Tensions Rise in Latin America over US Military Plan to Use Three Bases in Colombia

Dandelion Salad

Democracy Now!
July 27, 2009

Tensions Rise in Latin America over US Military Plan to Use Three Bases in Colombia

The Colombian government has agreed to grant US forces the use of three Colombian military bases for South American anti-drug operations. The move has heightened tensions between Colombia, the largest recipient of US military aid in the Americas, and its neighbors, particularly Venezuela and Ecuador. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez warned that the US Army could “invade” his country from Colombia. [includes rush transcript]

Real Video Stream

Real Audio Stream

MP3 Download

John Lindsay-Poland, co-director of Fellowship of Reconciliation Latin America Program, and author of a history of US military bases in Panama called Emperors in the Jungle: The Hidden History of the US in Panama.

via Tensions Rise in Latin America over US Military Plan to Use Three Bases in Colombia

***

StartLoving1
July 27, 2009

Vodpod videos no longer available.

more about “DN! Tensions Rise in Latin America ov…“, posted with vodpod

see

US-Colombia military ties face resistance

Chavez: US plans to invade Venezuela through Colombia

US escalates war build-up against Latin American revolution by Federico Fuentes

Chavez: US plans to invade Venezuela through Colombia

Exclusive: Venezuela – In Great Danger from US Imperialism by Gary Sudborough

Colombia: US Escalates War Plans In Latin America by Rick Rozoff

Xiomara Castro de Zelaya: We Want Justice, We Want Peace, We Demand the Return to Democracy

Dandelion Salad

Democracy Now!
July 27, 2009

National Exclusive…Xiomara Castro de Zelaya, Wife of Ousted Honduran President, Calls on US to Aid Her Husband’s Return Home: “We Want Justice, We Want Peace, We Demand the Return to Democracy”

Children to be used to test swine flu vaccine?

Dandelion Salad

RussiaToday
July 27, 2009

Around 12,000 US children, some of them as young as 3 years old, are reportedly going to receive untested shots of a swine flu vaccine, says investigative journalist Wayne Madsen.

US-Colombia military ties face resistance

Dandelion Salad

AlJazeeraEnglish
July 27, 2009

The United States is in the final stages of negotiations with Colombia to shift its anti-drug operations from Ecuador to Colombian airbases.

The plan has faced resistance in Colombia, where a senator says the US uses its fight against drugs as an excuse to increase its influence in Colombia’s internal affairs.

Al Jazeera’s Gabriel Elizondo reports from the capital, Bogota.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

more about “US-Colombia military ties face resist…“, posted with vodpod

see

US escalates war build-up against Latin American revolution by Federico Fuentes

Chavez: US plans to invade Venezuela through Colombia

Exclusive: Venezuela – In Great Danger from US Imperialism by Gary Sudborough

Colombia: US Escalates War Plans In Latin America by Rick Rozoff

US escalates war build-up against Latin American revolution by Federico Fuentes

Dandelion Salad

Posted with permission from Green Left Weekly

by Federico Fuentes, Caracas
Green Left
25 July 2009

The US State Department and the coup regime in Honduras have publicly stated what many of us already knew: the June 28 military coup was not just directed against Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, but also Venezuela and the unfolding Latin American revolution.

On July 20, US state department spokesperson Phillip Crowley said he hoped Zelaya now understood that in “choosing a model government and a model leader for countries of the region to follow”, the US believes “the current leadership in Venezuela would not be a particular model”.

“If that is the lesson that President Zelaya has learned from this episode, that would be a good lesson.”

Obama And The Deadline For Closing Guantánamo: It’s Worse Than You Think by Andy Worthington

by Andy Worthington
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.andyworthington.co.uk
27 July 2009

When the Obama administration’s Detention Policy Task Force, established by Executive Order on the President’s second day in office, conceded last week that it would miss its six-month deadline to issue its recommendations about how to close Guantánamo, many observers focused on whether this meant that Obama would fail to meet his deadline of Jan 21, 2010 for the closure of the prison, and missed the bigger story, which was only revealed through close scrutiny of the Task Force’s five-page interim report (PDF).

Disturbingly, this document revealed that the Task Force envisages three options for dealing with the prisoners who will not be released from Guantánamo: trials in federal courts, trials by Military Commission (the “terror trials” introduced by former Vice President Dick Cheney in November 2001, and revived by Congress in 2006 after the Supreme Court ruled them illegal), and indefinite detention without charge or trial.

Murdoch: A Cultural Chernobyl By John Pilger

Dandelion Salad

By John Pilger
July 27, 2009 “Information Clearing House”

I met Eddie Spearritt in the Philharmonic pub, overlooking Liverpool. It was a few years after 96 Liverpool football fans had been crushed to death at Hillsborough Stadium, Sheffield, on 15 April 1989. Eddie’s son, Adam, aged 14, died in his arms. The “main reason for the disaster”, Lord Justice Taylor subsequently reported, was the “failure” of the police, who had herded fans into a lethal pen.

“As I lay in my hospital bed,” Eddie said, “the hospital staff kept the Sun away from me. It’s bad enough when you lose your 14-year-old son because you’re treating him to a football match. Nothing can be worse than that. But since then I’ve had to defend him against all the rubbish printed by the Sun about everyone there being a hooligan and drinking. There was no hooliganism. During 31 days of Lord Justice Taylor’s inquiry, no blame was attributed because of alcohol. Adam never touched it in his life.”

Glen Ford: Health reform: dead or alive?

Dandelion Salad

TheRealNews
July 27, 2009

Ford: By excluding single payer plan, Obama allowed the right to dominate the reform debate

“Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order” Part II by Stephen Lendman

Dandelion Salad

by Stephen Lendman
Global Research, July 27, 2009

A Review of F. William Engdahl’s Book

For over 30 years, F. William Engdahl has been a leading researcher, economist, and analyst of the New World Order with extensive writing to his credit on energy, politics, and economics. His newest book is titled “Full Strectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order.”

Part I was reviewed earlier. Part II continues the story of America’s quest for global dominance and why its own internal rot may defeat it.

The Significance of Darfur in Sudan

In a word – oil in the form of huge potential reserves with Chinese companies involved in discovering them. Washington’s genocide claim is a hoax. Yet it’s trumpeted by the media and foolhardy celebrities used as props for the charade. By 2007, China was getting up to 30% of its oil from Africa prompting its “extraordinary series of diplomatic initiatives that left Washington furious” and determined to respond.

Iran: Whose side are you on? By William Bowles

By William Bowles
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Creative-i
27 July 2009

I have been reading, with much despair and a deal of consternation, the torrent of ‘analysis’ coming out of ‘left’ field about which, if any, side to support in the ongoing struggles in Iran and, at the end of the day, a good deal more is revealed about the ‘left’ in the West than the situation in Iran.

Typically, the ‘left’ has much ‘advice’ to offer Iran, yet the real issue for us, here in the ‘developed’ world is what are we going to do about our governments. Yet such arrogance is not new, it has its roots in the ideology of racism which unfortunately permeates all of us here in the so-called developed world. We look outward instead of inward, where the issues we really need to confront, reside. Let the Iranian people get on with sorting out their own ruling class, they don’t need us to ‘guide’ them.

It is imperative to separate the issue of Western involvement in events from the distinctly Iranian issues of class, religion, gender and so forth, that regardless, have their causes (and solutions) in Iran. This is not say that Western involvement/interference doesn’t affect events and end up being part of the process, but then this is precisely the problem we in the West have to confront: How to separate out the effects of our incessant meddling in other countries’ affairs from the indigenous processes? So, whatever happened to analysis, class, economic, social and otherwise?

The election

Martial Law and the Militarization of Public Health: The Worldwide H1N1 Flu Vaccination Program by Michel Chossudovsky

Dandelion Salad

by Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research, July 26, 2009

“The flu season is upon us. Which type will we worry about this year, and what kind of shots will we be told to take? Remember the swine flu scare of 1976? That was the year the U.S. government told us all that swine flu could turn out to be a killer that could spread across the nation, and Washington decided that every man, woman and child in the nation should get a shot to prevent a nation-wide outbreak, a pandemic.” (Mike Wallace, CBS, 60 Minutes, November 4, 1979)

“The federal officials and industry representatives had assembled to discuss a disturbing new study that raised alarming questions about the safety of a host of common childhood vaccines administered to infants and young children. According to a CDC epidemiologist named Tom Verstraeten, who had analyzed the agency’s massive database containing the medical records of 100,000 children, a mercury-based preservative in the vaccines — thimerosal — appeared to be responsible for a dramatic increase in autism and a host of other neurological disorders among children….

Happiness Consultants Won’t Stop a Depression by Chris Hedges

by Chris Hedges
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Truthdig
July 27, 2009

In the face of unspeakable evil, is it even possible for me to go too far? by Jason Miller

by Jason Miller
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Thomas Paine’s Corner
July 27, 2009

Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated, allied, aligned, or connected with the Transformative Studies Institute, the Institute for Critical Animal Studies, Anthony Nocella II, or Richard Kahn. While I am a press officer for the North American Animal Liberation Press Office and am an associate of Jerry Vlasak and Steve Best, I am penning this piece independently of NAALPO and all of my allies. This essay is philosophical in nature and is not intended to incite or encourage illegal or violent acts.

Immersion in an emotionally intense experience impacts the human psyche in a poignant and profound way. Marginalized as we are by the war my fellow activists and I are waging against the dominant culture, it’s an elating and uplifting experience to meet and engage those fellow activists, comrades, and allies. My six days of nearly constant interaction with similar-minded individuals and the chanting, shouting, and raging at primate torturers and their enablers at the nexus of the UCLA vivisection wars in a raucous, vociferous, militant demonstration served both as a cathartic outlet and a source of potent spiritual and intellectual inspiration.

Cuba: How the workers and peasants made the revolution by Chris Slee

Dandelion Salad

Posted with permission from Green Left Weekly

by Chris Slee
Green Left
24 July 2009

July 26 also marks the anniversary of the attack on the Moncada military barracks by revolutionaries led by Fidel Castro in 1953, viewed by Cubans as the start of the revolution.

Chris Slee looks at how the revolution was made and defended by Cuba’s oppressed working people.

* * *

Workers, peasants and students played an active role before, during and after the insurrection that destroyed the brutal and corrupt Fulgencio Batista dictatorship in January 1959.

Batista seized power in a coup in March 1952. The coup initially met little resistance. The Confederation of Cuban Workers (CTC) called a general strike in protest at the coup, but the corrupt CTC leadership soon called it off.

CTC leader Eusebio Mujal became one of Batista’s closest collaborators, helping to suppress opposition to the dictatorship within the unions.

Secrets of CIA ‘ghost flights’ to be revealed

Dandelion Salad

Jamie Doward, home affairs editor
The Observer
Sunday 26 July 2009

Guantánamo detainee’s lawyers hail UK air firm’s U-turn that allows rendition case to go to court

Confidential documents showing the flight plans of a CIA “ghost plane” allegedly used to transfer a British resident to secret interrogation sites around the world are to be made public. The move comes after a Sussex-based company accused of involvement in extraordinary rendition dropped its opposition to a case against it being heard in court.

Lawyers bringing the case against Jeppesen UK on behalf of the former Guantánamo Bay detainee, Binyam Mohamed, claimed last night the climbdown had wide-ranging legal implications that could help expose which countries and governments knew the CIA was using their air bases to spirit terrorist suspects around the world.

[…]

via Secrets of CIA ‘ghost flights’ to be revealed | World news | The Observer

h/t: CLG

see

from the archives:

Revealed: Identity Of Guantánamo Torture Victim Rendered Through Diego Garcia by Andy Worthington

Did Hillary Clinton Threaten UK Over Binyam Mohamed Torture Disclosure? by Andy Worthington

Spies, Lies and Threats in Binyam Mohamed’s Case by Andy Worthington

Dick Cheney And The Death Of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi by Andy Worthington