over Kashmir: Prelude to WWIII?

https://twitter.com/shartstorm8d8/statu ... 3815231488
Netanyahu’s Chances of Evading Corruption Charges Waining, Opponents Teaming Up Against Him, So … It’s Time For War

https://twitter.com/ShawnCathcart/statu ... 0417884160
Netanyahu Campaign Draws Accusations of Incitement

https://twitter.com/ShawnCathcart/statu ... 5441238016
Netanyahu Is About To Be Indicted for Bribery In The Midst Of An Election

https://www.corbettreport.com/what-in-t ... this-week/
Grand Jury Filing Over Use of Explosives on 9/11 “Names Names” of Who May Have Blown Up Towers

https://www.activistpost.com/2019/03/gr ... owers.html
Story #2: US Regime Change Blueprint Proposed Venezuelan Electricity Blackouts as “Watershed Event” for “Galvanizing Public Unrest”

https://thegrayzone.com/2019/03/11/us-r ... ic-unrest/
CANVAS: “Analysis of the situation in Venezuela” (Sep. 23, 2010)

https://search.wikileaks.org/gifiles/?v ... lid=218642
CIA Backed Color Revolutions: The Dishonest Career of the Remarkable Srđa Popović

https://www.globalresearch.ca/cia-backe ... ns/5611641
Episode 338 – NGOs Are The Deep State’s Trojan Horses

https://www.corbettreport.com/ngo/
Story #3: NEC Scans E-Y-E’S at SXSW

https://twitter.com/CourageSower/status ... 0979032064
“The coolest thing about the #Oscars that you probably missed? The @CIA’s live #tweets”

https://twitter.com/XEyezWideOpenX/stat ... 2610947072
CIA @ SXSW: “CIA Secrets to Creative Problem Solving”

https://twitter.com/CourageSower/status ... 1289530368
John Boehner at #SXSW2019

https://twitter.com/mediamonarchy/statu ... 1105534976
Bill Nye Teams Up With AOC at SXSW

https://twitter.com/mediamonarchy/statu ... 2743001089
Report: 20 Major Airports May Get Face Recognition for International Travelers By 2021

https://www.activistpost.com/2019/03/us ... -2021.html

[...]

Elvis » Wed Jan 30, 2019 4:32 am wrote:

Harvey » Tue Jan 29, 2019 3:06 pm wrote:Parallels to a minor celebrity and failed businessman being catapulted to president of the USA by media saturation?

No, I don't think so. AOC won her Congressional seat by going out in her district and introducing herself; people liked what they heard, she knocked out an established Democrat incumbent in the primary and won the general election. She did not get where she is by media saturation.

I will be watching her Venezuela stance closely. The anti-Maduro propaganda has, unfortunately, been quite effective.

Also want to note it's good to see Democracy Now! doing some decent reporting on the coup. It took them a long time to come to their senses on Syria.

Harvey » Sat Apr 06, 2019 6:24 am wrote:Hadn't noticed this before. I was refering to Trump.

Elvis » Wed Jan 30, 2019 4:32 am wrote:

Harvey » Tue Jan 29, 2019 3:06 pm wrote:Parallels to a minor celebrity and failed businessman being catapulted to president of the USA by media saturation?

No, I don't think so. AOC won her Congressional seat by going out in her district and introducing herself; people liked what they heard, she knocked out an established Democrat incumbent in the primary and won the general election. She did not get where she is by media saturation.

I will be watching her Venezuela stance closely. The anti-Maduro propaganda has, unfortunately, been quite effective.

Also want to note it's good to see Democracy Now! doing some decent reporting on the coup. It took them a long time to come to their senses on Syria.

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro says he has survived an assassination attempt involving explosive drones.

Mr Maduro was speaking at a military event in Caracas when the alleged attack occurred.

Live footage of his speech shows the president suddenly looking upwards - startled - and dozens of soldiers running away.

Mr Maduro has blamed Colombia for the attack - something denied by Bogota as a "baseless" accusation.

Seven soldiers were injured, and several people were later arrested, the Venezuelan authorities said.
What is known about the alleged attack?

The incident happened when Mr Maduro was speaking at an event to mark the 81st anniversary of the national army.

Two drones loaded with explosives went off near the president's stand, Communications Minister Jorge Rodriguez said.

Mr Maduro later said in a national address: "A flying object exploded near me, a big explosion. Seconds later there was a second explosion."

Photos on social media showed bodyguards protecting Mr Maduro with bulletproof shields after the alleged attack.
Mr Maduro accused neighbouring Colombia and elements within the US of instigating "a right-wing plot" to kill him.

He added that he had "no doubt" Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos was "behind this attack".

The Venezuelan leader, who has previously accused the US of plotting against him, provided no evidence to back his claim.

The Colombian government has denied any involvement, saying there is "no basis" to Mr Maduro's allegations.

By contrast, Mr Rodriguez accused Venezuela's right-wing opposition of carrying out the attack.

"After losing the vote, they failed again," Mr Rodriguez said.

He was referring to May's presidential elections, where Mr Maduro was re-elected for another six-year term.

Maduro wins second term amid claims of vote rigging

However, Hasler Inglesias, a youth leader with the opposition Voluntad Popular Party, told the BBC: "We didn't know what was happening. It's hard to believe that the opposition is going to make an attempt when they have never made an attempt in this way in 20 years."

Meanwhile, a little-known group called Soldiers in T-shirts said on social media that it was behind the alleged attack.

It said it had planned to fly two explosives-laden drones at Mr Maduro, but they were shot down by the military.

The claim was not backed up by any evidence, and the group did not respond to media requests for comment.
Image copyright AFP/Getty Images
Image caption Soldiers sealed off the area after the alleged attack

To add further to the confusion, firefighters at the scene disputed the government's version of events, the Associated Press reports.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, three of them said the incident was actually a gas tank explosion inside an apartment, but did not provide further details, the news agency says.
Analysis: Conspiracy theories abound

By Katy Watson, BBC South America correspondent

There are still lots of unanswered questions in this, the latest plot twist in surreal Venezuela.

President Maduro and his people often accuse the opposition, Colombia or the US of trying to sabotage his government.

Much like last year when a helicopter attacked the Supreme Court in what Nicolás Maduro called a "terrorist" attack, conspiracy theories will abound - and already different versions of events are being circulated.

In a country where it's hard to operate as a journalist and where freedom of speech isn't respected, getting to the truth is hard.

What many people fear though is that the government will use this incident to justify a crackdown on any political opponents.
Has anything similar happened before?

In June 2017, a helicopter attacked and dropped grenades on Venezuela's Supreme Court.
Media captionHelicopter circles Caracas buildings before bang and sustained gunshots are heard

Oscar Pérez, a rogue elite helicopter pilot, claimed he carried out the helicopter attack and called on Venezuelans to rise up against the government of President Maduro.

He was killed by police in a siege near Caracas in January.
Who is President Maduro?

Mr Maduro has managed to split opinion almost as much as his predecessor in office, Hugo Chávez.

Since assuming office in 2013, Mr Maduro's administration has drawn widespread condemnation from a string of nations worldwide for undermining democracy and violating human rights in his country.

Nicolás Maduro divides opinion
How Venezuela's crisis developed and worsened

His opponents paint him as a ruthless despot who detains his political rivals on overly harsh charges pressed by a judiciary under his party's control, while his followers say he is protecting the country from another coup.

His re-election in May came amid a deep economic crisis which has been driving hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans from the oil-rich country.

However, there is still a loyal core of people who support Mr Maduro and his United Socialist Party (PSUV), saying Venezuela's problems are caused not by the government but by imperialist forces such as the US.

For Venezuelans, this is not a game.

Unprecedented US Efforts to Expel Venezuela’s Representative to the UN
April 17, 2019

In an unprecedented move, the Trump administration, under VP Pence, is making an all-out effort to have the UN expel Venezuela's ambassador to the UN

A military uprising appears to be under way in Venezuela after the opposition leader, Juan Guaidó, posted a video of himself flanked by soldiers, promising to end the rule of President Nicolás Maduro.

Venezuela opposition leader claims coup is under way – live news
Read more
“The moment is now,” Guaidó said in a three-minute speech, apparently filmed just before dawn on Tuesday near La Carlota, the main military airbase in Caracas. “We are going to achieve liberty and democracy for Venezuela.”

Standing beside Guaidó as he spoke was Leopoldo López, an opposition politician who is meant to be under house arrest.

As the video ended, the camera moves to show a few dozen troops lined up, apparently in front of armoured troop carriers.