a walk down memory lane

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Just for ducks....

Latin America - Prophetic memo about Honduras predicted "difficult" year for Zelaya one year before coup

By María Luisa Rivera for Wikileaks
10 December 2010, 16.00 GMT

A year before popularly elected President Manuel “Mel” Zelaya of Honduras was overthrown in a coup, Charles Ford, the U.S. ambassador in Tegucigalpa, sent a memo (LINK) to Washington that stated: "The last year and a half of the Zelaya Administration will be, in my view, extraordinarily difficult for our bilateral relationship."

In words that now seem prophetic, on May 14, 2008 Ford wrote: "Honduran institutions and friendly governments will need to be prepared to act privately and in public to help move Honduras forward."

On June 28, 2009, Honduran soldiers stormed the presidential palace, disarmed the guard, and put Zelaya on a plane to Costa Rica. Roberto Micheletti, the next person in the presidential line of succession, then assumed power.

Although Ford did not explicitly recommend destablizing the Honduran government, he underscored the idea that "Zelaya has no real friends outside of his family, as he ridicules publicly those closest to him" and that "strategically he stands alone."

Manuel Zelaya was born into a wealthy Honduran family and started out as a centre-right politician with the Liberal Party of Honduras but moved steadily to the left over his political career.

In an article in New Statesman magazine published shortly after the president was ousted, Xiomara Zelaya, his daughter, claimed that her father "achieved free education for all children, guaranteed school meals for more than 1.6 million children from poor families, reduced poverty by almost 10 per cent during two years of government, and provided direct state help for 200,000 families in extreme poverty, supplying free electricity to those members of society most in need."

The U.S. ambassador interpreted Zelaya’s legacy differently. "Zelaya’s principal goal in office is to enrich himself and his family while leaving a public legacy as a martyr who tried to do good but was thwarted at every turn by powerful, unnamed interests," wrote Ford. "Various public statements over his tenure suggest he would be quite comfortable as a martyr who tried but failed honorably in his attempt to seek out social justice for the poor."

Right wing Latin American analysts went further. "The gravest threat to liberty comes from elected populists who are seeking to subject the institutions of the law to their megalomaniac whims," wrote Alvaro Vargas Llosa, son of the famous Peruvian writer Maria Vargas Llosa, in an op-ed published in the Washington Post, referring to a referendum that Zelaya held to change the constitution that barred him from re-election.

Llosa also attacked Zelaya for bringing Honduras into Petrocaribe, which Llosa described as "a mechanism set up by Hugo Chavez for lavishing oil subsidies on Latin American and Caribbean countries in exchange for political subservience" and for joining the Bolivarian Alternative for Latin America and the Caribbean (ALBA), a trade alliance that Llosa described as "a political conspiracy that seeks to expand populist dictatorship to the rest of Latin America."

The ambassador’s June 2008 memo makes it clear that Ford was frustrated that Zelaya was not supportive enough of the U.S. "He made no attempt to disseminate his "(M)ay photo ops with President Bush after the June 2006 meeting in Washington," wrote the U.S. ambassador. "Most noticeable to me has been his avoidance of public meetings with visiting US officials. Zelaya always is a gracious host, but never comes out of the meeting to have his picture taken publicly with our visitors, as he is so anxious to do with other visitors from Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela. Almost all of our meetings take place at my Residence rather than at the more public setting of the Presidential Palace."

Ford’s cable to Washington concluded that Zelaya was "not a friend" of the U.S. "His views are shaped not by ideology or personal ambitions but by an old-fashioned nationalism where he holds the United States accountable for Honduras, current state of poverty and dependency," wrote Ford noting: "There also exists a sinister Zelaya, surrounded by a few close advisors with ties to both Venezuela and Cuba and organized crime."

The failure of Zelaya to be more obseqious to the U.S. may have been one of the reasons why the U.S. government was lukewarm in its immediate response to his ouster in June 2009. Although President Obama eventually condemned the coup, he did not immediately throw his support behind Zelaya.

You will recall I was apoplectic about this... well... still am....

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love, 99
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viva correa!

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You do not want to forget.

Report confirmed: U.S.
intelligence penetrated the heart of the Ecuadorian police force
JEAN-GUY ALLARD
HAVANA, 7 October 2010

The uprising against President Rafael Correa by a coup faction within the Ecuadorian police force is confirmed in an alarming report into the infiltration of this force by U.S. intelligence services published in 2008, which states how many members of the police departments were developing a "dependency" on the U.S. embassy in that South American country.

The report specifies that certain police units "have an informal economic dependence on the United States in terms of paying informants, training, equipment and operations."

The systematic use of corruption techniques on the part of the CIA in order to secure the "good will" of police officers was exposed on many occasions by former CIA agent Philip Agee who, prior to leaving the agency, was assigned to the U.S. embassy in Quito.

In his official report, published at the end of 2008, Ecuadorian Defense Minister Javier Ponce revealed how U.S. diplomats dedicated themselves to corrupting police officers and also officers within the Armed Forces.

Confirming that fact, the leadership of the Ecuadorian police force then announced it intended to sanction its agents who were collaborating with Washington, while the U.S. embassy declared the "transparency" of its support for Ecuador.

"We are working with the Ecuadorian government, the military and the police, for very important security purposes," declared Heather Hodges, the U.S. ambassador in Quito.

However, the diplomat told journalists that she would make no comment "on intelligence issues."

For her part, press attaché Marta Youth categorically refused to discuss the Ecuadorian government’s condemnations, which include the CIA’s participation in an operation with Colombia which resulted in the Colombian military attack against FARC guerrillas on Ecuadorian territory on March 1 of that year.

Army intelligence chief Mario Pazmiño was removed from his post for concealing information related to the attack on the FARC.

In the past few months, U.S. officials have appeared in Ecuador on the pretext of strengthening relations between Ecuador and the United States.

Arturo Valenzuela, assistant secretary of state for Western hemisphere affairs, traveled to Ecuador and met with President Correa with a view to securing a visit by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to that country.

Valenzuela was accompanied by Todd Stern, "special envoy for climate change", is also known for his affinity to the CIA."

We don't just have to stop them for ourselves.

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love, 99
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don't let it slip away

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Keep this in mind. Keep it in mind.

Ecuador Coup Attempt Engineered by the CIA
TOP STORY | NIKANDROV Nil | 03.10.2010 | 23:25

Ecuador's police forces played the key role in the coup attempt which shattered the country on September 30. The passing of a law affecting the police officers' bonuses and job benefits became a pretext for the rebellion which erupted in the capital city of Quito and the Guayquil seaport town. Actually, the law was not supposed to entail pay reductions, but those who masterminded the coup managed to convince the police that it would and thus provoked the uprising.

The subsequent developments followed the traditional Latin American pattern: rebels created bases, set up roadblocks, and had all flights to and from Ecuador suspended. The country's air force counting scores of US-trained officers partially sided with the police, while pilots from Venezuela who served in Ecuador in the framework of the military cooperation program were isolated. President Rafael Correa barely escaped death when he approached the police barracks to explain the reforms personally: shooting was audible around, he was sprayed with tear gas, and, moreover, several combat grenades exploded nearby. The president and his bodyguards took refuge in a military hospital which was promptly besieged by the rebel police forces and armed civilians evidently furnished by the opposition. The siege continued for several hours until special forces arrived and escorted Correa to the presidential palace.

Over the past several years the police of Ecuador was courted by the US Embassy which no doubt had its own interests in mind. Money from funds run by the FBI, the CIA, the DEA, and other US agencies was routinely poured into bonuses for the police top brass and operatives, equipment for various police divisions, etc. The cooperation became so cordial that occasionally the US intelligence community used Ecuador's police and army intelligence service to keep under surveillance the country's politicians, journalists, and others regarded as potential opponents of the US. Ecuador's intelligence services rushed information to their US partners during the crisis that hit the country's relations with Columbia after the latter bombed FARC camps in the territory of the former, leaving their own government blind to details of the situation.

The January, 2007 advent of Correa's patriotic administration largely put an end to the abnormal arrangement as the Ecuadorian government started to regain control over the country's agencies. Among other things, Correa forbade them to maintain unofficial ties with the US Embassy or get on its payroll. The efforts predictably angered Washington which, in one instance, demonstratively demanded that the Ecuadorian drug enforcement agency return the computers formerly supplied to it by DEA. The relations between Ecuador and the US saw another chill when Correa closed the US airbase in Mante. In response, Washington slammed Quito over its friendship with Venezuela and Nicaragua, diapproval of Plan Colombia, and the implementation of an original model of socialism.

The success of the operation which led to the ouster of president Manuel Zelaya in Honduras inspired the US hawks to put similar schemes to works elsewhere in Latin America, Washington's eventual goal being to isolate Hugo Chavez and remove his allies from power across the region. The US Administration reckoned that Ecuador was the easiest target on its political hit list. Correa's reforms meet with staunch resistance mounted by the local oligarchy, pro-US elites, and the army officers corps zombied in the notorious School of the Americas to fight communism which under present-day conditions circulates as a bracket term for whatever political movements Washington frowns upon.

The subversive activity targeting president Correa is coordinated by Heather Hodges who was appointed as the US ambassador to Ecuador in August, 2008.She did a job in Guatemala during the reign of its bloody dictator Rios Montt and served as deputy director of the US State Department's Cuban division which is known to be tightly interwoven with the CIA. Mrs. Hodges also worked with USAID in several countries and served as the US ambassador to Moldova where her mission was to alienate the country's leadership from Russia and to organize a color revolution with the help of pro-western NGOs and the energetic youths from the US Peace Corps. At the moment her trainees are employed by the CIA stations in Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador.

US Secretary of State H. Clinton visited Quito last June to assess the situation from within and to probe into the possibility of reorienting president Correa from Chavez to the US, but failed to exact any concessions from the Ecuadorian leader. As a result, Hodges was instructed to launch the operation aimed at weakening Correa's positions and – in the longer run – toppling him. USAID alone made a $40 mln financial infusion into the cause, former president Lucio being the key figure in the plot. Gutierrez's disastrous presidency ended with his escape from the country. Following an amnesty, he challenged Correa in the 2009 presidential race which he explainably lost.

According to the coup blueprint drafted by the CIA, Gutierrez was to announce the removal of “dictator” Correa and the transfer of authority to a provisional government in a televised address. The plan additionally included the disbandment of Ecuadorian parliament and the organization of snap elections. The conspirators, however, were dispersed by the defenders of the legitimate president and failed to clear Gutierrez's access to TV. Besides, the Indian organizations from the PACHAKUTIK group chose not to partake. The coup therefore collapsed.

Currently Ecuador is under emergency rule. Correa plans to purge the country's law enforcement agencies and to find out who – including the army officers – was involved. Charges are already being pressed against Gutierrez and his Sociedad Patriotica.

Causes of the unrest in Ecuador and the steps necessary to prevent the recurrence of coups in Latin America were analyzed during the UNASUR emergency meeting which convened in Buenos Aires on October 1. Attention should be paid to the fact that Washington chose not to condemn the perpetrators of the coup in Ecuador.

No way was this not our doing.

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love, 99
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bear in mind those poker players and who invites them, please

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I can't make up my mind if I admire this guy's focus on the local responsibility to withstand the psyops seeking to dupe them, or revile that he's skipped an opportunity to awaken comatose Norte Americanos to their poker dealers. I think I'm leaning toward admiration because he's gotta know there's no waking this beast to this stuff and he's putting his energy where there is more hope of influence, but it doesn't escape me the sort of luxury of that little outpost of lucidity he gets to inhabit.... The determining factor, everywhere, will be The People, and it's almost a copout such a brilliant kid would not spend his talents on the hardest nut to crack.

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love, 99
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i can't read spanish

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So I have to rely on what passes for coverage these days on al Jazeera, the troops freed him from the—US-backed—coup attempt and I have seen him addressing his nation, safe....

Foreign leaders condemn riots in Ecuador

Foreign leaders and international organizations expressed their support for the president of Ecuador and condemned violent police protests which left at least one person dead.

Police officers of the Latin American state took to the streets on Thursday a day after the parliament passed a controversial bill to end their bonuses and other benefits. At least one person was killed and dozens injured in the protests, including the country's foreign minister, who was hospitalized with a gunshot wound to the head.

President Rafael Correa was also taken to hospital after a tear gas attack and was unable to leave the building, surrounded by an angry crowd, until recently. An operation to release him took about half an hour. About 500 servicemen took part and at least 12 of them were injured.

Correa was taken to the presidential palace, where he delivered a speech to his supporters from a balcony.

A weeklong state of emergency was declared in the country. Media reported of violence and looting in the capital Quito and other cities.

Colombia and Peru, sealed their borders with Ecuador, Argentina's C5N TV said.

"I talked to the president of Peru and we have decided to close the border with Ecuador to demonstrate political support to President Correa," Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said.

The press office of UN Secretary General issued a statement to express concern about the situation in Ecuador.

"The Secretary-General is deeply concerned about developments today in Ecuador, including reported acts of insubordination by some members of the police and military," the statement reads, adding that the UN head urges all the parties "to intensify efforts to resolve the current crisis peacefully, within the rule of law."

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a statement her country "deplores violence and lawlessness and we express our full support for President Rafael Correa, and the institutions of democratic government in that country."

"We urge all Ecuadorians to come together and to work within the framework of Ecuador's democratic institutions to reach a rapid and peaceful restoration of order," she added.

About verbatim from her script after she set the Honduran Coup in motion last year....

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who is Correa's main ally, condemned the protests and called on the country's military not to support protestors. He also urged Latin America's largest international organizations, ALBA and UNASUR, to be "on alert."

"There is a coup attempt against President Correa. I alert the people of the Bolivarian alliance! I ask the UNASUR peoples to be on alert! Long live Correa!" Chavez posted on his Twitter account.

Spain's EFE news agency reported that UNASUR leaders would convene for an emergency meeting in Buenos Aires to discuss situation in Ecuador.

The Organization of American States (OAS) unanimously passed a resolution in support of Correa and his government.

The government of Spain said it "strongly condemned any constitutional violations" and "reiterated its support for the legitimate government and democratic institutions of Ecuador."

Cuban foreign minister Bruno Rodriguez read a declaration from the Cuban Government, which says that Havana "fully backs the legitimate and constitutional government of President Rafael Correa and supports the Ecuadorian people that are mobilizing to rescue their president."

"We hold the chief of the Armed Forces of Ecuador responsible for the physical integrity of President Correa. They must guarantee him full freedom of movement and exercise of his duties," Cuban News Agency ACN quoted the statement as saying.

Argentina's Foreign Ministry said in a press release that its government "categorically rejects the revolt of military forces and police that put in jeopardy the democratic institutions of Ecuador."

"Latin America doesn't accept attacks against democracy and attempts to mock the will of the people manifested at the ballot boxes," the statement reads.

The turmoil in the OPEC member has already led to an increase in global oil prices.

MOSCOW, October 1 (RIA Novosti)

RIA Novosti's Ecuador coup page....

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Let's send our spokesmodel to go talk to the Ecuadoran police, eh?

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UNASUR held an emergency meeting in Buenos Aires, seven presidents of South American countries were in attendance, and they have made a statement that from now on any coup in South America will be met with borders closed to neighboring countries, trade and energy deliveries halted... no more of this shit. The meeting just broke up an hour ago and there's nothing to link for you yet.

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Listening to the suddenly listless pundits at al Jazeera is creeping me out. They come on and mouth platitudes about a "tradition" of coups in Ecuador... as though it's a quirky Ecuadoran prob. Has there ever been a coup south of us that was not our doing? I can't seem to call one to mind.... Don't you think it's PSYCHOTIC that news outlets don't ever mention OUR tradition of overthrowing South and Central American governments? A vague allusion to it?

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

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I used a translator:

The presidents of UNASUR require trial and condemnation of the coup in Ecuador
(AFP) - 29 minutes ago

BUENOS AIRES - The presidents of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) called on Friday to be judged and condemned those responsible for what they described as attempted coup in Ecuador, in a statement from the summit of leaders of the bloc.

UNASUR requires that "the perpetrators of the coup in Ecuador are tried and convicted," said the final statement of the extraordinary summit that was held in Argentina's capital, read by the Argentine Foreign Minister, Hector Timerman.

The South American bloc further noted that their governments "will not tolerate and will reject any new challenge to institutional authority" and said that if "new breaks", measures as closing the border, the trade suspension , air traffic and the provision of energy. "

Good enough for government work....

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VIVA CORREA!
VIVA ECUADOR!
VIVA LAS REVOLUCIONES DE AMERICA LATINA!
EL PUEBLO UNIDO JAMAS SERA VENCIDO!

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love, 99
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i'm not letting go of the honduran thing either

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Most of the time it is the first thing that leaps to mind when I want to start listing the betrayals, all this unbelievable change. And I wonder often what kind of freaks we've become that so few of us have the kind of courage you see on display almost everywhere else in the world whenever things get bad. It makes me so ashamed.

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where there is lots of money to be made a deep state is inevitable

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Wouldn't it be marvelous if everyone just decided to get rid of it?
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mastering the americas — UPDATED

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Updated to add links in last paragraph....

The kidnapping of Haiti
by John Pilger
28 January 2010

The theft of Haiti has been swift and crude. On 22 January, the United States secured “formal approval” from the United Nations to take over all air and sea ports in Haiti, and to “secure” roads. No Haitian signed the agreement, which has no basis in law. Power rules in an American naval blockade and the arrival of 13,000 marines, special forces, spooks and mercenaries, none with humanitarian relief training.

The airport in the capital, Port-au-Prince, is now an American military base and relief flights have been re-routed to the Dominican Republic. All flights stopped for three hours for the arrival of Hillary Clinton. Critically injured Haitians waited unaided as 800 American residents in Haiti were fed, watered and evacuated. Six days passed before the US Air Force dropped bottled water to people suffering thirst and dehydration.

The first TV reports played a critical role, giving the impression of widespread criminal mayhem. Matt Frei, the BBC reporter dispatched from Washington, seemed on the point of hyperventilation as he brayed about the “violence” and need for “security”. In spite of the demonstrable dignity of the earthquake victims, and evidence of citizens’ groups toiling unaided to rescue people, and even an American general’s assessment that the violence in Haiti was considerably less than before the earthquake, Frei claimed that “looting is the only industry” and “the dignity of Haiti’s past is long forgotten.” Thus, a history of unerring US violence and exploitation in Haiti was consigned to the victims. “There’s no doubt,” reported Frei in the aftermath of America’s bloody invasion of Iraq in 2003, “that the desire to bring good, to bring American values to the rest of the world, and especially now to the Middle East... is now increasingly tied up with military power.”

In a sense, he was right. Never before in so-called peacetime have human relations been as militarised by rapacious power. Never before has an American president subordinated his government to the military establishment of his discredited predecessor, as Barack Obama has done. In pursuing George W. Bush’s policy of war and domination, Obama has sought from Congress an unprecedented military budget in excess of $700 billion. He has become, in effect, the spokesman for a military coup.

For the people of Haiti the implications are clear, if grotesque. With US troops in control of their country, Obama has appointed George W. Bush to the “relief effort”: a parody surely lifted from Graham Greene’s The Comedians, set in Papa Doc’s Haiti. As president, Bush’s relief effort following Hurricane Katrina in 2005 amounted to an ethnic cleansing of many of New Orleans’ black population. In 2004, he ordered the kidnapping of the democratically-elected prime minister of Haiti, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and exiled him in Africa. The popular Aristide had had the temerity to legislate modest reforms, such as a minimum wage for those who toil in Haiti’s sweatshops.

When I was last in Haiti, I watched very young girls stooped in front of whirring, hissing, binding machines at the Port-au-Prince Superior Baseball Plant. Many had swollen eyes and lacerated arms. I produced a camera and was thrown out. Haiti is where America makes the equipment for its hallowed national game, for next to nothing. Haiti is where Walt Disney contractors make Mickey Mouse pjamas, for next to nothing. The US controls Haiti’s sugar, bauxite and sisal. Rice-growing was replaced by imported American rice, driving people into the cities and towns and jerry-built housing. Years after year, Haiti was invaded by US marines, infamous for atrocities that have been their specialty from the Philippines to Afghanistan.

Bill Clinton is another comedian, having got himself appointed the UN’s man in Haiti. Once fawned upon by the BBC as “Mr. Nice Guy... bringing democracy back to a sad and troubled land”, Clinton is Haiti’s most notorious privateer, demanding de-regulation of the economy for the benefit of the sweatshop barons. Lately, he has been promoting a $55m deal to turn the north of Haiti into an American-annexed “tourist playground”.

Not for tourists is the US building its fifth biggest embassy in Port-au-Prince. Oil was found in Haiti’s waters decades ago and the US has kept it in reserve until the Middle East begins to run dry. More urgently, an occupied Haiti has a strategic importance in Washington’s “rollback” plans for Latin America. The goal is the overthrow of the popular democracies in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, control of Venezuela’s abundant oil reserves and sabotage of the growing regional cooperation that has given millions their first taste of an economic and social justice long denied by US-sponsored regimes.

The first rollback success came last year with the coup against President Jose Manuel Zelaya in Honduras who also dared advocate a minimum wage and that the rich pay tax. Obama’s secret support for the illegal regime carries a clear warning to vulnerable governments in central America. Last October, the regime in Colombia, long bankrolled by Washington and supported by death squads, handed the US seven military bases to, according to US air force documents, “combat anti-US governments in the region”.

Media propaganda has laid the ground for what may well be Obama’s next war. On 14 December, researchers at the University of West England published first findings of a ten-year study of the BBC’s reporting of Venezuela. Of 304 BBC reports, only three mentioned any of the historic reforms of the Chavez government, while the majority denigrated Chavez’s extraordinary democratic record, at one point comparing him to Hitler.

Such distortion and its attendant servitude to western power are rife across the Anglo-American corporate media. People who struggle for a better life, or for life itself, from Venezuela to Honduras to Haiti, deserve our support.

I'm not posting about the supposed demonstrations against Chavez because, while I'm sure there are some, maybe even sizable, especially from the comfortable who aren't liking this sharing thing much at all, I believe the captions on many of the photographs have been changed to make pro-Chavez marchers seem to us to be anti-Chavez marchers, and until I have the space to look into it more deeply, I ain't falling for it. He is wildly popular, and way more democratic than anything they've known in my lifetime, and we are so clearly back in the coup business for real and with no impediments that I'm just not falling for it.

We are behind the Iron Curtain now, for real, and for good... unless... oh... never mind....
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obama's first coup passes into history

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if you want to listen to chomsky drone on about honduras

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... here's yer chance....
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blowback from obama's first coup

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Or the gospel. We all know which of these men is least likely to lie.

Venezuela's Chavez sees US threat in Dutch islands
AP — 1 hr 1 min ago

COPENHAGEN – Hugo Chavez accused the Netherlands on Thursday of allowing the United States to use Dutch islands off Venezuela's Caribbean coast to prepare a possible military attack against his country.

The Venezuelan leader said the U.S. military, to prepare for a possible offensive, has sent intelligence agents, war ships and spy planes to Aruba, Curacao and Bonaire, which are self-governing Dutch islands.

"They are three islands in Venezuela's territorial waters, but they are still under an imperial regime: the Netherlands," Chavez said during a speech at a climate change conference in Denmark. "Europe should know that the North American empire is filling these islands with weapons, assassins, American intelligence units, and spy planes and war ships."

In Washington, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly denied that U.S. military personnel in the Caribbean are planning to attack Venezuela.

"These allegations are baseless. These are routine exercises. We seek cooperation with the region," Kelly said.

Chavez did not offer evidence supporting his accusations, but he blamed the Netherlands and said the European Union should take a stance.

"I would like to know that the European Union has to say about this," Chavez said. "The Netherlands is responsible for this."

Chavez claims it's part of a broader plan by Washington to undermine leftist governments throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, including Ecuador, Nicaragua, Bolivia and Cuba.

"It's a threat to all the people of Latin America and the Caribbean," he said in a speech on the sidelines of the climate change conference in Denmark.

The socialist leader has repeatedly accused President Barack Obama's administration of conspiring with neighboring Colombia to topple his government.

Chavez's latest remarks were his strongest yet directed at the Netherlands. Three years ago he also bickered with the Dutch government, calling its defense minister a "pawn of Washington" who was part of an orchestrated campaign to vilify him as a "tyrant making plans for invasions of neighboring countries."

Venezuela and Colombia have been feuding for months over an agreement between Bogota and Washington allowing the U.S. military to increase its presence at Colombian bases through a 10-year lease agreement. American troops also are stationed at airports in Aruba and Curacao.

"Venezuela is being surrounded by military bases," Chavez said.

Colombian and U.S. officials have dismissed Chavez's concerns that Colombian bases could be used as launching pads to try to unseat him, saying their sole objective to fight drug trafficking and leftist guerrillas within Colombia.

Chavez also took aim at Obama during Thursday's speech, saying the U.S. president did not deserve the Nobel Peace Prize because he is continuing warlike policies.

"Obama should give back the prize," Chavez said, suggesting that his close ally — Bolivian President Evo Morales — would have been a better choice.

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sing it, raúl

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It's one hundred percent Obama's doing.
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aw, hell, let's just let our hair down here for a few

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My apologies for daring to blur Jimmy Page's hand and guitar, but, well, it just didn't go with the moment....

I started to dip into the Friday news dump and came up with the news that the Zelaya reinstatement thing in Honduras fell through, and it was set to completely ruin the one thing that completely accidentally has gone unequivocally completely right around here in completely quite a while, my November coffee shipment arriving moments after brewing the very last cup from my last month's stash, and so I'm taking refuge in Led Zeppelin... buddha/dharma/sangha... and a completely transcendental cup of Peet's at this moment. It's completely hell being me and you don't even know how much I spare you here. Totally.

fascist boolshit

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Some good news that I don't think is worth a shit. Be reminded I only quote crap from the AP, the American Propagandists, because I trust you're not dull-witted enough to buy the relentless repetitions of lies designed always to give the impression that the United States is a good faith actor on the world stage. For instance, this coup would not have happened without our approval. We knew about it weeks in advance, if you want to be generous enough to believe it was the Hondurans' idea to begin with, and one phone call from Clinton would have halted it in its tracks. Obama wanted the coup. And so, likewise, our brokering a deal to return Zelaya to office five minutes before an election in which he's not allowed to run is just totally outrageous nice guy theater.

I read something yesterday that went on as though Zelaya will be a candidate in this election, and maybe I missed something, but I don't think that's right. I wish it were. Here this point comports with my understanding, but I remember being shocked that someone I thought had a handle on the scene, on foreign intelligence, was speaking about people voting for Zelaya in the upcoming election. Maybe he just meant as a protest or something but it sounded as though he meant it as Zelaya actually being on the ballot for another term... which supposedly was the whole shtick to try to excuse the coup to begin with... that they thought Zelaya was trying to get another term, when he was merely trying to see if the people wanted the option of having a president for two terms... sometime in a future after the constitution could be duly amended. Somebody please tune me up if I've got it wrong.

Ousted Honduran leader: Pact will restore me
By JUAN ZAMORANO, Associated Press Writer – 2 hrs 6 mins ago

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras – Deposed President Manuel Zelaya and his opponents have agreed to a U.S.-brokered deal that he said will return him to power four months after a coup shook faith in Latin America's young democracies.

The power-sharing agreement reached late Thursday calls for Congress to decide whether to reinstate the leftist Zelaya. While the legislature backed his June 28 ouster, congressional leaders have since said they won't stand in the way of an agreement that ends Honduras' diplomatic isolation and legitimizes presidential elections planned for Nov. 29.

Assistant U.S. Secretary of State Thomas Shannon said Friday that the two sides finally made concessions after realizing the international community wouldn't recognize the elections or restore aid without a compromise.

"There was no more space for them to dither," he said.

Shannon cautioned that "there are a variety of moving parts to this agremeent" and said he would stay in Honduras while the two sides negotiate the details.

Under the plan, a government of national unity would take office to oversee the elections and the transition to the next president, who will be inaugurated on Jan. 27. Neither Zelaya nor interim President Roberto Micheletti is running.

Most polls show lawmaker Porfirio Lobo of the National Party leading Elvin Santos of the Liberal Party to which both Zelaya and Micheletti belong.

"We are willing to be cooperative in Congress with the agreement of the negotiators," Lobo said Friday. "The best decision for Honduras will be taken."

The plan does not include a deadline for congress to act, but Zelaya told The Associated Press that he expects a decision in "more or less a week." Meanwhile, he said, he will remain at the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa, where he took refuge after slipping back into the country Sept. 21 from his forced exile.

"I'm not going anywhere," he said Friday.

Soldiers still surrounded the embassy and floodlights still interrupted sleep, but it has been several days since troops have crowed and meowed in the wee hours to keep those inside awake.

Backers hugged Zelaya after hearing the news and one asked him to autograph a white cowboy hat resembling the one the deposed leader always wears. The hat already bore Shannon's signature.

The breakthrough was a major foreign-policy victory for Obama. Speaking to reporters in Islamabad, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called it "an historic agreement," saying: "This is a big step forward for the inter-American system."

Zelaya was ousted after ignoring orders from the Supreme Court to abandon a referendum aimed at rewriting the constitution. Opponents said his secret plan was to lift a constitutional ban on presidential re-election; Zelaya denies that.

During his three years in office, Zelaya had alienated Honduras' elite by forming an increasingly strong alliance with Venezuela's socialist president, Hugo Chavez.

The new agreement would create a power-sharing government and bind both sides to recognize the presidential elections, as well as putting the armed forces under the command of electoral officials to ensure that the vote is legitimate.

It also creates a truth commission and rejects amnesty for political crimes.

Micheletti called the pact a "significant concession" on his part.

Pfeh.

Fuck Micheletti and fuck Clinton and Obama.

On top of all this, we, of course, have the plain fact of never being able to be reasonably certain of the veracity of polls or election returns since the fascist "democracies" have realized that manipulating them saves SO much trouble.

So. Anyway. Nope. This was a shot across ALBA's bow, pure and simple.

status: obama's first coup

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He even does seamless coups... and so post-modernly. Leaves populist leaders everywhere sputtering. This impeccable grace evidently was the hope, the change, we could believe in. No more having to wallow in guilt for our brute intrusions upon everyone else's lives and resources. What a man.

the election is only a few weeks away

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Curfew-trapped Hondurans seek food amid crisis
By MARK STEVENSON, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 2 mins ago

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras – Hungry Hondurans scrambled through looted stores and lined up for food on Wednesday during a break in a long curfew called to halt violence that erupted with the return of the country's deposed leftist president.

Troops and police ringed the Brazilian Embassy where ousted President Manuel Zelaya took shelter on Monday after returning home in a daring challenge to the interim government that threw him out of the country at gunpoint in June and that vows to arrest him if he leaves the shelter of the diplomatic mission.

Most other Hondurans were trapped as well, cooped up in their homes since Monday evening by a government order to stay off the streets — an order ignored by some looters and pro-Zelaya protesters.

Schools, businesses, airports and border crossings closed, though the coup-installed government lifted the nationwide curfew for six hours Wednesday so that businesses could open briefly and people could buy what they needed.

Brazil's Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva used the podium at the U.N. General Assembly to demand Zelaya be reinstated as Honduras' president the U.S. State Department called for restraint by both sides.

From Washington, Spokesman Ian Kelly said the U.S., which still has contact with Honduran officials, had helped get authorities to restore water and power service they had cut at the Brazilian embassy where Zelaya is holed up and had helped evacuate some Brazilian embassy staff.

But on a street in Tegucigalpa, Lila Armendia peered out through her wooden gate at a scene of burning trash bins placed by protesters.

"It's scary to go out," she said.

Being stuck inside her home is no good either. "It's like being in jail," said the 38-year-old seamstress who has been unable to work.

People determined to stock up for the uncertain days ahead trudged past bandana-masked youths sitting on boulders they had used to block roads.

About two dozen people at a supermarket littered with overturned shelves hunted through shards of glass and smashed potato chip packages for undamaged food.

Police said they arrested 113 people after scores of business were looted as protesters skirmished with officers throughout Tuesday night.

Zelaya told the Argentine cable channel Todo Noticias that 10 of his supporters had been killed, though he gave no details. Authorities said there were no deaths at all, though they said one person suffered a gunshot wound.

Dr. Mario Sanchez at the Escuela Hospital in Tegucigalpa said three people were treated for gunshot wounds there, however.

At an upscale shopping mall in the capital, women wearing track suits and pearl earrings formed a bumper-to-bumper line of orange shopping carts that snaked around the parking lot of a Price Smart they expected to soon open.

"This is a nightmare," said Lijia Acietuno, a 26-year-old business manager. "Look what this man has done to our country," she said, referring to Zelaya.

The crisis appeared to be taking a toll on Zelaya, too. He stared into space Wednesday as a shrinking core of supporters at the isolated Brazilian embassy raised their fists and vowed to fight for his reinstatement.

The boisterous leader known for his trademark white cowboy hat had been traveling the hemisphere, meeting with heads of state to build a wall of diplomatic condemnation against the government that hustled him out of the country at gunpoint June 28.

He now finds himself confined to the cramped embassy compound surrounded by troops waiting to arrest him.

The interim government's foreign minister Carlos Lopez, said that soldiers would not try to enter the embassy to arrest Zelaya.

But he also said yet again that Honduras' interim government would not bow to intense international demands for him to serve out his final months as president.

Before he was ousted, the country's Supreme Court has endorsed charges of treason and abuse of authority against Zelaya for repeatedly ignoring court orders to drop plans for a referendum on whether the constitution should be rewritten.

The interim government accuses Zelaya of trying to create disturbances ahead of the Nov. 29 presidential elections that coup-backers hope will restore an international image of democracy to the nation and ease foreign pressure.

Zelaya says he has no plans to leave the embassy and has repeatedly asked to speak with interim President Roberto Micheletti, who says he is open to talks with the participation of the Organization of American States.

Zelaya said Micheletti's refusal to accept international demands for his reinstatement mean he "does not have the will to resolve what is happening in Honduras."

"If he has any conscience, then he should yield and search first for peace and not for his own personal benefit," Zelaya said on the Costa Rican radio program Nuestra Voz.

Kelly said the interim government has invited a delegation from the Organization of American States to help solve the standoff — a moved welcomed by the United States.

Brazil's Silva, meanwhile, urged the world to insist on reinstating Zelaya.

"Unless there is political will, we will see more coups like the one that toppled the constitutional president of Honduras," Silva told the U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York.

The Brazilian government asked the U.N. Security Council to discuss the security of Zelaya and its embassy in Honduras.

Zelaya's opponents accuse him of wanting to end the constitutional ban on re-election — a charge Zelaya has repeatedly denied.

U.S.-backed talks moderated by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias broke down after Micheletti's government refused to accept a plan that would allow Zelaya to return to the presidency with limited powers and prohibit him from attempting to revise the constitution.

Many Hondurans feel caught in the middle of a fight between two leaders — neither of whom they support.

"We are like prisoners. This is unbearable," said Edie Eguigure, 47, waiting in a long line to buy food for his family. "It's time for Micheletti and Zelaya sit down to negotiate to end this problem that is affecting more than anything the poorest of the poor."

And here's some much more edifying reportage by someone not given to LYING....

good john perkins interview

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I particularly liked this interview because, among many other timely and important things about which they speak, Alex Jones manages to express clearly why he's being such a jackass about our environmental emergency. Seems he's not really a jackass about it; it just sounds that way if you don't look into the kernel of it. They also express my sentiment about the Obama presidency; to wit: that he's probably a decent guy who would like to do good things, but is too frightened. Again the CIA is mentioned as part of this fear. So, again, I want to warn you that you should not let your knee jerk up and bash your chin so hard it breaks your teeth whenever Alex Jones is mentioned. Yes, he's a maniac. He is also brilliant. He is also dedicated to truth. He admits his errors. He's a patriot and a lover of humanity. So, it doesn't make you any kind of weird to pay attention to what he says. You have a brain, do you not? You can use it for critical thinking, can you not? So don't be a jackass about Alex Jones. This is a good interview.

I'm trusting that you can navigate your way from the first in the series of four through to wherever you feel like stopping listening. Let me know if you need me to link each, and I will do it when I get a chance.

On a related note, Nancy Youssef tells Bill Moyers about the atmosphere inside the Pentagon... that you don't feel the war even there... it's just business, contracts [letters of marque] being hammered out and signed... no sense of the gravity of this stuff. Just makes Perkins' and Jones' and John Cusacks' [War, Inc.] points come into even better focus.

obama's first coup: the status

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beware indians bearing gifts, nafta flu, drug deaths, drones and assassins

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Decided to duck around in the unfamiliar today, and to use it to catch up on what I missed earlier in the month with my long succession of debacles. This particular taping of Democracy Now! stands out for a number of reasons... not least that it includes some poor Mexican guy pleading to have the public health hazard in Perote dealt with properly... and a couple of instances where Obama blows our collective minds with the audacity of chutzpah in calling those who wish him to turn back his coup against Zelaya in Honduras "hypocrites"... but also because you have a chance to listen to journalist, Charles Bowden speaking about asylum for a Mexican journalist and about the Mexican government and drugs and guns. You might want to read his piece in Mother Jones on it that they mention in the interview, help remind you of Obama's mendacity and the recent history of Mexico, but, more than that, more than anything, maybe you want to read Bowden's Blood Orchid: An Unnatural History of America, which will drill about three tons of delusion right the hell on out of you all by itself. I promise. It is a masterpiece. Don't die without reading it.

[It should also be noted that the piece by Bowden linked here, We Bring Fear, is so good that I had to stop reading it online and print it out to take to bed with me. Just look at the first page and tell me you don't feel the same way.

I never can bring myself to believe these "Kindle" things will overtake books and magazines because there are some things that cannot be absorbed on a monitor, a viewing screen. Some writers have to be held, and Bowden is one of them.

I also have found myself irked for posting an image of Obama painted as a brave. I wanted an image of an indian holding a wrapped gift... and I can do that because I'm indian... but lost patience in the search. Maybe I will forget the blast of "INDIAN GIVER!" that shot through me at some point during this broadcast, and replace the image with something that is not an insult to my ancestors, or maybe I will leave it and just concentrate on the miserable irony of someone honoring him this way....

No, really! That should be reserved for a man of courage, not squandered on someone who sells out everyone in his country, everyone on earth to play this murderating role on the world stage.]

'just trust us' about cia/blackwater assassination teams

[click image, today's Democracy Now! mp3, one hour]

Scahill's appearance by itself is here and here... but the whole show today covers a lot of currently hot issues... including healthcare reform....

So. Did Jarrett mean, just trust us to throw Blackwater under the bus for the crimes of the last administration? Or did she simply mean that Obama would be more careful about using them? Is this what Holder meant when he told David Swanson he'd be proud of his country when Swanson was questioning him about prosecutions for war crimes at a congressional hearing? WTF is going on here? Do you approve?

I DON'T! When I heard Golda Meir sent assassins against people viewed as enemies, I lost every drop of social conditioning to love and admire her. WHAT THE HELL CAN CAUSE US TO NATTER ABOUT 'RULE OF LAW' WHEN WE ARE DOING THIS ACTIVE FORM OF EXTRA-JUDICIAL KILLING?

I advise listening to Scahill's interview here very carefully and more than once. This is outrageous news.

[You should really listen to the whole show, though, to listen to Obama's BIG SMUG LIES about our position on the Honduran coup... since it has become abundantly clear that he is responsible for it.]