Posts Tagged ‘NICARAGUA’
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on October 11, 2022 at 12:10 am
Defenders of illegal aliens entering the United States often point to their paying taxes and performing jobs that native-born Americans don’t want to do.
What they fail to mention are the costs of maintaining millions of unskilled and semi-literate (at best) men, women and children for decades on end.
Fortunately, James Reinl, social affairs correspondent at the British newspaper, The Daily Mail, has taken the time to bring these truths to light.
This occurred in a September 16 article headlined:
“America’s $78B Bill for Teaching Schoolkids With Poor English is Rising by BILLIONS in Biden-era Immigration Surge, Study Says, and 76,000 New Language Instructors Are a Tall Order in a Teacher Shortage.”
Among its findings:
- One million public school students—ranging from kindergarten to high school—need special training in speaking and writing English.
- It costs $78 billion each year to educate them.
- Texas, California, Florida and New York are among the states most burdened with such students.
- Only three percent of these students are proficient in English when they graduate from high school.
- These costs are raised by billions owing to an unceasing tide of illegal alien children at the southern border.
These alarming statistics were produced by a study from the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR).
The 5.1 million students lacking English language skills need help in all their classes. As a result, it costs 15 to 20 percent more to educate them than American-born students who grow up learning English.
Illegal alien climbing over the border fence in Brownsville, Texas
A well-known joke illustrates the frustrations English-as-a-second-language teachers face:
A teacher asks her class: “All right, who can tell me the difference between ‘select’ and ‘choose’?” A Hispanic student raises his hand and, being called on, replies, ‘Uh, ‘select,’ like that means when you pick something, man. And ‘choose’ is what Puerto Ricans wear on their feet.”
With the United States facing a severe teacher shortage, some states have lowered their hiring rules to recruit teachers with only a high school diploma.
In 2020, the 5.1 million illegal alien students in public schools cost American taxpayers $78 billion—an $18.8 billion jump from the cost in 2016.
Of those students, 1.15 million were in California, costing the state $19.5 billion. One million more lived in Texas, costing that state $11.4 billion. And 278,000 lived in Florida, at a cost of $3.1 billion.
Only 370,000 teachers nationwide are trained to teach them, and 76,000 more will be needed during the next five years.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, almost 200,000 immigrants were intercepted crossing the southern border in July. Many of them are entitled to claim asylum, and all children in the United States have a right to an education—even if they arrived here illegally.
Illegal aliens rounded up by ICE
Immigration remains a highly divisive issue among Americans. “Red” Republican states want to close borders. “Blue” Democratic states are more open to newcomers.
Yet even famously liberal enclaves of support for illegal aliens like New York are beginning to have second thoughts about taking in unlimited numbers of uninvited foreigners.
On October 7, New York City Mayor Eric Adams declared a state of emergency in response to the city’s migrant crisis, which he says will cost the city $1 billion this fiscal year.
Eric Adams
“We now have a situation where more people are arriving in New York City than we can immediately accommodate, including families with babies and young children,” Adams said.
“Once the asylum seekers from today’s buses are provided shelter, we would surpass the highest number of people in recorded history in our city’s shelter system.”
Behind this unwanted influx lies Texas Governor Greg Abbott.
By the first week of October, Texas had spent more than $18 million busing illegal aliens found in Texas to famously liberal supporters of illegal immigration: Washington D.C., New York City, and Chicago.
Abbott announced the program in April as his response to the Biden administration’s immigration policies.
Greg Abbott
New York City now has more than 61,000 people in its shelter system. Thousands of these are American citizens who are homeless. They are competing for assistance with illegal aliens who were bused to New York City from the southern border since April of this year.
Behind this huge surge in illegal aliens and their continuing drain on America’s schools, housing and hospitals (among other facilities) lie three Communist-ruled countries: Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba.
Rising levels of repression, food shortages and economic stability are motivating Cubans, Venezuelans and Nicaraguans to enter the United States. And assisting them in this effort is the longtime policy of the United States government to automatically accept those leaving Communist countries as refugees.
At some point, the United States must face the economic and social absurdity of allowing some cities and states to provide sanctuary to every illegal alien who appears.
Even Eric Adams, while emphasizing that while New York City remains a sanctuary city, it cannot cope with such an overwhelming influx of migrants:
“We are not telling anyone that New York can accommodate every migrant in the city. We’re not encouraging people to send eight, nine buses a day….We’re saying that as a sanctuary city with right to shelter, we’re going to fulfill that obligation. That’s what we’re doing.”
At some point, America must stop allowing itself to be a dumping-ground for other countries’ unwanteds.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary, Uncategorized on January 24, 2022 at 12:35 am
Ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the American Right felt dejected.
Accusing Democrats of being “terrorist-lovers” just hasn’t been as profitable as accusing them of being “Communists.”
Then fate intervened.
The torch had barely gone out at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics when Russian President Vladimir Putin began menacing the Ukraine.
Ukraine vs. Russia
Even while the Olympics played out on television, Ukrainians had rioted in Kiev and evicted their corrupt, luxury-loving president, Victor Yanukovych.
And that didn’t sit well with his “sponsor”—Putin.
Yanukovych had rejected a pending European Union association agreement. He had chosen instead to pursue a Russian loan bailout and closer ties with Russia.
And that had sat well with Putin.
Since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, Putin had yearned for its reestablishment. He had called that breakup “the greatest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century.”
Vladimir Putin
Kremlin.ru, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Russia has long resisted Ukraine’s move towards European institutions—especially NATO.
So it was almost a certainty that Putin would retaliate.
And since late February, 2014, he began moving Russian troops into Ukraine and its autonomous republic, Crimea. Russia annexed Ukraine’s southern Crimean peninsula and backed separatists who captured large swathes of eastern Ukraine.
On December 3, 2021, the Washington Post reported: “The Kremlin is planning a multi-front offensive as soon as early next year involving up to 175,000 troops” against Ukraine.
And where there is activity by Russians, American Rightists are eager to turn such events to their own political advantage.
Right-wingers such as Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR): ”It is a result of a year of Joe Biden’s impotence and incompetence towards Russia in particular and in foreign policy more generally.”
Cotton had vigorously defended President Donald Trump’s attempted extortion of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the face of Russian aggression.
In July, 2019, Trump told his acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, to withhold almost $400 million in promised military aid for Ukraine.
Then, on July 25, Trump telephoned Zelensky to “request” a “favor”: Investigate presumed 2020 Democratic Presidential Candidate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, who had had business dealings in Ukraine.
Clearly implied in the call: Produce “dirt” on Biden—or you won’t get the military aid.
All of which overlooks a number of brutal political truths.
First, all great powers have spheres of interest—and jealously guard them.
For the United States, it’s Latin and Central America, as established by the Monroe Doctrine.
And just what is the Monroe Doctrine?
It’s a statement made by President James Monroe in his 1823 annual message to Congress, which warned European powers not to interfere in the affairs of the Western Hemisphere.
It has no legitimacy except the willingness of the United States to use armed force to back it up. When the United States no longer has the will or resources to enforce the Doctrine, it will cease to have meaning.
For the Soviet Union, its spheres of influence include the Ukraine. Long known as “the breadbasket of Russia,” in 2011, it was the world’s third-largest grain exporter.
Russia will no more give up access to that breadbasket than the United States would part with the rich farming states of the Midwest.
Second, spheres of influence often prove disastrous to those smaller countries affected.
Throughout Latin and Central America, the United States remains highly unpopular for its brutal use of “gunboat diplomacy” during the 20th century.
Among those countries invaded or controlled by America: Mexico, Cuba, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Columbia, Panama and the Dominican Republic.
The resulting anger has led many Latin and Central Americans to support Communist Cuba, even though its political oppression and economic failure are universally apparent.
Latin and Central America
Similarly, the Soviet Union forced many nations—such as Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia—to submit to the will of Moscow.
The alternative? The threat of Soviet invasion—as occurred in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968.
Third, even “great powers” are not all-powerful.
In 1949, after a long civil war, the forces of Mao Tse-tung defeated the Nationalist armies of Chiang Kai-Shek, who withdrew to Taiwan.
China had never been a territory of the United States. Nor could the United States have prevented Mao from defeating the corrupt, ineptly-led Nationalist forces.
Even so, Republican Senators and Representatives such as Richard Nixon and Joseph McCarthy eagerly blamed President Harry S. Truman and the Democrats for “losing China.”
The fear of being accused of “losing” another country led Presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon to tragically commit the United States to “roll back” Communism in Cuba and Vietnam.
Now Republicans—who claim the United States can’t afford to provide healthcare for its poorest citizens—want to turn the national budget over to the Pentagon.
They want the United States to “intervene” in Ukraine—even though this would mean going to war with the only nuclear power capable of turning America into an atomic graveyard.
Before plunging into conflicts that don’t concern us and where there is absolutely nothing to “win,” Americans would do well to remember the above-stated lessons of history. And to learn from them.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on January 20, 2022 at 12:13 am
In 1959,, J. Edgar Hoover, the longtime director of the FBI, declared war on the Mafia.
He set up a Top Hoodlum Program and encouraged his agents to use wiretapping and electronic surveillance (“bugging”) to make up for lost time and Intelligence.
But planting “bugs” demanded illegal trespass into mob hangouts.
Making this even more hazardous: Hoover imposed restrictions on these assignments that could destroy an agent’s professional and personal life.
William E. Roemer, Jr., assigned to the FBI’s Chicago field office, was one of the first agents to volunteer for such duty.
William Roemer
In his memoirs, Man Against the Mob, published in 1989, Roemer laid out the dangers that went with such work:
- If confronted by police or mobsters, agents were to try to escape without being identified.
- If caught by police, agents were not to identify themselves as FBI employees.
- They were to carry no badges, credentials or guns—or anything else connecting themselves with the FBI.
- If they were arrested by police and the truth emerged about their FBI employment, the Bureau would claim they were “rogue agents” acting on their own.
- Such agents were not to refute the FBI’s portrayal of them as “rogues.”
If he had been arrested by the Chicago Police Department and identified as an FBI agent, Roemer would have:
- Been fired as an FBI agent.
- Almost certainly been convicted for at least breaking and entering.
- Disbarred from the legal profession (Roemer was an attorney).
- Perhaps served a prison sentence.
- Been disgraced as a convicted felon.
- Been unable to serve in his chosen profession of law enforcement.
If he had been intercepted by the mobsters, he would have likely been shot.
Given the huge risks involved, many agents, unsurprisingly, shunned “black bag jobs.”
The agents who took them on were so committed to penetrating the Mob that they willingly accepted Hoover’s dictates.
In 1989, Roemer speculated that former Marine Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North had fallen victim to such a “Mission: Impossible” scenario: “The secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions….”
Oliver North’s mugshot
In 1986, President Ronald Reagan’s “arms-for-hostages” deal known as Iran-Contra had been exposed.
To retrieve seven Americans taken hostage in Beirut, Lebanon, Reagan had secretly agreed to sell some of America’s most sophisticated missiles to Iran.
During this operation, several Reagan officials—including North—diverted proceeds from the sale of those missiles to fund Reagan’s illegal war against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua.
In Roemer’s view: North had followed orders from his superiors without question. But when the time came for those superiors to step forward and protect him, they didn’t.
They let him take the fall.
Roemer speculated that North had been led to believe he would be rescued from criminal prosecution. Instead, in 1989, he was convicted for
- Accepting an illegal gratuity;
- Aiding and abetting in the obstruction of a congressional inquiry; and
- Ordering the destruction of documents via his secretary, Fawn Hall.
That is how many employers expect their employees to act: To carry out whatever assignments they are given and take the blame if anything goes wrong.
Take the case of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., the world’s biggest retailer.
In March, 2005, Wal-Mart escaped criminal charges when it agreed to pay $11 million to end a federal probe into its use of illegal aliens as janitors.
Agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raided 60 Wal-Mart stores across 21 states in October, 2003. The raids led to the arrest of 245 illegal aliens.
An ICE raid
The illegal aliens had been hired as janitors at Wal-Mart stores.
Many of the employees worked seven days or nights a week without overtime pay or injury compensation. Those who worked nights were often locked in the store until morning.
According to Federal officials, court-authorized wiretaps revealed that Wal-Mart executives knew their subcontractors hired illegal aliens.
Once the raids began, Federal agents invaded the company’s headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas, seizing boxes of records from the office of a mid-level executive.
Of course, Wal-Mart admitted no wrongdoing in the case. Instead, it blamed its subcontractors for hiring illegal aliens and claiming that Wal-Mart hadn’t been aware of this.
Just as the FBI planned to have its agents take the fall in “black bag” cases, Wal-Mart meant to sacrifice its subcontractors for hiring illegal aliens.
The only reason Wal-Mart couldn’t make this work: The Feds had, for once, treated corporate executives like Mafia leaders and had tapped their phones.
Which holds a lesson for how Federal law enforcement agencies should treat future corporate executives when their companies are found violating the law.
Instead of seeing CEOs as “captains of industry,” a far more realistic approach would be giving this term a new meaning: Corrupt Egotistical Oligarchs.
Their phones should be tapped, their boardrooms and bedrooms bugged, and their closest associates should be given immunity to testify against them.
A smart investigator/prosecutor should always remember:
Widespread illegal and corrupt behavior cannot happen among the employees of a major government agency or private corporation unless:
- Those at the top have ordered it and are profiting from it; or
- Those at the top don’t want to know about it and have taken no steps to prevent or punish it.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on October 1, 2021 at 12:10 am
On September 11, 2013, the New York Times published an Op-Ed (guest editorial) from Russian President Vladimir Putin, entitled: “A Plea for Caution from Russia: What Putin Has to Say to Americans About Syria.”
No one should be surprised that Putin came out strongly against an American air strike on Syria.
Its “President” (i.e., dictator) Bashir al-Assad, is, after all, a close ally of Russia. Just as his late father and dictator, Hafez al-Assad, was a close ally of the Soviet Union until its collapse in 1991.
Putin, of course, is a former member of the KGB, the infamous secret police which ruled the Soviet Union from its birth in 1917 to its collapse in 1991.
He grew up under a Communist dictatorship and clearly wishes to return to that era, saying publicly: “First and foremost it is worth acknowledging that the demise of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.”
So it would have been unrealistic to expect him to view the “Syria crisis” the same way that President Barack Obama did.
(A “crisis” for politicians is any event that can be exploited to increase their own status—and thus power. Few politicians really care about the “human rights” of other nations—unless promoting this issue can empower themselves and/or their own nation.
(President Ronald Reagan, for example, often wailed about the Soviets’ oppression of the Polish union, Solidarity—while firing hundreds of unionized air traffic controllers who went on strike.)
(A “crisis” for the media is any event that can be exploited for higher ratings.)
In his September 11, 2013 guest editorial in the New York Times, Putin offered the expected Russian take on Syria:
- Poison gas was used in Syria.
- It wasn’t used by the Syrian Army.
- It was used by “opposition forces, to provoke intervention by their powerful foreign patrons.”
But it was the concluding paragraph that enraged American politicians the most—especially Right-wing ones. In it, Putin took exception with American “exceptionalism.”
Vladimir Putin
This is the belief that the United States is unlike other nations in its innocence and steadfast dedication to human rights above all else.
Citizens of nations whose governments have been overthrown by the United States—such as Chile, Iran and Nicaragua—and replaced with brutal dictatorships would strongly disagree.
Referring to then-President Obama, Putin wrote:
“And I would rather disagree with a case he made on American exceptionalism, stating that the United States’ policy is ‘what makes America different. It’s what makes us exceptional.’
“It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation.
“There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy. Their policies differ, too.
“We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal.”
Putin had never publicly shown any interest in religion. But by invoking “the Lord,” he was able to turn the Christian beliefs of his Western audience into a useful weapon.
“I was insulted,” then-House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) told reporters when asked for his blunt reaction to the editorial.
“I have to be honest with you, I was at dinner, and I almost wanted to vomit,” said U.S. Senator Bob Menendez (D-New Jersey).
Putin had dared to question the self-righteousness of American foreign policy—and those who make it.
Making his case for war with Syria, Obama had said: “America is not the world’s policeman….
“But when, with modest effort and risk, we can stop children from being gassed to death, and thereby make our own children safer over the long run, I believe we should act.
“That’s what makes America different. That’s what makes us exceptional. With humility, but with resolve, let us never lose sight of that essential truth.”
President Barack Obama
* * * * *
In short: Because we consider ourselves “exceptional,” we have the divine right to do whatever we want.
It’s not necessary to see Putin as a champion of democracy (he isn’t) to see the truth in this part of his editorial: “It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation.”
From 1938 to 1969, the House Un-American Activities Committee sought to define what was “American” and what was “Un-American.” As if “American” stood for all things virtuous.
Whoever heard of an “Un-French Activities Committee”? Or an “Un-German” or “Un-British” one?
The late S.I. Hayakawa once made an observation that clearly applies to this situation.
Hayakawa was a professor of semantics (the study of meaning, focusing on the relation between words and what they stand for).
In his bestselling book, Language in Thought and Action, he observed that when a person hears a message, he has four ways of responding to it:
- Accept the speaker and his message.
- Accept the speaker but reject the message.
- Accept the message but reject the speaker.
- Reject the message and the speaker.
Americans might want to consider #3 in the recent case of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on January 3, 2020 at 12:03 am
“I have news for everybody: Get over it. There’s going to be political influence in foreign policy.”
The speaker was White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney. And in an October 17 press conference, he was trying to put the best possible spin on President Donald Trump’s latest outrage: An attempt to extort a “favor” from the president of Ukraine.
In July, 2019, Trump told Mulvaney to withhold almost $400 million in promised military aid for Ukraine, which faces increasing aggression from Russia.
On July 25, Trump telephoned Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to “request” a “favor”: Investigate Democratic Presidential Candidate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, who had had business dealings in Ukraine.The reason for such an investigation: To find embarrassing “dirt” on Biden.
Donald Trump
But then a CIA whistleblower filed a complaint about the extortion attempt—and the media and Congress soon learned of it.
Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., tweeted: “The transcript of the call reads like a classic mob shakedown: — We do a lot for Ukraine — There’s not much reciprocity — I have a favor to ask — Investigate my opponent — My people will be in touch — Nice country you got there. It would be a shame if something happened to her.”
On September 24, 2019, Nancy Pelosi, speaker to the House of Representatives, announced a formal impeachment inquiry into Trump.
As far as known, this marked a first in American foreign policy: Trying to extort a patently illegal favor from an ally.
During World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt didn’t hesitate to leverage the great economic and military power of the United States to gain concessions from Winston Churchill, the prime minister of Great Britain.
At Roosevelt’s insistence, for example, it was an American—General Dwight D. Eisenhower—who was appointed Supreme Allied Commander in Europe. Had the British gotten their way, the post would have almost certainly gone to British Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery.
Roosevelt’s insistence, however, had nothing to do with personally benefiting himself.
But the unpleasant truth remains that subverting the governments of other countries is a right that Americans have long reserved for themselves. For example:
- Between 1898 and 1934, the United States repeatedly intervened with military force in Central America and the Caribbean.
- Americans staged invasions of Honduras in 1903, 1907, 1911, 1912, 1919, 1924 and 1925 to defend U.S. interests. These were defined as Standard Oil and the United Fruit Company.
- The United States occupied Nicaragua almost continuously from 1912 to 1933. Its legacy was the imposition of the tyrannical Somoza family, which ruled from 1936 to 1979.
- The United States occupied Haiti from 1915 to 1934. American banks had lent money to Haiti and requested American government intervention.
- In 1918, 13,000 American soldiers joined armies from Europe and Japan to overthrow the new Soviet government and restore the previous Tsarist regime. By 1920, the invading forces proved unsuccessful and withdrew.
Allied troops parading in Vladivostok, 1918
- In 1953, the Eisenhower administration ordered the CIA to overthrew the democratically-elected government of of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. His crime: Nationalizing the Iranian oil industry, which had been under British control since 1913.
- He was succeeded by Mohammad-Reza Shah Phlavi. Whereas Mossadeddgh had ruled as a constitutional monarch, Phlavi was a dictator who depended on United States government support to retain power until he was overthrown in 1979 by the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
- In 1954, the CIA overthrew the democratically-elected government of Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz. His crime: Installing a series of reforms that expanded the right to vote, allowed workers to organize, legitimized political parties and allowed public debate. Most infuriating to American Right-wingers: His agrarian reform law, which expropriated parts of large land-holdings and redistributed them to agricultural laborers.
- From 1959 until 1963, the United States government was obsessed with overthrowing the revolutionary Cuban government of Fidel Castro. Although not democratically elected, Castro was wildly popular in Cuba for overthrowing the dictatorial Fulgencio Batista.
- On April 17, 1961, over 1,400 CIA-trained Cuban exiles invaded Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. Cuban military forces crushed the invasion in three days.
- Infuriated with the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion, President John F. Kennedy authorized “Operation Mongoose” to remove Castro through sabotage and assassination. The CIA, wanting to please Kennedy, teamed up with the Mafia, which wanted to resurrect its casinos on the island.
Ernesto “Che” Guevera and Fidel Castro
- In 1970, President Richard M. Nixon ordered the CIA to prevent Marxist Salvador Allende from being democratically elected as president of Chile. When that failed, he ordered the CIA to overthrow Allende.
- Allende’s crime: A series of liberal reforms, including nationalizing large-scale industries (notably copper mining and banking). In 1973, he was overthrown by Chilean army units and national police. He was followed by Right-wing dictator Augusto Pinochet, who slaughtered 3,200 political dissidents, imprisoned 30,000 and forced another 200,000 Chileans into exile.
Americans reacted to all these attempts—successful and unsuccessful—with indifference or outright support.
The popular 1960s TV series, “Mission: Impossible,” regularly depicted a CIA-type agency supporting regimes “we” liked or toppling those “we” didn’t.
Americans generally assume their Presidents and Congress know best who is a “friend” and who is an “enemy.” America’s friends often turn out, for the most part, to be Right-wing dictators like Fulgencio Batista, Augusto Pinochet and Mohammad-Reza Shah Phlavi.
And its enemies often turn out to be liberal reformers like Augusto Sandino, Jacobo Arbenz, Mohammad Mosaddegh and Salvador Allende.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on October 2, 2019 at 12:28 am
On June 12, 2019, during an interview with ABC News correspondent George Stephanopoulos, President Donald Trump said he would accept derogatory information on his 2020 opponents from hostile nations like Russia and China:
“It’s not an interference, they have information. I think I’d take it. If I thought there was something wrong, I’d go maybe to the FBI. If I thought there was something wrong. But when somebody comes up with oppo research, right, they come up with oppo research.
“The FBI doesn’t have enough agents to take care of it, but you go and talk honestly to congressmen, they all do it, they always have. And that’s the way it is. It’s called oppo research.”
But Trump didn’t say he planned to extort derogatory information about his opponents from Ukraine.
In July, 2019, he told his acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, to withhold almost $400 million in promised military aid for Ukraine, which faces increasing aggression from Russia.
On July 25, Trump telephoned Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to “request” a “favor”: Investigate Democratic Presidential Candidate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, who had had business dealings in Ukraine.
The reason for such an investigation: To find embarrassing “dirt” on Biden.
Donald Trump
But then a CIA whistleblower filed a complaint about the extortion attempt—and the media and Congress soon learned of it.
Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., tweeted: “The transcript of the call reads like a classic mob shakedown: — We do a lot for Ukraine — There’s not much reciprocity — I have a favor to ask — Investigate my opponent — My people will be in touch — Nice country you got there. It would be a shame if something happened to her.”
On September 24, 2019, Nancy Pelosi, speaker to the House of Representatives, announced a formal impeachment inquiry into Trump.
In truth, however, subverting the governments of other countries is a right that Americans have long reserved for themselves. For example:
- Between 1898 and 1934, the United States repeatedly intervened with military force in Central America and the Caribbean.
- Americans staged invasions of Honduras in 1903, 1907, 1911, 1912, 1919, 1924 and 1925 to defend U.S. interests. These were defined as Standard Oil and the United Fruit Company.
- The United States occupied Nicaragua almost continuously from 1912 to 1933. Its legacy was the imposition of the tyrannical Somoza family, which ruled from 1936 to 1979.
- The United States occupied Haiti from 1915 to 1934. American banks had lent money to Haiti and requested American government intervention.
- In 1918, 13,000 American soldiers joined armies from Europe and Japan to overthrow the new Soviet government and restore the previous Tsarist regime. By 1920, the invading forces proved unsuccessful and withdrew.
Allied troops parading in Vladivostok, 1918
- In 1953, the Eisenhower administration ordered the CIA to overthrew the democratically-elected government of of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. His crime: Nationalizing the Iranian oil industry, which had been under British control since 1913.
- He was succeeded by Mohammad-Reza Shah Phlavi. Whereas Mossadeddgh had ruled as a constitutional monarch, Phlavi was a dictator who depended on United States government support to retain power until he was overthrown in 1979 by the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
- In 1954, the CIA overthrew the democratically-elected government of Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz. His crime: Installing a series of reforms that expanded the right to vote, allowed workers to organize, legitimized political parties and allowed public debate. Most infuriating to American Right-wingers: His agrarian reform law, which expropriated parts of large land-holdings and redistributed them to agricultural laborers.
- From 1959 until 1963, the United States government was obsessed with overthrowing the revolutionary Cuban government of Fidel Castro. Although not democratically elected, Castro was wildly popular in Cuba for overthrowing the dictatorial Fulgencio Batista.
- On April 17, 1961, over 1,400 CIA-trained Cuban exiles invaded Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. Cuban military forces crushed the invasion in three days.
- Infuriated with the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion, President John F. Kennedy authorized “Operation Mongoose” to remove Castro through sabotage and assassination. The CIA, wanting to please Kennedy, teamed up with the Mafia, which wanted to resurrect its casinos on the island.
Ernesto “Che” Guevera and Fidel Castro
- In 1970, President Richard M. Nixon ordered the CIA to prevent Marxist Salvador Allende from being democratically elected as president of Chile. When that failed, he ordered the CIA to overthrow Allende.
- Allende’s crime: A series of liberal reforms, including nationalizing large-scale industries (notably copper mining and banking). In 1973, he was overthrown by Chilean army units and national police. He was followed by Right-wing dictator Augusto Pinochet, who slaughtered 3,200 political dissidents, imprisoned 30,000 and forced another 200,000 Chileans into exile.
Americans reacted to all these attempts—successful and unsuccessful—with indifference or outright support.
The popular 1960s TV series, “Mission: Impossible,” regularly depicted a CIA-type agency supporting regimes “we” liked or toppling those “we” didn’t.
Americans generally assume their Presidents and Congress know best who is a “friend” and who is an “enemy.” America’s friends often turn out, for the most part, to be Right-wing dictators like Fulgencio Batista, Augusto Pinochet and Mohammad-Reza Shah Phlavi.
And its enemies often turn out to be liberal reformers like Augusto Sandino, Jacobo Arbenz, Mohammad Mosaddegh and Salvador Allende.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 14, 2019 at 12:09 am
On June 12, during an interview with ABC News correspondent George Stephanopoulos, President Donald Trump said he would accept information on his 2020 opponents from hostile nations like Russia and China:
“It’s not an interference, they have information. I think I’d take it. If I thought there was something wrong, I’d go maybe to the FBI. If I thought there was something wrong. But when somebody comes up with oppo research, right, they come up with oppo research.
“The FBI doesn’t have enough agents to take care of it, but you go and talk honestly to congressmen, they all do it, they always have. And that’s the way it is. It’s called oppo research.”
The reaction was nationwide outrage.
Donald Trump
Apparently, most Americans don’t like having their elections subverted by enemy nations.
Subverting the governments of other countries is a right that Americans have long reserved for themselves. For example:
- Between 1898 and 1934, the United States repeatedly intervened with military force in Central America and the Caribbean.
- Americans staged invasions of Honduras in 1903, 1907, 1911, 1912, 1919, 1924 and 1925 to defend U.S. interests. These were defined as Standard Oil and the United Fruit Company.
- The United States occupied Nicaragua almost continuously from 1912 to 1933. Its legacy was the imposition of the tyrannical Somoza family, which ruled from 1936 to 1979.
- The United States occupied Haiti from 1915 to 1934. American banks had lent money to Haiti and requested American government intervention.
- In 1918, 13,000 American soldiers joined armies from Europe and Japan to overthrow the new Soviet government and restore the previous Tsarist regime. By 1920, the invading forces proved unsuccessful and withdrew.
Allied troops parading in Vladivostok, 1918
- From 1946 to 1949, the United States provided military, logistical and other aid to the Right-wing Chinese Nationalist Party of Chiang Kai-shek. Its opponent were Communist forces led by Mao Tse-Tung, who ultimately proved victorious.
- In 1953, the Eisenhower administration ordered the CIA to overthrew the democratically-elected government of of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. His crime: Nationalizing the Iranian oil industry, which had been under British control since 1913.
- He was succeeded by Mohammad-Reza Shah Phlavi. Whereas Mossadeddgh had ruled as a constitutional monarch, Phlavi was a dictator who depended on United States government support to retain power until he was overthrown in 1979 by the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
- In 1954, the CIA overthrew the democratically-elected government of Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz. His crime: Installing a series of reforms that expanded the right to vote, allowed workers to organize, legitimized political parties and allowed public debate. Most infuriating to American Right-wingers: His agrarian reform law, which expropriated parts of large land-holdings and redistributed them to agricultural laborers.
- The United Fruit Company lobbied the United States government to overthrow him—and the CIA went into action. Arbenz was replaced by the first of a series of brutal Right-wing dictators.
- From 1959 until 1963, the United States government was obsessed with overthrowing the revolutionary Cuban government of Fidel Castro. Although not democratically elected, Castro was wildly popular in Cuba for overthrowing the dictatorial Fulgencio Batista.
- On April 17, 1961, over 1,400 CIA-trained Cuban exiles invaded Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. Cuban military forces crushed the invasion in three days.
- Infuriated with the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion, President John F. Kennedy authorized “Operation Mongoose” to remove Castro through sabotage and assassination. The CIA, wanting to please Kennedy, teamed up with the Mafia, which wanted to resurrect its casinos on the island.
- Among the tactics used: Hiring Cuban gangsters to murder police officials and Soviet technicians; sabotaging mines; using biological and chemical warfare against the Cuban sugar industry. None of these proved successful in assassinating Castro nor overturning his regime.
Ernesto “Che” Guevera and Fidel Castro
- In 1970, President Richard M. Nixon ordered the CIA to prevent Marxist Salvador Allende from being democratically elected as president of Chile. When that failed, he ordered the CIA to overthrow Allende.
- Allende’s crime: A series of liberal reforms, including nationalizing large-scale industries (notably copper mining and banking. In 1973, he was overthrown by Chilean army units and national police. He was followed by Right-wing dictator Augusto Pinochet, who slaughtered 3,200 political dissidents, imprisoned 30,000 and forced another 200,000 Chileans into exile.
Americans reacted to all these attempts—successful and unsuccessful—with indifference or outright support.
The popular 1960s TV series, “Mission: Impossible,” regularly depicted a CIA-type agency supporting regimes “we” liked or toppling those “we” didn’t.
Americans generally assume their Presidents and Congress know best who is a “friend” and who is an “enemy.” America’s friends often turn out, for the most part, to be Right-wing dictators like Chiang Kai-Shek, Fulgencio Batista, Augusto Pinochet and Mohammad-Reza Shah Phlavi.
And its enemies often turn out to be liberal reformers like Augusto Sandino, Mohammad Mosaddegh and Salvador Allende.
Americans favor intervention for the flimsiest of reasons. In 2003, President George W. Bush claimed Iraq’s dictator, Saddam Hussein, had plotted 9/11 with Osama bin Laden. There was absolutely no proof to substantiate this, yet Americans overwhelmingly supported Bush’s unprovoked invasion of Iraq.
But now the shoe is on the other foot.
Americans are now tasting the medicine they have dished out to so many other countries. And they find it as repugnant as those countries have found the American brand.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on March 13, 2019 at 12:04 am
The CIA, FBI and National Security Agency (which cracks codes and listens to the telephone conversation of foreign leaders) unanimously agree: Russian trolls and Intelligence agents played a major role in subverting the 2016 Presidential election.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller III, assigned in May, 2017, to investigate charges of Russian interference, believes there was collusion. He has indicted or obtained guilty pleas from 34 people and three companies. And more are undoubtedly coming.
Robert Mueller
And about 58% of Americans believe that President Donald Trump has tried to obstruct the investigation.
Apparently, most Americans don’t like having their elections subverted by enemy nations.
Subverting the governments of other countries is a right that Americans have long reserved for themselves. Among those regimes that have been toppled:
- Between 1898 and 1934, the United States repeatedly intervened with military force in Central America and the Caribbean.
- Americans staged invasions of Honduras in 1903, 1907, 1911, 1912, 1919, 1924 and 1925 to defend U.S. interests. These were defined as Standard Oil and the United Fruit Company.
- The United States occupied Nicaragua almost continuously from 1912 to 1933. Its legacy was the imposition of the tyrannical Somoza family, which ruled from 1936 to 1979.
- The United States occupied Haiti from 1915 to 1934. American banks had lent money to Haiti and requested American government intervention.
- In 1918, 13,000 American soldiers joined armies from Europe and Japan to overthrow the new Soviet government and restore the previous Czarist regime. By 1920, the invading forces proved unsuccessful and withdrew.
Allied troops parading in Vladivostok, 1918
- From 1946 to 1949, the United States provided military, logistical and other aid to the Right-wing Chinese Nationalist Party of Chiang Kai-shek. Its opponent: Communist forces led by Mao Tse-Tung, who ultimately proved victorious.
- In 1953, the Eisenhower administration ordered the CIA to overthrew the democratically-elected government of of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. His crime: Nationalizing the Iranian oil industry, which had been under British control since 1913. He was succeeded by Mohammad-Reza Shah Phlavi.
- Whereas Mossadeddgh had ruled as a constitutional monarch, Phlavi was a dictator who depended on United States government support to retain power until he was overthrown in 1979 by the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
- In 1954, the CIA overthrew the democratically-elected government of Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz. His crime: Installing a series of reforms that expanded the right to vote, allowed workers to organize, legitimized political parties and allowed public debate. Most infuriating to American Right-wingers: His agrarian reform law, which expropriated parts of large land-holdings and redistributed them to agricultural laborers.
- The United Fruit Company lobbied the United States government to overthrow him—and the CIA went into action. Arbenz was replaced by the first of a series of brutal Right-wing dictators.
- From 1959 until 1963, the United States government was obsessed with overthrowing the revolutionary Cuban government of Fidel Castro. Although not democratically elected, Castro was wildly popular in Cuba for overthrowing the dictatorial Fulgencio Batista.
- On April 17, 1961, over 1,400 CIA-trained Cuban exiles invaded Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. Cuban military forces crushed the invasion in three days.
- Infuriated with the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion, President John F. Kennedy authorized “Operation Mongoose” to remove Castro through sabotage and assassination. The CIA, wanting to please Kennedy, teamed up with the Mafia, which wanted to resurrect its casinos on the island.
- Among the tactics used: Hiring Cuban gangsters to murder police officials and Soviet technicians; sabotaging mines; using biological and chemical warfare against the Cuban sugar industry. None of these proved successful in assassinating Castro nor overturning his regime.
Ernesto “Che” Guevera and Fidel Castro
- In 1970, President Richard M. Nixon ordered the CIA to prevent Marxist Salvador Allende from being democratically elected as president of Chile. When that failed, he ordered the CIA to overthrow Allende. Allende’s crime: A series of liberal reforms, including nationalizing large-scale industries (notably copper mining and banking).
- In 1973, he was overthrown by Chilean army units and national police. He was followed by Right-wing dictator Augusto Pinochet, who slaughtered 3,200 political dissidents, imprisoned 30,000 and forced another 200,000 Chileans into exile.
And how did Americans react to all these attempts—successful and unsuccessful—at regime change?
Through indifference or outright support.
The popular 1960s TV series, “Mission: Impossible,” regularly depicted a CIA-type agency supporting regimes “we” liked or toppling those “we” didn’t.
Americans generally assume their Presidents and Congress know best who is a “friend” and who is an “enemy.” America’s friends usually turn out to be Right-wing dictators like Chiang Kai-Shek, Fulgencio Batista, Augusto Pinochet and Mohammad-Reza Shah Phlavi.
And its enemies often turn out to be liberal reformers like Augusto Sandino, Mohammad Mosaddegh and Salvador Allende.
Americans tend to favor intervention for the flimsiest of reasons. In 2003, President George W. Bush claimed Iraq’s dictator, Saddam Hussein, had plotted 9/11 with Osama bin Laden. There was absolutely no proof to substantiate this, yet Americans overwhelmingly supported Bush’s unprovoked invasion of Iraq.
But now the shoe is on the other foot.
Except for President Donald Trump and his fanatical supporters, Americans are furious that a foreign power has dared to install “regime change” on them.
Americans are now tasting the medicine they have dished out to so many other countries. And they find it as repugnant as those countries have found the American brand.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on October 17, 2018 at 12:21 am
On September 11, 2013, the New York Times published an Op-Ed (guest editorial) from Russian President Vladimir Putin, entitled: “A Plea for Caution from Russia: What Putin Has to Say to Americans About Syria.”
No one should be surprised that Putin came out strongly against an American air strike on Syria.
Its “President” (i.e., dictator) Bashir al-Assad, is, after all, a close ally of Russia. Just as his late father and dictator, Hafez al-Assad, was a close ally of the Soviet Union until its collapse in 1991.
Putin, of course, is a former member of the KGB, the infamous secret police which ruled the Soviet Union from its birth in 1917 to its collapse in 1991.
He grew up under a Communist dictatorship and clearly wishes to return to that era, saying publicly: “First and foremost it is worth acknowledging that the demise of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.”
So it would be unrealistic to expect him to view the current “Syria crisis” the same way that President Barack Obama did.
(A “crisis” for politicians is any event that can be exploited to increase their own status—and thus power. Few politicians really care about the “human rights” of other nations—unless promoting this issue can empower themselves and/or their own nation.
(President Ronald Reagan, for example, often wailed about the Soviets’ oppression of the Polish union, Solidarity—while firing hundreds of unionized air traffic controllers who went on strike.)
(A “crisis” for the media is any event that can be exploited for higher ratings.)
In his September 11, 2013 guest editorial in the New York Times, Putin offered the expected Russian take on Syria:
- Poison gas was used in Syria.
- It wasn’t used by the Syrian Army.
- It was used by “opposition forces, to provoke intervention by their powerful foreign patrons.”
But it was the concluding paragraph that enraged American politicians the most—especially Right-wing ones. In it, Putin took exception with American “exceptionalism.”
Vladimir Putin
This is the belief that the United States is unlike other nations. That it is unlike other nations in its innocence and steadfast dedication to human rights above all else.
Citizens of nations whose governments have been overthrown by the United States—such as Chile, Iran and Nicaragua—and replaced with brutal dictatorships would strongly disagree.
Referring to then-President Obama, Putin wrote:
“And I would rather disagree with a case he made on American exceptionalism, stating that the United States’ policy is ‘what makes America different. It’s what makes us exceptional.’
“It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation.
“There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy. Their policies differ, too.
“We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal.”
Putin has never publicly shown any interest in religion. But by invoking “the Lord,” he was able to turn the Christian beliefs of his Western audience into a useful weapon.
“I was insulted,” then-House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) told reporters when asked for his blunt reaction to the editorial.
“I have to be honest with you, I was at dinner, and I almost wanted to vomit,” said U.S. Senator Bob Menendez (D-New Jersey).
Putin had dared to question the self-righteousness of American foreign policy—and those who make it.
Making his case for war with Syria, Obama had said: “America is not the world’s policeman….
“But when, with modest effort and risk, we can stop children from being gassed to death, and thereby make our own children safer over the long run, I believe we should act.
“That’s what makes America different. That’s what makes us exceptional. With humility, but with resolve, let us never lose sight of that essential truth.”
President Barack Obama
In short: Because we consider ourselves “exceptional,” we have the divine right to do whatever we want.
It’s not necessary to see Putin as a champion of democracy (he isn’t) to see the truth in this part of his editorial: “It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation.”
From 1938 to 1969, the House Un-American Activities Committee sought to define what was “American” and what was “Un-American.” As if “American” stood for all things virtuous.
Whoever heard of an “Un-French Activities Committee”? Or an “Un-German” or “Un-British” one?
The late S.I. Hayakawa once made an observation that clearly applies to this situation.
Hayakawa was a professor of semantics (the study of meaning, focusing on the relation between words and what they stand for).
In his bestselling book, Language in Thought and Action, he observed that when a person hears a message, he has four ways of responding to it:
- Accept the speaker and his message.
- Accept the speaker but reject the message.
- Accept the message but reject the speaker.
- Reject the message and the speaker.
Americans might want to consider #3 in the recent case of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
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"MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE", 2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, 9/11, ABC NEWS, ALTERNET, AP, AUGUSTO PINOCHET, AUGUSTO SANDINO, AYATOLLAH RUHOLLAH KHOMEINI, BAY OF PIGS, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CHIANG KAI-SHEK, CHILE, CIA, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, CUBA, DAILY KOZ, DONALD TRUMP, DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER, FACEBOOK, FBI, FIDEL CASTRO, FULGENCIO BATISTA, GEORGE W. BUSH, GUATEMALA, HAITI, HONODURAS, IRAQ, JACOBO ARBENZ, JOHN F. KENNEDY, MAFIA, MAO TSE-TUNG, MOHAMMAD MOSADDEGH, MOHAMMAD-REZA SHAH PHLAVI, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NICARAGUA, NPR, OSAMA BIN LADEN, POLITICO, RAW STORY, REUTERS, RICHARD M. NIXON, ROBERT MUELLER, RUSSIA, SADDAM HUSSEIN, SALON, SALVADOR ALLENDE, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WASHINGTON POST, TIME, TWITTER, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED FRUIT COMPANY, UPI, USA TODAY
In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 24, 2018 at 12:15 am
According to the CIA, FBI and National Security Agency (which cracks codes and listens to the telephone conversation of foreign leaders) it’s clear that Russian trolls and Intelligence agents played a major role in subverting the 2016 Presidential election.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller III, assigned in May, 2017, to investigate charges of Russian interference, believes there was collusion. He has secured criminal charges against 19 people, including five guilty pleas. And more are undoubtedly coming.
Robert Mueller
And 65% of Americans believe that Mueller should be allowed to continue his investigation.
Apparently, most Americans don’t like having their elections subverted by enemy nations.
Subverting the governments of other countries is a right that Americans have long reserved for themselves. Among those regimes that have been toppled:
- Between 1898 and 1934, the United States repeatedly intervened with military force in Central America and the Caribbean.
- Americans staged invasions of Honduras in 1903, 1907, 1911, 1912, 1919, 1924 and 1925 to defend U.S. interests. These were defined as Standard Oil and the United Fruit Company.
- The United States occupied Nicaragua almost continuously from 1912 to 1933. Its legacy was the imposition of the tyrannical Somoza family, which ruled from 1936 to 1979.
- The United States occupied Haiti from 1915 to 1934. American banks had lent money to Haiti and requested American government intervention.
- In 1918, 13,000 American soldiers joined armies from Europe and Japan to overthrow the new Soviet government and restore the previous Tsarist regime. By 1920, the invading forces proved unsuccessful and withdrew.
Allied troops parading in Vladivostok, 1918
- From 1946 to 1949, the United States provided military, logistical and other aid to the Right-wing Chinese Nationalist Party of Chiang Kai-shek. Its opponent were Communist forces led by Mao Tse-Tung, who ultimately proved victorious.
- In 1953, the Eisenhower administration ordered the CIA to overthrew the democratically-elected government of of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. His crime: Nationalizing the Iranian oil industry, which had been under British control since 1913. He was succeeded by Mohammad-Reza Shah Phlavi. Whereas Mossadeddgh had ruled as a constitutional monarch, Phlavi was a dictator who depended on United States government support to retain power until he was overthrown in 1979 by the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
- In 1954, the CIA overthrew the democratically-elected government of Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz. His crime: Installing a series of reforms that expanded the right to vote, allowed workers to organize, legitimized political parties and allowed public debate. Most infuriating to American Right-wingers: His agrarian reform law, which expropriated parts of large land-holdings and redistributed them to agricultural laborers. The United Fruit Company lobbied the United States government to overthrow him—and the CIA went into action. Arbenz was replaced by the first of a series of brutal Right-wing dictators.
- From 1959 until 1963, the United States government was obsessed with overthrowing the revolutionary Cuban government of Fidel Castro. Although not democratically elected, Castro was wildly popular in Cuba for overthrowing the dictatorial Fulgencio Batista. On April 17, 1961, over 1,400 CIA-trained Cuban exiles invaded Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. Cuban military forces crushed the invasion in three days.
- Infuriated with the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion, President John F. Kennedy authorized “Operation Mongoose” to remove Castro through sabotage and assassination. The CIA, wanting to please Kennedy, teamed up with the Mafia, which wanted to resurrect its casinos on the island. Among the tactics used: Hiring Cuban gangsters to murder police officials and Soviet technicians; sabotaging mines; using biological and chemical warfare against the Cuban sugar industry. None of these proved successful in assassinating Castro nor overturning his regime.
Ernesto “Che” Guevera and Fidel Castro
- In 1970, President Richard M. Nixon ordered the CIA to prevent Marxist Salvador Allende from being democratically elected as president of Chile. When that failed, he ordered the CIA to overthrow Allende. Allende’s crime: A series of liberal reforms, including nationalizing large-scale industries (notably copper mining and banking. In 1973, he was overthrown by Chilean army units and national police. He was followed by Right-wing dictator Augusto Pinochet, who slaughtered 3,200 political dissidents, imprisoned 30,000 and forced another 200,000 Chileans into exile.
And how did Americans react to all these attempts—successful and unsuccessful—at regime change?
Through indifference or outright support.
The popular 1960s TV series, “Mission: Impossible,” regularly depicted a CIA-type agency supporting regimes “we” liked or toppling those “we” didn’t.
Americans generally assume their Presidents and Congress know best who is a “friend” and who is an “enemy.” America’s friends often turn out, for the most part, to be Right-wing dictators like Chiang Kai-Shek, Fulgencio Batista, Augusto Pinochet and Mohammad-Reza Shah Phlavi.
And its enemies often turn out to be liberal reformers like Augusto Sandino, Mohammad Mosaddegh and Salvador Allende.
Americans tend to favor intervention for the flimsiest of reasons. In 2003, President George W. Bush claimed Iraq’s dictator, Saddam Hussein, had plotted 9/11 with Osama bin Laden. There was absolutely no proof to substantiate this, yet Americans overwhelmingly supported Bush’s unprovoked invasion of Iraq.
But now the shoe is on the other foot. Except for President Donald Trump and his fanatical supporters, Americans are furious that a foreign power has dared to install “regime change” on them.
Americans are now tasting the medicine they have dished out to so many other countries. And they find it as repugnant as those countries have found the American brand.
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THE SPIRALING COSTS OF ILLEGAL ALIENS
In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on October 11, 2022 at 12:10 amDefenders of illegal aliens entering the United States often point to their paying taxes and performing jobs that native-born Americans don’t want to do.
What they fail to mention are the costs of maintaining millions of unskilled and semi-literate (at best) men, women and children for decades on end.
Fortunately, James Reinl, social affairs correspondent at the British newspaper, The Daily Mail, has taken the time to bring these truths to light.
This occurred in a September 16 article headlined:
“America’s $78B Bill for Teaching Schoolkids With Poor English is Rising by BILLIONS in Biden-era Immigration Surge, Study Says, and 76,000 New Language Instructors Are a Tall Order in a Teacher Shortage.”
Among its findings:
These alarming statistics were produced by a study from the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR).
The 5.1 million students lacking English language skills need help in all their classes. As a result, it costs 15 to 20 percent more to educate them than American-born students who grow up learning English.
Illegal alien climbing over the border fence in Brownsville, Texas
A well-known joke illustrates the frustrations English-as-a-second-language teachers face:
A teacher asks her class: “All right, who can tell me the difference between ‘select’ and ‘choose’?” A Hispanic student raises his hand and, being called on, replies, ‘Uh, ‘select,’ like that means when you pick something, man. And ‘choose’ is what Puerto Ricans wear on their feet.”
With the United States facing a severe teacher shortage, some states have lowered their hiring rules to recruit teachers with only a high school diploma.
In 2020, the 5.1 million illegal alien students in public schools cost American taxpayers $78 billion—an $18.8 billion jump from the cost in 2016.
Of those students, 1.15 million were in California, costing the state $19.5 billion. One million more lived in Texas, costing that state $11.4 billion. And 278,000 lived in Florida, at a cost of $3.1 billion.
Only 370,000 teachers nationwide are trained to teach them, and 76,000 more will be needed during the next five years.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, almost 200,000 immigrants were intercepted crossing the southern border in July. Many of them are entitled to claim asylum, and all children in the United States have a right to an education—even if they arrived here illegally.
Illegal aliens rounded up by ICE
Immigration remains a highly divisive issue among Americans. “Red” Republican states want to close borders. “Blue” Democratic states are more open to newcomers.
Yet even famously liberal enclaves of support for illegal aliens like New York are beginning to have second thoughts about taking in unlimited numbers of uninvited foreigners.
On October 7, New York City Mayor Eric Adams declared a state of emergency in response to the city’s migrant crisis, which he says will cost the city $1 billion this fiscal year.
Eric Adams
“We now have a situation where more people are arriving in New York City than we can immediately accommodate, including families with babies and young children,” Adams said.
“Once the asylum seekers from today’s buses are provided shelter, we would surpass the highest number of people in recorded history in our city’s shelter system.”
Behind this unwanted influx lies Texas Governor Greg Abbott.
By the first week of October, Texas had spent more than $18 million busing illegal aliens found in Texas to famously liberal supporters of illegal immigration: Washington D.C., New York City, and Chicago.
Abbott announced the program in April as his response to the Biden administration’s immigration policies.
Greg Abbott
New York City now has more than 61,000 people in its shelter system. Thousands of these are American citizens who are homeless. They are competing for assistance with illegal aliens who were bused to New York City from the southern border since April of this year.
Behind this huge surge in illegal aliens and their continuing drain on America’s schools, housing and hospitals (among other facilities) lie three Communist-ruled countries: Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba.
Rising levels of repression, food shortages and economic stability are motivating Cubans, Venezuelans and Nicaraguans to enter the United States. And assisting them in this effort is the longtime policy of the United States government to automatically accept those leaving Communist countries as refugees.
At some point, the United States must face the economic and social absurdity of allowing some cities and states to provide sanctuary to every illegal alien who appears.
Even Eric Adams, while emphasizing that while New York City remains a sanctuary city, it cannot cope with such an overwhelming influx of migrants:
“We are not telling anyone that New York can accommodate every migrant in the city. We’re not encouraging people to send eight, nine buses a day….We’re saying that as a sanctuary city with right to shelter, we’re going to fulfill that obligation. That’s what we’re doing.”
At some point, America must stop allowing itself to be a dumping-ground for other countries’ unwanteds.
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