#Former CIA operative and Economic Hit Man

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Friday, October 30, 2020

U.S. refugee admissions (Foreign Policy) The number of refugees allowed into the United States in the coming year will be at its lowest level in modern times, after the White House announced just 15,000 refugees would be allowed settle in the country next year. According to a White House memo, 5,000 of those places will go to refugees facing religious persecution, 4,000 are reserved for refugees from Iraq who helped the United States, and 1,000 for refugees from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras; 5,000 open slots remain, although refugees from Somalia, Syria, and Yemen are banned unless they can meet special humanitarian criteria. The future of U.S. refugee policy hangs on Tuesday’s vote: Former Vice President Joe Biden has promised to increase annual refugee admissions to 125,000, while the Guardian reports that a second Trump administration would seek to slash such admissions to zero.

Days From Election, Police Killing of Black Man Roils Philadelphia (NYT) There is a grim familiarity to it all. In the final days of a bitter election, it is a reprise of the terrible images that the country has come to know all too well this year: The shaky cellphone video, the abrupt death of a Black man at the hands of the police. The howls of grief at the scene. The protests that formed immediately. The looting of stores that lasted late into the night. It began on Monday, when two officers confronted Walter Wallace Jr., a 27-year-old with a history of mental health problems. A lawyer for the family said that he was experiencing a crisis that day and that the family told officers about it when they arrived at the scene. In an encounter captured in video that appeared on social media, Mr. Wallace is seen walking into the street in the direction of the officers, who back away and aim their guns at him. Someone yells repeatedly at Mr. Wallace to “put the knife down.” The officers then fire multiple rounds. After Mr. Wallace falls to the ground, his mother screams and rushes to his body. Mr. Wallace later died of his wounds at a nearby hospital, and the neighborhood exploded in rage. In the days since, dozens have been arrested, cars have been burned and 53 officers have been hurt. On Tuesday, Gov. Tom Wolf called in the National Guard. On Wednesday, the city declared a 9 p.m. curfew. And once again, the people in the neighborhood where it all took place were left to consider what had happened and what, if anything, could be done about it.

Zeta soaks Southeast after swamping Gulf Coast; 6 dead (AP) Millions of people were without power and at least six were dead Thursday after Hurricane Zeta slammed into Louisiana and made a beeline across the South, leaving shattered buildings, thousands of downed trees and fresh anguish over a record-setting hurricane season. From the bayous of the Gulf Coast to Atlanta and beyond, Southerners used to dealing with dangerous weather were left to pick up the pieces once again. In Atlanta and New Orleans, drivers dodged trees in roads and navigated intersections without traffic signals. As many as 2.6 million homes and businesses lost power across seven states, but the lights were coming back on slowly. The sun came out and temperatures cooled, but trees were still swaying as the storm’s remnants blew through. Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said the state sustained “catastrophic” damage on Grand Isle in Jefferson Parish, where Zeta punched three breaches in the levee. Edwards ordered the Louisiana National Guard to fly in soldiers to assist with search and rescue efforts and urged continued caution.

Violent criminal groups are eroding Mexico’s authority and claiming more territory (Washington Post) Organized crime here once meant a handful of cartels shipping narcotics up the highways to the United States. In a fundamental shift, the criminals of today are reaching ever deeper into the country, infiltrating communities, police forces and town halls. A dizzying range of armed groups—perhaps more than 200—have diversified into a broadening array of activities. They’re not only moving drugs but kidnapping Mexicans, trafficking migrants and shaking down businesses from lime growers to mining companies. It can be easy to miss how much the nation’s criminal threat has evolved. Mexico is the United States’ No. 1 trading partner, a country of humming factories and tranquil beach resorts. But despite 14 years of military operations—and $3 billion in U.S. anti-narcotics aid—criminal organizations are transforming the Mexican landscape: In a classified study produced in 2018 but not previously reported, CIA analysts concluded that drug-trafficking groups had gained effective control over about 20 percent of Mexico, according to several current and former U.S. officials. / Homicides in the last two years have surged to their highest levels in six decades; 2020 is on track to set another record. Mexico’s murder rate is more than four times that of the United States. / Hundreds of thousands of people have fled their homes to escape violence; the Mexican Congress is poised to pass the country’s first law to help the internally displaced. / More than 77,000 people have disappeared, authorities reported this year, a far larger total than previous governments acknowledged. It is the greatest such crisis in Latin America since the “dirty wars” of the 1970s and 1980s. / The State Department is urging Americans to avoid travel to half of Mexico’s states, tagging five of them as Level 4 for danger—the same as Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has created a 100,000-member national guard to reclaim areas with little state presence. It’s not clear that will make a significant difference. Years of Mexican and U.S. strategy—arresting drug kingpins, training Mexican police, overhauling the justice system—have failed to curb the violence.

Many Cubans hope US election will lead to renewed ties (AP) Not so long ago the tables at Woow!!! restaurant in Havana were filled with tourists ordering mojitos and plates of grilled octopus. But as President Donald Trump rolled back Obama-era measures opening Cuba relations, the restaurant grew increasingly empty. Now entrepreneurs like Orlando Alain Rodríguez are keeping a close eye on the upcoming U.S. presidential election in hope that a win by Democratic challenger Joe Biden might lead to a renewal of a relationship cut short. “The Trump era has been like a virus to tourism in Cuba,” said Rodríguez, the owner of Woow!!! and another restaurant feeling the pinch. Few countries in Latin America have seen as dramatic a change in U.S. relations during the Trump administration or have as much at stake in who wins the election. Former President Barack Obama restored diplomatic relations, loosened restrictions on travel and remittances and became the first U.S. chief of state to set foot in the island in 88 years. The result was a boom in tourism and business growth on the island. Trump has steadily reversed that opening, tapping into the frustrations of a wide segment of the Cuban American community that does not support opening relations while a communist government remains in power. He put into effect part of a previously suspended U.S. law that permits American citizens to sue companies that have benefited from private properties confiscated by the Cuban government, put a new cap on remittances, reduced commercial flights and banned cruises. The president has also forbidden Americans from buying cigars, rum or staying in government-run hotels. A Trump reelection would likely spell another four years of tightened U.S. sanctions while many expect a Biden administration to carry out at least some opening.

Winter gloom settles over Europe (Washington Post) The clocks were dialed back an hour across Europe this week, and the long nights come early now. The hospitals are filling up, as the cafes are shutting down. Governments are threatening to cancel Christmas gatherings. As new coronavirus infections surge again in Europe, breaking daily records, the mood is growing dark on the continent—and it’s not even November. The reprieve of summer feels a long time ago, and Europe is entering a serious funk. Germany and France announced national lockdowns Wednesday to try to get the virus under control. The new measures are less restrictive than in the spring, and yet they face more resistance. People are no longer so willing to remain confined to their homes, venturing onto balconies in the evenings to applaud health-care workers. Many people remain scared of covid-19, but they are exhausted and frustrated—and growing angry and rebellious. In a sign of the times, the head of the World Health Organization recognized the “pandemic fatigue that people are feeling” but urged “we must not give up.” The smugness in Europe about having bested the Americans under President Trump is fading with the daily record-breaking counts.

Young and Jobless in Europe: ‘It’s Been Desperate’ (NYT) Like millions of young people across Europe, Rebecca Lee, 25, has suddenly found herself shut out of the labor market as the economic toll of the pandemic intensifies. Her job as a personal assistant at a London architecture firm, where she had worked for two years, was eliminated in September, leaving her looking for work of any kind. Ms. Lee, who has a degree in illustration from the University of Westminster, sent out nearly 100 job applications. After scores of rejections, and even being wait-listed for a food delivery gig at Deliveroo, she finally landed a two-month contract at a family-aid charity that pays 10 pounds (about $13) an hour. “At the moment I will take anything I can get,” Ms. Lee said. “It’s been desperate.” The coronavirus pandemic is rapidly fueling a new youth unemployment crisis in Europe. Young people are being disproportionately hit, economically and socially, by lockdown restrictions, forcing many to make painful adjustments and leaving policymakers grasping for solutions. Years of job growth has eroded in a matter of months, leaving more than twice as many young people than other adults out of work. The jobless rate for people 25 and under jumped from 14.7 percent in January to 17.6 percent in August. Europe is not the only place where younger workers face a jobs crunch. Young Americans are especially vulnerable to the downturn. In China, young adults are struggling for jobs in the post-outbreak era. But in Europe, the pandemic’s economic impact puts an entire generation at risk, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

3 dead in church attack, plunging France into dual emergency (AP) A man armed with a knife attacked people inside a French church and killed three Thursday, prompting the government to raise its security alert status to the maximum level hours before a nationwide coronavirus lockdown. The attack in Mediterranean city of Nice was the third in two months in France that authorities have attributed to Muslim extremists, including the beheading of a teacher. It comes during a growing furor over caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad that were republished in recent months by the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo—renewing vociferous debate in France and the Muslim world over the depictions that Muslims consider offensive but are protected by French free speech laws. Other confrontations and attacks were reported Thursday in the southern French city of Avignon and in the Saudi city of Jiddah, but it was not immediately clear if they were linked to the attack in Nice.

Germany does not believe Thai king has breached state business ban: source (Reuters) Germany does not believe that Thailand’s king has so far breached its ban on conducting politics while staying there, a parliamentary source said on Wednesday, after lawmakers were briefed by the government. Following a meeting of the Bundestag’s foreign affairs committee, the source said the government had briefed lawmakers that it believes the king is permitted to make occasional decisions, as long as he does not continuously conduct business from German soil. When asked about the status of the king, the government told the committee he has a visa that allows him to stay in Germany for several years as a private person and also enjoys diplomatic immunity as a head of state. Thailand’s political crisis has made the king’s presence a challenge for Germany, but revoking the visa of a visiting head of state could cause a major diplomatic incident.

China’s New Confidence on Display (Foreign Policy) The Chinese leadership is currently meeting in Beijing to set economic and political goals for the next five years. In the run-up to the plenum, speeches by President Xi Jinping and others have demonstrated a bold confidence that this is China’s moment. As economic policymaker Liu He put it, “Bad things are turning into good ones.” Despite the damage to China’s global reputation this year, its leaders seem to believe that Western economic weakness and mishandling of the coronavirus have created opportunities. That may be true, but it may also encourage dangerous overconfidence, as happened in 2009, when the Chinese leadership was convinced the economic crisis had significantly weakened Washington. That overconfidence is most frightening when it comes to Taiwan, where recent saber-rattling has again raised the specter of an invasion. Distinguishing signal from noise on Taiwan is difficult, but the traditional restraints on Chinese military action—fear of U.S. intervention, reputational damage, and corruption inside the People’s Liberation Army—have weakened. The odds of Chinese action in Taiwan increase if the U.S. election doesn’t produce a clear result, or if a lame duck President Donald Trump embarks on a scorched-earth program on his way out—since Beijing may be convinced that a distracted Washington has no will to block it.

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From the author of the phenomenal New York Times bestseller, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, comes an exposé of international corruption, and an inspired plan to turn the tide for future generationsWith a presidential election around the corner, questions of America's military buildup, environmental impact, and foreign policy are on everyone's mind. Former Economic Hit Man John Perkins goes behind the scenes of the current geopolitical crisis and offers bold solutions to our most pressing problems. Drawing on interviews with other EHMs, jackals, CIA operatives, reporters, businessmen, and activists, Perkins reveals the secret history of events that have created the current American Empire, including: How the defeats in Vietnam and Iraq have benefited big businessThe role of Israel as Fortress America in the Middle EastTragic repercussions of the IMF's Asian Economic CollapseThe current Latin American revolution and its lessons for democracyU.S. blunders in Tibet, Congo, Lebanon,

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Secret History Of The American Empire New York Times bestseller From the author of the phenomenal New York Times bestseller, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, comes an expose of international corruption, and an inspired plan to turn the tide for future generations With a presidential election around the corner, questions of America's military buildup, environmental impact, and foreign policy are on everyone's mind. Former Economic Hit Man John Perkins goes behind the scenes of the current geopolitical crisis and offers bold solutions to our most pressing problems. Drawing on interviews with other EHMs, jackals, CIA operatives, reporters, businessmen, and activists, Perkins reveals the secret history of events that have created the current American Empire, including: - How the defeats in Vietnam and Iraq have benefited big business - The role of Israel as Fortress America in the Middle East - Tragic repercussions of the IMF's Asian Economic Collapse - The current Latin American revolution and its lessons for democracy - U.S. blunders in Tibet, Congo, Lebanon, and Venezuela From the U.S. military in Iraq to infrastructure development in Indonesia, from Peace Corps volunteers in Africa to jackals in Venezuela, Perkins exposes a conspiracy of corruption that has fueled instability and anti-Americanism around the globe, with consequences reflected in our daily headlines. Having raised the alarm, Perkins passionately addresses how Americans can work to create a more peaceful and stable world for future

Rich Dad's Prophecy Why The Biggest Stock Market Crash In History Is Still Coming And How You Can Prepare Yourself And Profit From It!

The rich know that times of greatest crisis are often the greatest opportunities to acquire wealth. In this book Robert Kiyosaki teaches how to build your financial ark to navigate turbulent economic waters. In hindsight, the title itself seems "prophetic," as the insights and predictions in this book have played out on the world stage over the past years. Rich Dad's Prophecy will open your eyes to the issues that are affecting the retirement plans of baby boomers as well as the financial futures of their children and grandchildren.

Rich Kid Smart Kid Giving Your Child A Financial Head Start

RICH KID SMART KID is written for parents who value education, want to give their child a financial and academic head start in life, and are willing to take an active role to make it happen. In the Information Age, a good education is more important than ever. But the current educational system may not be providing all the information your child needs. This book was designed to fill in the gaps: to help you give your child the same inspiring and practical financial knowledge that Robert Kiyosaki's rich dad gave him. business books, best business books, top business books, business books to read, best business books 2019, manage booking, best business books to read, new business books, top 10 business books, business books 2019, top business books to read, top business books 2019

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(WASHINGTON) — Amid a summer of racial unrest and calls for more diversity in leadership, President Donald Trump lags Democratic rival Joe Biden in the percentage of people of color on their campaign staffs, according to data the campaigns provided to The Associated Press.

Twenty-five percent of the Republican president’s senior staff are nonwhite, compared to 36% of Biden’s senior staff. Biden’s overall campaign team is 35% nonwhite; Trump’s campaign did not provide a comparable number.

And neither campaign provided racial breakdowns for their nonwhite staff, nor the total number of staffers who are on their payrolls, including senior staff.

Advocates for minority groups say staff diversity is necessary to ensure political candidates hear a full range of voices and viewpoints to help them understand the concerns of various communities and interest groups — especially at a time when racial injustice is front and center in the national conversation. And while Biden has an edge on Trump, there is plenty more to be done in presidential campaigns overall.

Jennifer Lawless, commonwealth professor of politics at the University of Virginia, said “there are still a lot of milestones that haven’t been hit” by political campaigns, such as a Black man or woman directing — and winning — a presidential campaign. And she said having diverse staff at lower levels in campaigns can help increase the pool of future managers, finance chairs and others.

“It’s all part of the pipeline,” Lawless said.

Trump’s campaign makeup got a double-take in June when Vice President Mike Pence tweeted — and later deleted — a photo from his visit to campaign headquarters. The photo at first drew attention for the lack of social distancing and use of face masks among the staff. But it also was notable for the sea of mostly white faces.

Eric Rodriguez, senior vice president of policy and advocacy at UnidosUS, said the Biden team had more Latinos in senior positions than Trump.

“You need people from those communities to be able to make those connections,” said Rodriguez, whose organization used to be called the National Council of La Raza.

The rival campaigns fared better — and are about even —- on employing women, with females filling more than half of all jobs overall, and more than half of all senior positions.

The president’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, who is white, former White House aide Mercedes Schlapp, who is Cuban American, and Katrina Pierson, who is Black and worked on Trump’s 2016 campaign, are among the highest-profile senior female staffers working to help him get reelected.

Others include former Fox News host Kimberly Guilfoyle, now a top fundraiser for the reelection effort and the girlfriend of Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., and Hannah Castillo, a Latina and the campaign’s coalitions director. Guilfoyle’s mother is Puerto Rican.

Biden senior adviser Symone Sanders, who is Black, is the campaign’s highest-ranking person of color and, at 30, is the youngest member of his inner circle. The candidate also recently brought on several African Americans who worked for President Barack Obama, including Karine Jean-Pierre, formerly an NBC News and MSNBC political analyst.

Jamal Brown, a spokesperson for Biden, said the former vice president’s campaign reflects the “diversity, breadth and promise of America.”

“He believes our democracy is strongest when people see themselves reflected in their government,” added Brown, who is Black.

The killing in May of George Floyd, who was Black, by a white Minneapolis police officer sparked nationwide protests against racial injustice and calls for greater minority representation across the board in society that brought fresh scrutiny to the presidential campaigns.

Biden had faced questions earlier in the campaign about the lack of diversity on his staff. Along with adding more people of color to his campaign, Biden has promised an administration that “looks like America” if he is elected on Nov. 3.

The U.S. population is about 60% white, 19% Latino and 13% Black, according to Census Bureau estimates.

Trump has not made a similar pledge about a potential second term. His campaign declined to discuss minority representation on the campaign staff.

Four women currently serve in Trump’s Cabinet: CIA Director Gina Haspel and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, both of whom are white; Jovita Carranza, a Latina who leads the Small Business Administration; and Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, who was born in Taiwan.

Housing Secretary Ben Carson is the only Black member of the Cabinet.

Rodriguez summed up the Biden campaign strategy as focused on winning support from a diverse pool of voters, especially in battleground states where large numbers of Latino and Black voters live. He characterized Trump’s strategy as being “really all about the base” and attempting to replicate his successful 2016 campaign playbook, which used immigration as a wedge issue.

“The strategy is to run on racial division,” Rodriguez said of the president, who has begun to use the racial tensions that surfaced after Floyd’s killing in his reelection pitch.

Still, Trump and his campaign make regular appeals to Black and Latino voters.

The president regularly cites employment gains for these groups before the coronavirus pandemic struck, and he continues to showcase legislation he signed to overhaul criminal sentencing procedures and provide permanent funding for historically Black colleges and universities.

This week, Trump was surrounded by Latino American leaders as he announced a new advisory commission to help Hispanic Americans with economic and educational opportunities.

But the event also highlighted how far Trump has to go in winning support from people of color. Critics of Trump’s record with Hispanics called for a boycott of the Goya food company after its president praised Trump at the event.

The president does have strong support among some people of Cuban and Venezuelan descent, though, because of his tough stance against authoritarian leaders in those countries.

The Biden campaign said LGBTQ staff and staff of color hold such positions as senior advisers, deputy campaign managers, national coalitions director, chief financial officer, chief operating officer and national press secretary, among others.

Trump’s campaign defined its senior staff as “senior leaders who meet regularly to make decisions. People with authority,” and did not elaborate.

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Makao Bora

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Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins [pdf]

 Former Economic Hit Man John Perkins goes behind the scenes of the current geopolitical crisis and offers bold solutions to our most pressing problems. Drawing on interviews with other EHMs, jackals, CIA operatives, reporters, businessmen, and activists, Perkins reveals the secret history of events that have created the current American Empire, including

How the defeats in Vietnam and Iraq have benefited big business

The role of Israel as Fortress America in the Middle East

Tragic repercussions of the IMF’s Asian Economic Collapse

The current Latin American revolution and its lessons for democracy

U.S. blunders in Tibet, Congo, Lebanon, and Venezuela

From the U.S. military in Iraq to infrastructure development in Indonesia, from Peace Corps volunteers in Africa to jackals in Venezuela, Perkins exposes a conspiracy of corruption that has fueled instability and anti-Americanism around the globe, with consequences reflected in our daily headlines. Having raised the alarm, Perkins passionately addresses how Americans can work to create a more peaceful and stable world for future generations.

[newstechreviews]

In the long-running shadow war across the Middle East, the United States and Iran have avoided direct confrontation at all costs. Their tense and unpredictable conflict has unfolded instead in covert operations through proxy forces, subterfuge and sabotage. So President Donald Trump’s order on Thursday to assassinate Qasem Soleimani, military commander of Iran’s elite Quds Force, in a high-profile drone strike outside the Baghdad airport has plunged the two adversaries into uncharted territory.

Soleimani, an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) major general who reported directly to Iran’s supreme theocratic ruler, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, helped build, organize, fund and deploy constellations of Shi’ite militias mounting insurgencies in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen. Soleimani projected an image as master of the Middle Eastern chessboard, posting selfies from battlefields across the region. Venerated among legions of devotees, Soleimani cultivated an international following that eclipsed terror leaders better known in the West, including Osama bin-Laden and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who were also killed by American forces.

The death of a man considered a hero by millions is a tectonic event that carries unknown consequences for Washington and Tehran and risks igniting a wider conflict that could engulf the Middle East. Khamenei called for three days of mourning on Friday, but promised vengeance. “His demise will not stop his mission,” Khamenei said, according to the Fars News Agency, a semi-official news outlet in Iran. “But the criminals who have the blood of General Soleimani and other martyrs of the attack on their hands must await a tough revenge.”

The Trump Administration, for its part, says it killed Soleimani in order to stave off more bloodshed. American officials said the U.S. received intelligence that Soleimani was planning another attack in the region. “We took action last night to stop a war,” Trump said during brief remarks at his Mar-a-Lago resort in south Florida, where he was vacationing. “We did not take action to start a war.”

The President’s remarks appear to be an attempt to ease tensions. But Administration officials privately warned members of Congress that Iran is expected to retaliate against the U.S., either at home or abroad, “within weeks,” according to a senior congressional staffer, who described a Friday briefing from the State and Defense Departments as well as U.S. intelligence agencies. “There is no indication that there is going to be a de-escalation in the near future,” the staffer says. “The only question is how bad is the retaliation going to be and where and what is it going to hit.” Administration officials did not immediately respond to request for comment.

Over the past six months, Iran has been blamed for several high-profile security incidents, including the protests outside the U.S. embassy in Iraq; the shoot-down of a U.S. surveillance drone over the Strait of Hormuz; the sabotage and seizure of several oil tankers near the Persian Gulf; the aerial bombardment of oil facilities in Saudi Arabia; and a rocket attack on a military base in Iraq, which killed an American contractor and injured four U.S. service members.

Close observers of the region fear the conflict could now move from low-grade, one-off attacks into a full-blown war. The Trump Administration on Friday urged all American citizens to leave Iraq “immediately” and bolstered the number of forces to the Middle East in anticipation of retaliatory violence. The Pentagon announced the deployment of about 3,000 soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division to Kuwait, an “Immediate Response Force” that joins the 15,000 American troops sent to the Middle East since the situation with Iran began to deteriorate last spring.

White House National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien says Iran now has two options. “One is further escalation, and pursuing that path will lead to nowhere for the Iranian people or for the regime,” he told reporters on a conference call Friday. “The alternate path is for them to sit down with the United States; for them to give up its nuclear program; for Iran to stop its regional escapades and proxy wars in the Middle East; to stop taking hostages; and to behave like a normal nation as part of the community of nations.” O’Brien said the U.S. was willing to meet with Iranian leadership without preconditions. But the Trump Administration has delivered this message before, only to be rebuffed by Tehran.

But few U.S. officials believe Iran will choose the latter path. Tehran’s retaliation could range from a protracted campaign against U.S. forces in Iraq, Syria, Bahrain and elsewhere to terrorist attacks on American and allied embassies or other targets to cyberattacks, says a U.S. official who was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter. If the Iranian regime seeks to avoid an outright war it would be destined to lose, it might refrain from backing a major attack or renewed assaults on shipping in the Persian Gulf, the official says. Even a comparatively muted response could inflict significant costs, especially on oil shipping and facilities. Some energy experts estimate that even without a protracted conflict, oil prices could reach or exceed $150 a barrel, increased U.S. production notwithstanding.

“Definitely there will be revenge. There will be harsh revenge,” Iranian Ambassador to the U.N. Majid Takht Ravanchi told CNN’s Erin Burnett on Friday. “Iran will act based on its own choosing, the time, the place…We will decide.”

Despite such pledges, Soleimani’s killing may compel Tehran to think twice before they attack the U.S. or its partners, says Norman T. Roule, a former senior CIA officer who managed the Iran portfolio at the office of the Director of National Intelligence in both the Trump and Obama Administrations. “Iran will need to respond, but the way they do so must simultaneously save face without risking a broader conflict,” Roule says. “Regime survival must be their primary goal.”

Douglas Silliman, a former U.S. ambassador to Iraq and Kuwait who is now president of the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, says Iran is patient and may not respond immediately or directly. “Retaliation against this strike may not necessarily come against American targets,” he says. “You could see a variation on what you’ve seen the past four months,” including strikes on Saudi oil facilities and shipping as in the past, all the way up to U.S. targets. “There are plenty of American targets in the Gulf,” Silliman adds, “not just soldiers and sailors and airmen and marines, but spouses and children as well.”

Iran is also likely to respond using allies, rather than its own forces, following Soleimani’s lead as Quds commander in activating proxy forces to launch attacks against the U.S. and its allies. Soleimani oversaw Iranian-backed groups such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which among other things attacked the U.S. Embassy and Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983. The Pentagon assessed in April that Iran-backed militants killed at least 603 U.S. troops in Iraq, or 17% of all Americans killed between 2003 and 2011.

Through these forces, Tehran is involved in every single major military conflict in the Middle East, almost always on the side of America’s enemies. Israel and Gulf nations have pressured the White House to address what they see as a growing Shi’ite sphere of influence across the region. The personal relationships Soleimani forged in the region will be hard for Iran to replace, but the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Quds Force are organized, hierarchical military machines that are sure to follow their new command, Silliman said. Iran named Soleimani’s successor, Brigadier General Esmayeel Qaani, in less than 24 hours.

America’s allies in the region, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Bahrain are likely targets of Iranian military or cyber retaliation. Iran already has attacked the computer networks of Saudi Aramco oil company and Qatar’s Rasgas natural gas company. There could be plots far beyond the region, says Eric Edelman, former ambassador to Turkey under President George W. Bush. “They will look for ways to hit us where we don’t expect it,” he says. “But they will be patient. When their nose is bloodied, they tend to take a step back and reassess, before making the next move.”

Analysts fear that if Iran misjudges Trump’s willingness to use force, the conflict could quickly spiral out of control. The Trump Administration has been hollowed out by departures within the State, Homeland Security and Defense Departments, and much of the National Security Council deliberation processes have been eliminated.

Trump has already authorized cyber attacks against Iranian computer systems, increased the U.S. troop presence in the region and continued to ratchet up its “maximum pressure” campaign. The Administration has imposed tougher economic sanctions since walking away from the 2015 six-nation deal to curb Iran’s nuclear-weapons program more than a year ago.

Partly as a result, Iran’s economy is collapsing and the population is exhausted and frustrated, says Gerard Araud, a former French ambassador to Washington and the U.N. Even in Lebanon and Iraq, citizens are demonstrating against Iranian influence. Tehran recognizes it is in a difficult situation.

“People are talking about World War Three. The Iranians are not suicidal. The regime has always been very shrewd and very keen on surviving,” Araud says. “The options of what the Iranians can do are very limited. Trump didn’t react in September to the Iranian provocation, but now they know he is ready to react and he is totally unpredictable—because no one was expecting this—and he is brutal. So they have to calculate their response in a very prudent way.”

[kansascityhappenings]

Final goodbye: Recalling influential people who died in 2019

A lauded writer who brought to light stories overshadowed by prejudice. An actress and singer who helped embody the manufactured innocence of the 1950s. A self-made billionaire who rose from a childhood of Depression-era poverty and twice ran for president.

This year saw the deaths of people who shifted culture through prose, pragmatism and persistence. It also witnessed tragedy, in talent struck down in its prime.

In 2019, the political world lost a giant in U.S. Rep. Elijah E. Cummings. He was born the son of a sharecropper, became a lawyer, then an influential congressman and champion of civil rights.

Cummings, who died in October, was chairman of one of the U.S. House committees that led an impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump and was a formidable advocate for the poor in his Maryland district.

Another influential political figure, U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, died in July. Stevens was appointed to the high court as a Republican but became the leader of its liberal wing and a proponent of abortion rights and consumer protections.

Wealth, fame and a confident prescription for the nation’s economic ills propelled H. Ross Perot ’s 1992 campaign against President George H.W. Bush and Democratic challenger Bill Clinton. He recorded the highest percentage for an independent or third-party candidate since 1912. He died in July.

The death of Toni Morrison in August left a chasm in the publishing world, where she was a “literary mother” to countless writers. She helped elevate multiculturalism to the world stage and unearthed the lives of the unknown and unwanted. She became the first black woman to receive the Nobel literature prize for “Beloved” and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012.

Among those in the scientific world who died in 2019 was Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, the first person to walk in space. Leonov died in October. Others include scientist Wallace Smith Broecker, who died in February and popularized the term “global warming” as he raised early alarms about climate change.

In April, Hollywood lost director John Singleton, whose 1991 film “Boyz N the Hood” was praised as a realistic and compassionate take on race, class, peer pressure and family. He became the first black director to receive an Oscar nomination and the youngest at 24.

Doris Day, a top box-office draw and recording artist who died in May, stood for the 1950s ideal of innocence and G-rated love, a parallel world to her contemporary Marilyn Monroe. She received a Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2004.

The year also saw the untimely deaths of two young rappers, leaving a feeling of accomplishments unfulfilled. Grammy-nominated Nipsey Hussle was killed in a shooting in Los Angeles in March. Juice WRLD, who launched his career on SoundCloud before becoming a streaming juggernaut, died in December after being treated for opioid use during a police search.

Here is a roll call of some influential figures who died in 2019 (cause of death cited for younger people, if available):

JANUARY

Eugene “Mean Gene” Okerlund, 76. His deadpan interviews of pro wrestling superstars like “Macho Man” Randy Savage, the Ultimate Warrior and Hulk Hogan made him a ringside fixture in his own right. Jan. 2.

Bob Einstein, 76. The veteran comedy writer and performer known for “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour,” “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and his spoof daredevil character Super Dave Osborne. Jan. 2.

Daryl Dragon, 76. The cap-wearing “Captain” of Captain & Tennille who teamed with then-wife Toni Tennille on such easy listening hits as “Love Will Keep Us Together” and “Muskrat Love.” Jan. 2.

Harold Brown, 91. As defense secretary in the Carter administration, he championed cutting-edge fighting technology during a tenure that included the failed rescue of hostages in Iran. Jan 4.

Jakiw Palij, 95. A former Nazi concentration camp guard who spent decades leading an unassuming life in New York City until his past was revealed. Jan. 9.

Carol Channing, 97. The ebullient musical comedy star who delighted American audiences in almost 5,000 performances as the scheming Dolly Levi in “Hello, Dolly!” on Broadway and beyond. Jan. 15.

John C. Bogle, 89. He simplified investing for the masses by launching the first index mutual fund and founded Vanguard Group. Jan. 16.

Lamia al-Gailani, 80. An Iraqi archaeologist who lent her expertise to rebuilding the National Museum’s collection after it was looted in 2003. Jan. 18.

Nathan Glazer, 95. A prominent sociologist and intellectual who assisted on a classic study of conformity, “The Lonely Crowd,” and co-authored a groundbreaking document of non-conformity, “Beyond the Melting Pot.” Jan. 19.

Antonio Mendez, 78. A former CIA technical operations officer who helped rescue six U.S. diplomats from Iran in 1980 and was portrayed by Ben Affleck in the film “Argo.” Jan. 19.

Harris Wofford, 92. A former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania and longtime civil rights activist who helped persuade John F. Kennedy to make a crucial phone call to the wife of Martin Luther King Jr. during the 1960 presidential campaign. Jan. 21.

Russell Baker, 93. The genial but sharp-witted writer who won Pulitzer Prizes for his humorous columns in The New York Times and a moving autobiography of his impoverished Baltimore childhood. He later hosted television’s “Masterpiece Theatre” on PBS. Jan 21. Complications after a fall.

Michel Legrand, 86. An Oscar-winning composer and pianist whose hits included the score for the ’60s romance “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg” and the song “The Windmills of Your Mind” and who worked with some of biggest singers of the 20th century. Jan. 26.

Kim Bok-dong, 92. A South Korean woman who was forced as a girl into a brothel and sexually enslaved by the Japanese military during World War II, becoming a vocal leader at rallies that were held every Wednesday in Seoul for nearly 30 years. Jan. 28.

James Ingram, 66. The Grammy-winning singer who launched multiple hits on the R&B and pop charts and earned two Oscar nominations for his songwriting. Jan. 29.

Donald S. Smith, 94. He produced the controversial anti-abortion film “The Silent Scream” and, with help from Ronald Reagan’s White House, distributed copies to every member of Congress and the Supreme Court. Jan. 30.

Harold Bradley, 93. A Country Music Hall of Fame guitarist who played on hundreds of hit country records and along with his brother, famed producer Owen Bradley, helped craft “The Nashville Sound.” Jan. 31.

FEBRUARY

Kristoff St. John, 52. An actor best known for playing Neil Winters on the CBS soap opera “The Young and the Restless.” Feb. 4. Heart disease.

Anne Firor Scott, 97. A prize-winning historian and esteemed professor who upended the male-dominated field of Southern scholarship by pioneering the study of Southern women. Feb. 5.

Frank Robinson, 83. The Hall of Famer was the first black manager in Major League Baseball and the only player to win the MVP award in both leagues. Feb. 7.

John Dingell, 92. The former congressman was the longest-serving member of Congress in American history at 59 years and a master of legislative deal-making who was fiercely protective of Detroit’s auto industry. Feb. 7.

Albert Finney, 82. The British actor was the Academy Award-nominated star of films from “Tom Jones” to “Skyfall.” Feb. 8.

Jan-Michael Vincent, 73. The “Airwolf” television star whose sleek good looks belied a troubled personal life. Feb. 10.

Gordon Banks, 81. The World Cup-winning England goalkeeper who was also known for blocking a header from Pele that many consider the greatest save in soccer history. Feb. 12.

Betty Ballantine, 99. She was half of a groundbreaking husband-and-wife publishing team that helped invent the modern paperback and vastly expand the market for science fiction and other genres through such blockbusters as “The Hobbit” and “Fahrenheit 451.” Feb. 12.

Lyndon LaRouche Jr., 96. The political extremist who ran for president in every election from 1976 to 2004, including a campaign waged from federal prison. Feb. 12.

Andrea Levy, 62. A prize-winning novelist who chronicled the hopes and horrors experienced by the post-World War II generation of Jamaican immigrants in Britain. Feb. 14.

Lee Radziwill, 85. She was the stylish jet setter and socialite who found friends, lovers and other adventures worldwide while bonding and competing with her sister Jacqueline Kennedy. Feb. 15.

Armando M. Rodriguez, 97. A Mexican immigrant and World War II veteran who served in the administrations of four U.S. presidents while pressing for civil rights and education reforms. Feb. 17.

Wallace Smith Broecker, 87. A scientist who raised early alarms about climate change and popularized the term “global warming.” Feb. 18.

Karl Lagerfeld, 85. Chanel’s iconic couturier whose accomplished designs and trademark white ponytail, high starched collars and dark enigmatic glasses dominated high fashion for the past 50 years. Feb. 19.

David Horowitz, 81. His “Fight Back!” syndicated program made him perhaps the best-known consumer reporter in the U.S. Feb. 21.

Peter Tork, 77. A talented singer-songwriter and instrumentalist whose musical skills were often overshadowed by his role as the goofy, lovable bass guitarist in the made-for-television rock band The Monkees. Feb. 21.

Stanley Donen, 94. A giant of the Hollywood musical who, through such classics as “Singin’ in the Rain” and “Funny Face,” helped provide some of the most joyous sounds and images in movie history. Feb. 21.

Jackie Shane, 78. A black transgender soul singer who became a pioneering musician in Toronto where she packed nightclubs in the 1960s. Feb. 21.

Katherine Helmond, 89. An Emmy-nominated and Golden Globe-winning actress who played two very different matriarchs on the ABC sitcoms “Who’s the Boss?” and “Soap.” Feb. 23.

Charles McCarry, 88. An admired and prescient spy novelist who foresaw passenger jets as terrorist weapons in “The Better Angels” and devised a compelling theory for JFK’s assassination in “The Tears of Autumn.” Feb. 26.

Jerry Merryman, 86. He was one of the inventors of the handheld electronic calculator. Feb. 27. Complications of heart and kidney failure.

Ed Nixon, 88. The youngest brother of President Richard Nixon who was a Navy aviator and geologist and spent years promoting his brother’s legacy. Feb. 27.

Andre Previn, 89. The pianist, composer and conductor whose broad reach took in the worlds of Hollywood, jazz and classical music. Feb. 28.

MARCH

John Shafer, 94. The legendary Northern California vintner was part of a generation that helped elevate sleepy Napa Valley into the international wine powerhouse it is today. March 2.

Keith Flint, 49. The fiery frontman of British dance-electronic band The Prodigy. March 4. Found dead by hanging in his home.

Luke Perry, 52. He gained instant heartthrob status as wealthy rebel Dylan McKay on “Beverly Hills, 90210.” March 4. Stroke.

Juan Corona, 85. He gained the nickname “The Machete Murderer” for hacking to death dozens of migrant farm laborers in California in the early 1970s. March 4.

Ralph Hall, 95. The former Texas congressman was the oldest-ever member of the U.S. House and a man who claimed to have once sold cigarettes and Coca-Cola to the bank-robbing duo of Bonnie and Clyde in Dallas. March 7.

Carmine “the Snake” Persico, 85. The longtime boss of the infamous Colombo crime family. March 7.

Vera Bila, 64. A Czech singer dubbed the Ella Fitzgerald of Gypsy music or the Queen of Romany. March 12. Heart attack.

Birch Bayh, 91. A former U.S. senator who championed the federal law banning discrimination against women in college admissions and sports. March 14.

Dick Dale, 83. His pounding, blaringly loud power-chord instrumentals on songs like “Miserlou” and “Let’s Go Trippin’” earned him the title King of the Surf Guitar. March 16.

Jerrie Cobb, 88. America’s first female astronaut candidate, the pilot pushed for equality in space but never reached its heights. March 18.

Scott Walker, 76. An influential singer, songwriter and producer whose hits with the Walker Brothers in the 1960s included “The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore.” March 22.

Rafi Eitan, 92. A legendary Israeli Mossad spy who led the capture of Holocaust mastermind Adolf Eichmann. March 23.

Larry Cohen, 77. The maverick B-movie director of cult horror films “It’s Alive” and “God Told Me To.” March 23.

Michel Bacos, 95. A French pilot who’s remembered as a hero for his actions in the 1976 hijacking of an Air France plane to Uganda’s Entebbe airport. March 26.

Valery Bykovsky, 84. A pioneering Soviet-era cosmonaut who made the first of his three flights to space in 1963. March 27.

Agnes Varda, 90. The French New Wave pioneer who for decades beguiled, challenged and charmed moviegoers in films that inspired generations of filmmakers. March 29. Cancer.

Ken Gibson, 86. He became the first black mayor of a major Northeast city when he ascended to power in riot-torn Newark, New Jersey, about five decades ago. March 29.

Billy Adams, 79. A Rockabilly Hall of Famer who wrote and recorded the rockabilly staple “Rock, Pretty Mama.” March 30.

Nipsey Hussle, 33. A Grammy-nominated rapper. March 31. Killed in a shooting.

APRIL

Sydney Brenner, 92. A Nobel Prize-winning biologist who helped decipher the genetic code and whose research on a roundworm sparked a new field of human disease research. April 5.

Ernest F. “Fritz” Hollings, 97. The silver-haired Democrat who helped shepherd South Carolina through desegregation as governor and went on to serve six terms in the U.S. Senate. April 6.

Cho Yang-ho, 70. Korean Air’s chairman, whose leadership included scandals such as his daughter’s infamous incident of “nut rage.” April 7.

Marilynn Smith, 89. One of the 13 founders of the LPGA Tour whose 21 victories, two majors and endless support of her tour led to her induction into the World Golf Hall of Fame. April 9.

Richard “Dick” Cole, 103. The last of the 80 Doolittle Tokyo Raiders who carried out the daring U.S. attack on Japan during World War II. April 9.

Charles Van Doren, 93. The dashing young academic whose meteoric rise and fall as a corrupt game show contestant in the 1950s inspired the movie “Quiz Show” and served as a cautionary tale about the staged competitions of early television. April 9.

Monkey Punch, 81. A cartoonist best known as the creator of the Japanese megahit comic series Lupin III. April 11.

Georgia Engel, 70. She played the charmingly innocent, small-voiced Georgette on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and amassed a string of other TV and stage credits. April 12.

Bibi Andersson, 83. The Swedish actress who starred in classic films by compatriot Ingmar Bergman, including “The Seventh Seal” and “Persona.” April 14.

Owen Garriott, 88. A former astronaut who flew on America’s first space station, Skylab, and whose son followed him into orbit. April 15.

Alan García, 69. A former Peruvian president whose first term in the 1980s was marred by financial chaos and rebel violence and who was recently targeted in Latin America’s biggest corruption scandal. April 17. Apparent suicide.

Lorraine Warren, 92. A world-wide paranormal investigator and author whose decades of ghost-hunting cases with her late husband inspired such frightening films as “The Conjuring” series and “The Amityville Horror.” April 18.

Mark Medoff, 79. A provocative playwright whose “Children of a Lesser God” won Tony and Olivier awards and whose screen adaptation of his play earned an Oscar nomination. April 23.

John Havlicek, 79. The Boston Celtics great whose steal of Hal Greer’s inbounds pass in the final seconds of the 1965 Eastern Conference final against the Philadelphia 76ers remains one of the most famous plays in NBA history. April 25.

Damon J. Keith, 96. A grandson of slaves and figure in the civil rights movement who as a federal judge was sued by President Richard Nixon over a ruling against warrantless wiretaps. April 28.

Richard Lugar, 87. A former U.S. senator and foreign policy sage known for leading efforts to help the former Soviet states dismantle and secure much of their nuclear arsenal but whose reputation for working with Democrats cost him his final campaign. April 28.

John Singleton, 51. A director who made one of Hollywood’s most memorable debuts with the Oscar-nominated “Boyz N the Hood” and continued over the following decades to probe the lives of black communities in his native Los Angeles and beyond. April 29. Taken off life support after a stroke.

Ellen Tauscher, 67. A trailblazer for women in the world of finance who served in Congress for more than a decade before joining the Obama administration. April 29. Complications from pneumonia.

Peter Mayhew, 74. The towering actor who donned a huge, furry costume to give life to the rugged-and-beloved character of Chewbacca in the original “Star Wars” trilogy and two other films. April 30.

MAY

John Lukacs, 95. The Hungarian-born historian and iconoclast who brooded over the future of Western civilization, wrote a best-selling tribute to Winston Churchill, and produced a substantial and often despairing body of writings on the politics and culture of Europe and the United States. May 6.

Peggy Lipton, 72. A star of the groundbreaking late 1960s TV show “The Mod Squad” and the 1990s show “Twin Peaks.” May 11. Cancer.

Leonard Bailey, 76. The doctor who in 1984 transplanted a baboon heart into a tiny newborn dubbed “Baby Fae” in a pioneering operation that sparked both worldwide acclaim and condemnation. May 12.

Cardinal Nasrallah Butros Sfeir, 98. The former patriarch of Lebanon’s Maronite Christian church who served as spiritual leader of Lebanon’s largest Christian community through some of the worst days of the country’s 1975-1990 civil war. May 12.

Doris Day, 97. The sunny blond actress and singer whose frothy comedic roles opposite the likes of Rock Hudson and Cary Grant made her one of Hollywood’s biggest stars in the 1950s and ’60s and a symbol of wholesome American womanhood. May 13.

Tim Conway, 85. The impish second banana to Carol Burnett who won four Emmy Awards on her TV variety show, starred in “McHale’s Navy” and later voiced the role of Barnacle Boy for “Spongebob Squarepants.” May 14.

I.M. Pei, 102. The versatile, globe-trotting architect who revived the Louvre with a giant glass pyramid and captured the spirit of rebellion at the multi-shaped Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. May 16.

Niki Lauda, 70. A Formula One great who won two of his world titles after a horrific crash that left him with serious burns and went on to become a prominent figure in the aviation industry. May 20.

Binyavanga Wainaina, 48. One of Africa’s best-known authors and gay rights activists. May 21. Illness.

Judith Kerr, 95. A refugee from Nazi Germany who wrote and illustrated the best-selling “The Tiger Who Came to Tea” and other beloved children’s books. May 22.

Murray Gell-Mann, 89. The Nobel Prize-winning physicist who brought order to the universe by helping discover and classify subatomic particles. May 24.

Claus von Bulow, 92. A Danish-born socialite who was convicted but later acquitted of trying to kill his wealthy wife in two trials that drew intense international attention in the 1980s. May 25.

Prem Tinsulanonda, 98. As an army commander, prime minister and adviser to the royal palace, he was one of Thailand’s most influential political figures over four decades. May 26.

Richard Matsch, 88. A federal judge who ruled his courtroom with a firm gavel and a short temper and gained national respect in the 1990s for his handling of the Oklahoma City bombing trials. May 26.

Bill Buckner, 69. A star hitter who made one of the biggest blunders in baseball history when he let Mookie Wilson’s trickler roll through his legs in the 1986 World Series. May 27.

Thad Cochran, 81. A former U.S. senator who served 45 years in Washington and used seniority to steer billions of dollars to his home state of Mississippi. May 30.

Patricia Bath, 76. A pioneering ophthalmologist who became the first African American female doctor to receive a medical patent after she invented a more precise treatment of cataracts. May 30. Complications of cancer.

Leon Redbone, 69. The blues and jazz artist whose growly voice, Panama hat and cultivated air of mystery made him seem like a character out of the ragtime era or the Depression-era Mississippi Delta. May 30.

Frank Lucas, 88. The former Harlem drug kingpin whose life and lore inspired the 2007 film “American Gangster.” May 30.

JUNE

Leah Chase, 96. A New Orleans chef and civil rights icon who created the city’s first white-tablecloth restaurant for black patrons, broke the city’s segregation laws by seating white and black customers, and introduced countless tourists to Southern Louisiana Creole cooking. June 1.

Dr. John, 77. The New Orleans singer and piano player who blended black and white musical styles with a hoodoo-infused stage persona and gravelly bayou drawl. June 6.

John Gunther Dean, 93. A veteran American diplomat and five-time ambassador forever haunted by his role in the evacuation of the U.S. Embassy in Cambodia during the dying days of the Khmer Republic. June 6.

Sylvia Miles, 94. An actress and Manhattan socialite whose brief, scene-stealing appearances in the films “Midnight Cowboy” and “Farewell, My Lovely” earned her two Academy Award nominations. June 12.

Lew Klein, 91. A broadcast pioneer who helped create “American Bandstand” and launched the careers of Dick Clark and Bob Saget. June 12.

Pat Bowlen, 75. The Denver Broncos owner who transformed the team from also-rans into NFL champions and helped the league usher in billion-dollar television deals. June 13.

Charles Reich, 91. The author and Ivy League academic whose “The Greening of America” blessed the counterculture of the 1960s and became a million-selling manifesto for a new and euphoric way of life. June 15.

Gloria Vanderbilt, 95. The intrepid heiress, artist and romantic who began her extraordinary life as the “poor little rich girl” of the Great Depression, survived family tragedy and multiple marriages and reigned during the 1970s and ’80s as a designer jeans pioneer. June 17.

Jim Taricani, 69. An award-winning TV reporter who exposed corruption and served a federal sentence for refusing to disclose a source. June 21. Kidney failure.

Judith Krantz, 91. A writer whose million-selling novels such as “Scruples” and “Princess Daisy” engrossed readers worldwide with their steamy tales of the rich and beautiful. June 22.

Dave Bartholomew, 100. A giant of New Orleans music and a rock n’ roll pioneer who, with Fats Domino, co-wrote and produced such classics as “Ain’t That a Shame,” “I’m Walkin’” and “Let the Four Winds Blow.” June 23.

Beth Chapman, 51. The wife and co-star of “Dog the Bounty Hunter” reality TV star Duane “Dog” Chapman. June 26.

JULY

Tyler Skaggs, 27. The left-handed pitcher who was a regular in the Los Angeles Angels’ starting rotation since late 2016 and struggled with injuries repeatedly in that time. July 1. Choked on his own vomit and had a toxic mix of alcohol and painkillers fentanyl and oxycodone in his system.

Lee Iacocca, 94. The auto executive and master pitchman who put the Mustang in Ford’s lineup in the 1960s and became a corporate folk hero when he resurrected Chrysler 20 years later. July 2.

Eva Kor, 85. A Holocaust survivor who championed forgiveness even for those who carried out the Holocaust atrocities. July 4.

Joao Gilberto, 88. A Brazilian singer, guitarist and songwriter considered one of the fathers of the bossa nova genre that gained global popularity in the 1960s and became an iconic sound of the South American nation. July 6.

Cameron Boyce, 20. An actor best known for his role as the teenage son of Cruella de Vil in the Disney Channel franchise “Descendants.” July 6. Seizure.

Martin Charnin, 84. He made his Broadway debut playing a Jet in the original “West Side Story” and went on to become a Broadway director and a lyricist who won a Tony Award for the score of the eternal hit “Annie.” July 6.

Artur Brauner, 100. A Polish-born Holocaust survivor who became one of post-World War II Germany’s most prominent film producers. July 7.

Rosie Ruiz, 66. The Boston Marathon course-cutter who was stripped of her victory in the 1980 race and went on to become an enduring symbol of cheating in sports. July 8. Cancer.

H. Ross Perot, 89. The colorful, self-made Texas billionaire who rose from delivering newspapers as a boy to building his own information technology company and twice mounted outsider campaigns for president. July 9. Leukemia.

Rip Torn, 88. The free-spirited Texan who overcame his quirky name to become a distinguished actor in television, theater and movies, such as “Men in Black,” and win an Emmy in his 60s for “The Larry Sanders Show.” July 9.

Fernando De la Rúa, 81. A former Argentine president who attracted voters with his image as an honest statesman and later left as the country plunged into its worst economic crisis. July 9.

Johnny Kitagawa, 87. Better known as Johnny-san, he was a kingpin of Japan’s entertainment industry for more than half a century who produced famous boy bands including Arashi, Tokio and SMAP. July 9.

Jim Bouton, 80. The former New York Yankees pitcher who shocked and angered the conservative baseball world with the tell-all book “Ball Four.” July 10.

Jerry Lawson, 75. For four decades, he was the lead singer of the eclectic cult favorite a cappella group the Persuasions. July 10.

Pernell Whitaker, 55. An Olympic gold medalist and four-division boxing champion who was regarded as one of the greatest defensive fighters ever. July 14. Hit by a car.

L. Bruce Laingen, 96. The top American diplomat at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran when it was overrun by Iranian protesters in 1979 and one of 52 Americans held hostage for more than a year. July 15.

Edith Irby Jones, 91. The first black student to enroll at an all-white medical school in the South and later the first female president of the National Medical Association. July 15.

John Paul Stevens, 99. The bow-tied, independent-thinking, Republican-nominated justice who unexpectedly emerged as the Supreme Court’s leading liberal. July 16.

Johnny Clegg, 66. A South African musician who performed in defiance of racial barriers imposed under the country’s apartheid system decades ago and celebrated its new democracy under Nelson Mandela. July 16.

Elijah “Pumpsie” Green, 85. The former Boston Red Sox infielder was the first black player on the last major league team to field one. July 17.

Rutger Hauer, 75. A Dutch film actor who specialized in menacing roles, including a memorable turn as a murderous android in “Blade Runner” opposite Harrison Ford. July 19.

Paul Krassner, 87. The publisher, author and radical political activist on the front lines of 1960s counterculture who helped tie together his loose-knit prankster group by naming them the Yippies. July 21.

Robert M. Morgenthau, 99. A former Manhattan district attorney who spent more than three decades jailing criminals from mob kingpins and drug-dealing killers to a tax-dodging Harvard dean. July 21.

Li Peng, 90. A former hard-line Chinese premier best known for announcing martial law during the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests that ended with a bloody crackdown by troops. July 22.

Art Neville, 81. A member of one of New Orleans’ storied musical families, the Neville Brothers, and a founding member of the groundbreaking funk band The Meters. July 22.

Chris Kraft, 95. The founder of NASA’s mission control. July 22.

Mike Moulin, 70. A former Los Angeles police lieutenant who came under fire for failing to quell the first outbreak of rioting after the Rodney King beating verdict. July 30.

Harold Prince, 91. A Broadway director and producer who pushed the boundaries of musical theater with such groundbreaking shows as “The Phantom of the Opera,” “Cabaret,” “Company” and “Sweeney Todd” and won a staggering 21 Tony Awards. July 31.

AUGUST

D.A. Pennebaker, 94. The Oscar-winning documentary maker whose historic contributions to American culture and politics included immortalizing a young Bob Dylan in “Don’t Look Back” and capturing the spin behind Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign in “The War Room.” Aug. 1.

Henri Belolo, 82. He co-founded the Village People and co-wrote their classic hits “YMCA,” “Macho Man” and “In the Navy.” Aug. 3.

Nuon Chea, 93. The chief ideologue of the communist Khmer Rouge regime that destroyed a generation of Cambodians. Aug. 4.

Toni Morrison, 88. A pioneer and reigning giant of modern literature whose imaginative power in “Beloved,” “Song of Solomon” and other works transformed American letters by dramatizing the pursuit of freedom within the boundaries of race. Aug. 5.

Sushma Swaraj, 67. She was India’s former external affairs minister and a leader of the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. Aug. 6.

Peter Fonda, 79. The actor was the son of a Hollywood legend who became a movie star in his own right after both writing and starring in the counterculture classic “Easy Rider.” Aug. 16.

Richard Williams, 86. A Canadian-British animator whose work on the bouncing cartoon bunny in “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” helped blur the boundaries between the animated world and our own. Aug. 16. Cancer.

Cedric Benson, 36. A former NFL running back who was one of the most prolific rushers in NCAA and University of Texas history. Aug. 17. Motorcycle crash.

Kathleen Blanco, 76. She became Louisiana’s first female elected governor only to see her political career derailed by the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. Aug. 18.

David H. Koch, 79. A billionaire industrialist who, with his older brother Charles, was both celebrated and demonized for transforming American politics by pouring their riches into conservative causes. Aug. 23.

Ferdinand Piech, 82. The German auto industry power broker was the longtime patriarch of Volkswagen AG and the key engineer of its takeover of Porsche. Aug. 25.

Baxter Leach, 79. A prominent member of the Memphis, Tennessee, sanitation workers union whose historic strike drew the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to the city where he was assassinated. Aug. 27.

Jim Leavelle, 99. The longtime Dallas lawman who was captured in one of history’s most iconic photographs escorting President John F. Kennedy’s assassin as he was fatally shot. Aug. 29.

Valerie Harper, 80. She scored guffaws, stole hearts and busted TV taboos as the brash, self-deprecating Rhoda Morgenstern on back-to-back hit sitcoms in the 1970s. Aug. 30.

SEPTEMBER

Jimmy Johnson, 76. A founder of the Muscle Shoals Sound Studios and guitarist with the famed studio musicians “The Swampers.” Sept. 5.

Robert Mugabe, 95. The former Zimbabwean leader was an ex-guerrilla chief who took power when the African country shook off white minority rule and presided for decades while economic turmoil and human rights violations eroded its early promise. Sept. 6.

Robert Frank, 94. A giant of 20th-century photography whose seminal book “The Americans” captured singular, candid moments of the 1950s and helped free picture-taking from the boundaries of clean lighting and linear composition. Sept. 9.

T. Boone Pickens, 91. A brash and quotable oil tycoon who grew even wealthier through corporate takeover attempts. Sept. 11.

Bacharuddin Jusuf Habibie, 83. A former Indonesian president who allowed democratic reforms and an independence referendum for East Timor following the ouster of the dictator Suharto. Sept. 11.

Eddie Money, 70. The rock star known for such hits as “Two Tickets to Paradise” and “Take Me Home Tonight.” Sept. 13. Esophageal cancer.

Phyllis Newman, 86. A Tony Award-winning Broadway veteran who became the first woman to host “The Tonight Show” before turning her attention to fight for women’s health. Sept. 15.

Ric Ocasek, 75. The Cars frontman whose deadpan vocal delivery and lanky, sunglassed look defined a rock era with chart-topping hits like “Just What I Needed.” Sept. 15.

Cokie Roberts, 75. The daughter of politicians and a pioneering journalist who chronicled Washington from Jimmy Carter to Donald Trump for NPR and ABC News. Sept. 17. Complications from breast cancer.

David A. Jones Sr., 88. He invested $1,000 to start a nursing home company that eventually became the $37 billion health insurance giant Humana Inc. Sept. 18.

Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, 83. The former Tunisian president was an autocrat who led his small North African country for 23 years before being toppled by nationwide protests that unleashed revolt across the Arab world. Sept. 19.

John Keenan, 99. He was the police official who led New York City’s manhunt for the “Son of Sam” killer and eventually took a case-solving confession from David Berkowitz. Sept. 19.

Barron Hilton, 91. A hotel magnate who expanded his father’s chain and became a founding owner in the American Football League. Sept. 19.

Howard “Hopalong” Cassady, 85. The 1955 Heisman Trophy winner at Ohio State and running back for the Detroit Lions. Sept. 20.

Karl Muenter, 96. A former SS soldier who was convicted in France of a wartime massacre but who never served any time for his crimes. Sept. 20.

Sigmund Jaehn, 82. He became the first German in space at the height of the Cold War during the 1970s and was promoted as a hero by communist authorities in East Germany. Sept. 21.

Jacques Chirac, 86. A two-term French president who was the first leader to acknowledge France’s role in the Holocaust and defiantly opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. Sept. 26.

Joseph Wilson, 69. The former ambassador who set off a political firestorm by disputing U.S. intelligence used to justify the 2003 Iraq invasion. Sept. 27.

José José, 71. The Mexican crooner was an elegant dresser who moved audiences to tears with melancholic love ballads and was known as the “Prince of Song.” Sept. 28.

Jessye Norman, 74. The renowned international opera star whose passionate soprano voice won her four Grammy Awards, the National Medal of Arts and the Kennedy Center Honor. Sept. 30.

Samuel Mayerson, 97. The prosecutor who took newspaper heiress Patty Hearst to court for shooting up a Southern California sporting goods store in 1974 and then successfully argued for probation, not prison, for the kidnapping victim-turned terrorist. Sept. 30.

OCTOBER

Karel Gott, 80. A Czech pop singer who became a star behind the Iron Curtain. Oct. 1.

Diogo Freitas do Amaral, 78. A conservative Portuguese politician who played a leading role in cementing the country’s democracy after its 1974 Carnation Revolution and later became president of the U.N. General Assembly. Oct. 3.

Diahann Carroll, 84. The Oscar-nominated actress and singer who won critical acclaim as the first black woman to star in a non-servant role in a TV series as “Julia.” Oct. 4. Cancer.

Ginger Baker, 80. The volatile and propulsive drummer for Cream and other bands who wielded blues power and jazz finesse and helped shatter boundaries of time, tempo and style in popular music. Oct. 6.

Rip Taylor, 88. The madcap, mustached comedian with a fondness for confetti-throwing who became a television game show mainstay in the 1970s. Oct. 6.

Robert Forster, 78. The handsome and omnipresent character actor who got a career resurgence and Oscar nomination for playing bail bondsman Max Cherry in “Jackie Brown.” Oct. 11. Brain cancer.

James Stern, 55. A black activist who took control of one of the nation’s largest neo-Nazi groups — and vowed to dismantle it. Oct. 11. Cancer.

Alexei Leonov, 85. The legendary Soviet cosmonaut who became the first person to walk in space. Oct. 11.

Scotty Bowers, 96. A self-described Hollywood “fixer” whose memoir offered sensational accounts of the sex lives of such celebrities as Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. Oct. 13.

Harold Bloom, 89. The eminent critic and Yale professor whose seminal “The Anxiety of Influence” and melancholy regard for literature’s old masters made him a popular author and standard-bearer of Western civilization amid modern trends. Oct. 14.

Elijah E. Cummings, 68. A sharecropper’s son who rose to become a civil rights champion and the chairman of one of the U.S. House committees leading an impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump. Oct. 17. Complications from longstanding health problems.

Alicia Alonso, 98. The revered ballerina and choreographer whose nearly 75-year career made her an icon of artistic loyalty to Cuba’s socialist system. Oct. 17.

Bill Macy, 97. The character actor whose hangdog expression was a perfect match for his role as the long-suffering foil to Bea Arthur’s unyielding feminist on the daring 1970s sitcom “Maude.” Oct. 17.

Marieke Vervoort, 40. A Paralympian who won gold and silver medals in 2012 at the London Paralympics in wheelchair racing and two more medals in Rio de Janeiro. Oct. 22. Took her own life after living with pain from a degenerative spinal disease.

Sadako Ogata, 92. She led the U.N. refugee agency for a decade and became one of the first Japanese to hold a top job at an international organization. Oct. 22.

Kathryn Johnson, 93. A trailblazing reporter for The Associated Press whose intrepid coverage of the civil rights movement and other major stories led to a string of legendary scoops. Oct. 23.

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, believed to be 48. He sought to establish an Islamic “caliphate” across Syria and Iraq, but he might be remembered more as the ruthless leader of the Islamic State group who brought terror to the heart of Europe. Oct. 26. Detonated a suicide vest during a raid by U.S. forces.

John Conyers, 90. The former congressman was one of the longest-serving members of Congress whose resolutely liberal stance on civil rights made him a political institution in Washington and back home in Detroit despite several scandals. Oct. 27.

Ivan Milat, 74. His grisly serial killings of seven European and Australian backpackers horrified Australia in the early ’90s. Oct. 27.

Vladimir Bukovsky, 76. A prominent Soviet-era dissident who became internationally known for exposing Soviet abuse of psychiatry. Oct. 27.

Kay Hagan, 66. A former bank executive who rose from a budget writer in the North Carolina Legislature to a seat in the U.S. Senate. Oct. 28. Illness.

John Walker, 82. An Arkansas lawmaker and civil rights attorney who represented black students in a long-running court fight over the desegregation of Little Rock-area schools. Oct. 28.

John Witherspoon, 77. An actor-comedian who memorably played Ice Cube’s father in the “Friday” films. Oct. 29.

NOVEMBER

Walter Mercado, 88. A television astrologer whose glamorous persona made him a star in Latin media and a cherished icon for gay people in most of the Spanish-speaking world. Nov. 2. Kidney failure.

Gert Boyle, 95. The colorful chairwoman of Oregon-based Columbia Sportswear Co. who starred in ads proclaiming her “One Tough Mother.” Nov. 3.

Ernest J. Gaines, 86. A novelist whose poor childhood on a small Louisiana plantation germinated stories of black struggles that grew into universal tales of grace and beauty. Nov. 5.

Werner Gustav Doehner, 90. He was the last remaining survivor of the Hindenburg disaster, who suffered severe burns to his face, arms and legs before his mother managed to toss him and his brother from the burning airship. Nov. 8.

Charles Rogers, 38. The former Michigan State star and Detroit Lions receiver was an All-American wide receiver who was the school’s all-time leader in touchdown catches. Nov. 11.

Raymond Poulidor, 83. The “eternal runner-up” whose repeated failure to win the Tour de France helped him conquer French hearts and become the country’s all-time favorite cyclist. Nov. 13.

Walter J. Minton, 96. A publishing scion and risk taker with a self-described “nasty streak” who as head of G.P. Putnam’s Sons released works by Norman Mailer and Terry Southern, among others, and signed up Vladimir Nabokov’s scandalous “Lolita.” Nov. 19.

Jake Burton Carpenter, 65. The man who changed the game on the mountain by fulfilling a grand vision of what a snowboard could be. Nov. 20. Complications stemming from a relapse of testicular cancer.

Gahan Wilson, 89. His humorous and often macabre cartoons were a mainstay in magazines including Playboy, the New Yorker and National Lampoon. Nov. 21.

Cathy Long, 95. A Louisiana Democrat who won her husband’s U.S. House seat after his sudden death in 1985 and served one term. Nov. 23.

John Simon, 94. A theater and film critic known for his lacerating reviews and often withering assessment of performers’ physical appearance. Nov. 24.

William Doyle Ruckelshaus, 87. He famously quit his job in the Justice Department rather than carry out President Richard Nixon’s order to fire the special prosecutor investigating the Watergate scandal. Nov. 27.

Yasuhiro Nakasone, 101. The former Japanese prime minister was a giant of his country’s post-World War II politics who pushed for a more assertive Japan while strengthening military ties with the United States. Nov. 29.

Irving Burgie, 95. A composer who helped popularize Caribbean music and co-wrote the enduring Harry Belafonte hit “Day-O (The Banana Boat Song).” Nov. 29.

DECEMBER

Allan Gerson, 74. A lawyer who pursued Nazi war criminals and pioneered the practice of suing foreign governments in U.S. courts for complicity to terrorism. Dec. 1.

Juice WRLD, 21. A rapper who launched his career on SoundCloud before becoming a streaming juggernaut and rose to the top of the charts with the Sting-sampled hit “Lucid Dreams.” Dec. 8. Died after being treated for opioid use during a police search.

René Auberjonois, 79. A prolific actor best known for his roles on the television shows “Benson” and “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” and his part in the 1970 film “M.A.S.H.” playing Father Mulcahy. Dec. 8.

Caroll Spinney, 85. He gave Big Bird his warmth and Oscar the Grouch his growl for nearly 50 years on “Sesame Street.” Dec. 8.

Paul Volcker, 92. The former Federal Reserve chairman who in the early 1980s raised interest rates to historic highs and triggered a recession as the price of quashing double-digit inflation. Dec. 8.

Pete Frates, 34. A former college baseball player whose battle with Lou Gehrig’s disease helped inspire the ALS ice bucket challenge that has raised more than $200 million worldwide. Dec. 9.

Marie Fredriksson, 61. The female half of the Swedish pop duo Roxette that achieve international success in the late 1980s and 1990s. Dec. 9.

Kim Woo-choong, 82. The disgraced founder of the now-collapsed Daewoo business group whose rise and fall symbolized South Korea’s turbulent rapid economic growth in the 1970s. Dec. 9. Pneumonia.

Danny Aiello, 86. The blue-collar character actor whose long career playing tough guys included roles in “Fort Apache, the Bronx,” “Moonstruck” and “Once Upon a Time in America” and his Oscar-nominated performance as a pizza man in Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing.” Dec. 12.

Robert Glenn “Junior” Johnson, 88. The moonshine runner turned NASCAR driver who won 50 races as a driver and 132 as an owner and was part of the inaugural class inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2010. Dec. 20.

Elizabeth Spencer, 98. A grande dame of Southern literature who bravely navigated between the Jim Crow past and open-ended present in her novels and stories, including the celebrated novella “Light In the Piazza.” Dec. 22.

Lee Mendelson, 86. The producer who changed the face of the holidays when he brought “A Charlie Brown Christmas” to television in 1965 and wrote the lyrics to its signature song, “Christmas Time Is Here.” Dec. 25. Congestive heart failure.

Jerry Herman, 88. The Tony Award-winning composer who wrote the cheerful, good-natured music and lyrics for such classic shows as “Mame,” “Hello, Dolly!” and “La Cage aux Folles.” Dec. 26.

Don Imus, 79. The disc jockey whose career was made and then undone by his acid tongue during a decadeslong rise to radio stardom and abrupt plunge after a nationally broadcast racial slur. Dec. 27. Complications from lung disease.

from FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports https://fox4kc.com/2019/12/31/final-goodbye-recalling-influential-people-who-died-in-2019-2/

from Kansas City Happenings https://kansascityhappenings.wordpress.com/2019/12/31/final-goodbye-recalling-influential-people-who-died-in-2019-2/

[thereallazaruslady]

Billionaire Mike Bloomberg Wastes Money Running For President — The Poli...

Don't speak where you don't know. It's these organized crime groups military/govt/IC+ connected using MK-Ultra on targets or the children of targets creating what is called an "NSA" (as in Black Ops 'No Such Agency') Shooter-on-a-shelf. It is THAT criminal enterprise that provides the guns, often doing much of the shooting themselves (e.g. Jared Lee Loughner who couldn't have done most of the shootings and said so;  neuroscientist DR. James E. Holmes - many of the Aurora, CO PDs released the calls identifying another man in a plaid (blue?) shirt doing most of the shooting from the theater screen emergency exits; whistle-blower & peace activist former Mil.Naval Aaron Alexis; Prosecutor Myron May who was helping a mother & her kidnapped child from the Pedophile Lobby AKA The Fathers' Rights Group; computer corp CEO's son Adam Lanza and so on and so on)  Hate groups like the KKK (of AK particularly who also set up camp in Albany, NY) & other organized crime who started Operation & Project Paperclip bringing over 36,000 Nazi WAR-CRIMINALS (psychiatrists & scientists) to the USA added to what JFK warned about long, long ago. I have professional colleagues who are/were targeted clinicians including targeted psychiatrists who are hit with similar weapons as were the US diplomats in China (Sonic weapons, V2k, Medusa, Voice of God weapons, etc)  JFK Secret Society Full Version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdMbmdFOvTs&list=WL&index=38&t=0s and here with annotation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7BFVnun1h8&list=WL&index=36

More Succinct Version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhZk8ronces&list=WL&index=35

Technically, it's not a mental illness issue, it's a mental anguish and injury issue with covert & overt military/CIA-ish/psyops weapons & Stasi tactics used on innocent people, especially innocent children... And, YES, I am an expert and scientist - latter career EH&S, toxicology, health science, Int'l agrarian economics... former MH/Psychiatric facility management running treatment teams & facilities medium sized during de-Institutionalization. NOW you know....

[bountyofbeads]

https://abcnews.go.com/amp/Politics/americas-allies-pushing-us-trump-policies-top-intel/story?id=60697780&__twitter_impression=true

America's allies are pushing away from the US over President Trump's policies, top intelligence officials warn

Intel chiefs challenge Trump's national security claims

By Mike Levine and Lee Ferran |Published Jan 29, 2019, 4:40 PM ET | ABC News | Posted January 30, 2019 |

America's top intelligence officials on Tuesday appeared to challenge some of President Donald Trump's most prominent claims about global national security issues, warning lawmakers that ISIS is still a serious threat to U.S. interests around the world, acknowledging that Iran has -- at least temporarily -- abandoned its efforts to build nuclear weapons, and insisting that North Korea is "unlikely to give up" its own nuclear arsenal.

The testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee coincided with the release of the U.S. intelligence community's latest "worldwide threat assessment," which noted that even "some U.S. allies and partners are seeking greater independence from Washington in response to their perceptions of changing US policies on security and trade."

"In many respects, it is a rebuke to the political rhetoric from the administration," John Cohen, a senior Homeland Security official focusing on threat-related intelligence under the Obama administration, and an ABC News contributor, said. "[It's] striking in some respects."

Last year, Trump removed the United States from the international deal reached with Iran during the Obama administration, claiming the deal would only provide a cloak for Iran to continue its nuclear development. More recently, the Trump administration has touted its operations against ISIS, with Trump himself tweets last month that ISIS had been "defeated" in Syria.

But on Tuesday, the nation's top intelligence official, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, told lawmakers that while ISIS is "nearing territorial defeat" in the region, it "is intent on resurging and still commands thousands of fighters in Iraq and Syria." And Coats said that U.S. intelligence agencies "do not believe Iran is currently undertaking the key activities we judge necessary to produce a nuclear device."

"Iranian officials have publicly threatened to push the boundaries of [the international deal's] restrictions if Iran does not gain the tangible financial benefits it expected from the deal," Coats added.

Cohen, the former Homeland Security official, said that "what is striking about this detailed assessment is what it doesn't say."

"Iranian officials have publicly threatened to push the boundaries of [the international deal's] restrictions if Iran does not gain the tangible financial benefits it expected from the deal," Coats added.

Cohen, the former Homeland Security official, said that "what is striking about this detailed assessment is what it doesn't say."

"The report does not reinforce or support recent claims by the administration of a national security crisis at the southern border," Cohen said.

In his opening remarks, Coats framed "migration flows" as a "challenge" to U.S. interests, saying Mexican authorities are not able to "fully address" drug cartels. He also said "[h]igh crime rates and weak job markets will continue to spur U.S.-bound migrants from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras."

Coats told lawmakers his opening remarks were intended "to provide you an overview of the national security threats facing our nation." He was the only one to give opening remarks, as he was speaking on behalf of those seated beside him: CIA Director Gina Haspel, FBI Director Christopher Wray, National Security Agency Director Gen. Paul Nakasone, Defense Intelligence Agency Director Gen. Robert Ashley and National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency Director Robert Cardillo.

"Threats to U.S. national security will expand and diversify in the coming year, driven in part by China and Russia as they respectively compete more intensely with the United States and its traditional allies and partners," the newly-published 2019 Worldwide Threat Assessment warns. "At the same time, some U.S. allies and partners are seeking greater independence from Washington in response to their perceptions of changing US policies on security and trade and are becoming more open to new bilateral and multilateral partnerships."

China dominated much of the discussion, as Coats said China was leveraging economic, military and political muscle to "tout a distinctly Chinese fusion of strong-man autocracy and a form of western style capitalism as a development model and implicit alternative to democratic values and institutions," in pursuit of "global superiority."

The chairman of the Senate panel, GOP Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina, echoed those sentiments, warning, "The objective of our enemies has not changed -- they want to see the United States weakened, if not destroyed. They want to see us abandon our friends and allies. They want to see us lessen our global presence. They want to see us weak and divided."

The U.S. officials specifically warned about the economic espionage threat they said emanates from China and targets not only the U.S. government but business and academic institutions.

FBI Director Wray said the nation's use of economic espionage was so widespread that most of the FBI field offices had an open investigation linked to China.

"I would say China writ large is the most significant counter-intelligence threat we face," Wray told lawmakers.

Coats said that China's "pursuit of intellectual property, sensitive research and development plans, and U.S. Person data, remains a significant threat to the US government and private sector."

Wray said, however, that he was "encouraged" that the American people, from those in business to academia, are "now sort of waking up" to the understanding of the blurred lines between Chinese firms and the government and threat that that relationship poses. American allies are starting to rethink their economic and business relationships with the Chinese government and Chinese companies, he said.

Meanwhile, the officials said an economically weakened Russia is working to sow discord in Western institutions and to "undermine the post-WII international order," as Coats put it.

The officials said Russia has continued the social media influence campaign that was so prevalent ahead of the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

The NSA's Nakasone indicated that some actions of his agency, which handles much of the intelligence community's cyber work, diminished Russian capabilities ahead of the 2018 midterm elections. But the threat has hardly gone away, the officials said.

"We assess that foreign actors will view the 2020 U.S. elections as an opportunity to advance their interests," Coats said. "We expect them to refine their capabilities and add new tactics as they learn from each other’s experiences and efforts in previous elections."

When questioned by Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris of California, about whether the intelligence community had a single strategy document for combating foreign influence online ahead of the 2020 election, Coats said that one document wouldn't make sense in such a "fluid" environment, but attempted to assure Harris that it was a top priority for the intelligence community.

Rounding out what Coats called the "Big 4" threats, in addition to Russia and China, the officials fielded questions about Iran and North Korea, mostly about their nuclear aspirations.

Despite President Trump's optimism that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un would denuclearize his nation, the threat assessment said North Korea is unlikely to do so, as it views nuclear weapons as vital to the survival of the regime.

Still, the CIA's Haspel said that North Korea had frozen nuclear testing and that ongoing dialogue between North Korean and U.S. official was "positive," something of value to North Korea. Coats told lawmakers that when it comes to North Korea, the U.S. intelligence community was going into the topic with "eyes wide open."

Haspel also testified that Iran was "technically" in compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal, even if the regime appeared to have taken some steps that might better position the nation should it decide to withdraw from the deal. There were ongoing discussions in Tehran about whether it was worth adhering to the accord's requirements, she said.

Echoing the recently released National Intelligence Strategy, the threat assessment also touched on the dangers of emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, 5G networks and deep fakes, and how they could be utilized by adversary nations.

"All four of these states – China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran – are advancing their cyber capabilities, which are relatively low-cost and growing in potency and severity," Coats said. "This includes threatening both minds and machines in an expanding number of ways, such as stealing information, attempting to influence populations, or developing ways to disrupt critical infrastructures."

The threat assessment warned that both China and Russia currently have the ability to hit "localized" sections of American critical infrastructure -- perhaps interrupting a local electrical grid for a few hours or interfering with a natural gas pipeline for days.

In discussing the terrorist organization ISIS, Haspel said that while the group had lost virtually all of its physical territory in Iraq and Syria, the group still commanded thousands of fighters and said it was "still dangerous."

DNI Coats said it was a threat that wasn't going away anytime soon. "While we have defeated the caliphate except for a couple little villages," he said, the U.S. should not "underestimate" the ability of terror groups like ISIS to live on in different places or through their ideology.

"ISIS will continue to be a threat to the United States," he said.

"The composition of the current threats we face is a toxic mix of strategic competitors, regional powers, weak or failed states, and non-state actors using a variety of tools in overt and subtle ways to achieve their goals," Coats said. "The scale and scope of the various threats facing the United States and our immediate interests worldwide is likely to further intensify this year. It is increasingly a challenge to prioritize which threats are of greatest importance. "

[we-arnold-lockshin-blog]

Insights Into The Secret Political Police 36

So why don't the CIA-FSB just kill Arnold Lockshin outright? (2)

The blatant, undisguised murder of Arnold Lockshin is always open for consideration and implementation by the secret political police, whether in the US or in Russia.  It simply has not been the preferable approach to the issue.  So far.

“The US intelligence agency CIA has since 1945 succeeded in deposing or killing a string of leaders around the world – either directly or, more often, using sympathetic local military, locally hired criminals or pliant dissidents.” (TheGuardian, May 5, 2017)

For the monstrous US lie, spy, criminal, provocation, subversion and regime change, terror, drug-runnning, torture, war and mass murder apparatus – the US secret political police – and for its stooges around the world, there are not the slightest moral, ethical, legal etc. qualms about murdering opponents of US imperialism.  Whether they are leaders or simply honest, relatively unknown progressive people.

Point blank murder is far from always the preferable means of eliminating opponents.

///////////////////////////

Let us backtrack to the US secret political police murders of two prominent Americans: US President John F. Kennedy and civil rights and peace leader Martin Luther King, Jr.

No, I do not claim to have the stature or renown of these two victims. But their murders are nonetheless relevant to my case.

The John F. Kennedy assassination...

John Kennedy was assassinated in 1963 in Dallas, Texas by Cuban counter-revolutionaries and Mafia hit-men operating under the command of the CIA.  The American Gestapo and ruling elite  scapegoated one of their own agents, former US marine Lee Harvey Oswald (who on CIA orders once had “defected” to the Soviet Union and later returned to the States).  Just two days after Kennedy's murder, Oswald himself was shot dead – right in the Dallas police station! - to prevent him from testifying and exposing the real murder plot.

The operation was a great success: both the victim and the fall guy were eliminated.  But the problems did not end there.  For over half a century, there has been enormous distrust of the official version that Oswald, with no other motive than unexplainable “jealousy,” while working in a building far away from Kennedy's moving motorcade repeatedly fired an obsolete Italian rifle with unerring accuracy and fatally wounded the President.

The Oswald fable is a total lie.  Kennedy, the scion of two big-time multimillionaire criminal families, was no progressive but was concerned about the massive and dangerous overreach of the United States.   He refused to approve an American invasion of Cuba after the failed Bay of Pigs operation (1962), considered how to lessen the threat of a US-USSR mutual nuclear holocaust and balked about greatly expanding US military involvement in Vietnam (which later was ordered by his successor Lyndon Johnson).

These policies brought John Kennedy into direct confrontation with the US “intelligence community,” the Pentagon and most of the ruling elite.  These permanent ultra-reactionary forces in American society ordered Kennedy's assassination.

Mass suspicion – in the United States, but not only there – of the official fake version of Kennedy's murder has never gone away.   «Kennedy’s assassination had some policy/political effects, but probably its most lasting effect is the distrust in government it led to.» (Quora, May 16, 2013)

In a recemt attempt to again quell public doubts about official Washington's lying version, the CIA “released” more documents, purportedly relating to the November 1963 presidential murder.  After publication of this material, there is no evidence of any significant change in public opinion.

About the only item of note was “a memorandum written by J. Edgar Hoover only two days after Kennedy’s death, clearly expressed the FBI Director’s view of the investigation that it was necessary to “convince the public that Oswald is the real assassin.” (The Irish Echo, Nov. 22, 2017)

///////////////////////////////////

The Martin Luther King assassination...

“The life and death of Martin Luther King, Jr. are crucial to understanding modern-day American political realities and the FBI's (the domestic American Gestapo) role within the United States.  In the post-World War II era, King was the unparalleled mass leader for progressive social change in America.  He was internationally prominent for leading courageous struggles for civil rights, economic justice and peace. King's stature, even after death, compelled Congress to investigate the plot that led to his assassination on April 4, 1968.” (Silent Terror, p. 72)

“It is a testament to King's extraordinary heroism and unbreakable character that he never stopped struggling for justice and peace although he knew he was in mortal danger.  Less than 24 hours before his death, King made his last eloquent speech...

“While the nation and world mourned his death, FBI agents were delighted and 'jumped for joy,' exclaiming 'they got the son-of-a-bitch!'” (Silent Terror, p. 74)

According to US powers-that-be mythology, James Earl Ray, a white man, all by himself, (a) knew exactly where King would be staying; (b) without attracting attention was able to procure a room in an all-Black area of highly segregated Memphis, Tennessee (c) which was located directly across from the balcony of his target's motel room; and (d) fired a single lethal shot to King's head.  It  defies logical explanation to believe that Ray alone could have ascertained King's accommodations and situated himself perfectly for murder.

“The King family and others believe that the assassination was carried out by a conspiracy involving the U.S. government... and that Ray was a scapegoat. In 1999 the King family filed a wrongful death lawsuit...  alleging a government conspiracy” (Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., Wikipedia). «The jury, concluding on December 8, found that... governmental agencies had been part of a conspiracy. The King family has since concluded that Ray did not have anything to do with the murder of Martin Luther King Jr.»  (James Earl Ray, Wikipedia).

“The King assassination riots... was a wave of civil disturbance which swept the United States following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968. They were the greatest wave of social unrest the United States experienced since the Civil War.” (King assassination riots, Wikipedia)

In an attempt to  cover up their crime, the US Government reluctantly approved an American federal holiday Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which is celebrated every year on the occasion of King's birthday.

////////////////////////////

Even the best laid plans of US Gestapo murderers often go awry.

In spite of secret political police control of the US (and not only US!) mass media, phony government commissions and inquiries, it has proven impossible to quell mass disquiet over the multitudinous horrendous crimes of US imperialism, the CIA etc. – along with their collaborators.

It would be an exaggeration to say that the police state dictatorship that is the USA (see my series Dictatorship USA) is currently threatened by public anger over this or that murder or atrocity.  But along with growing economic hardships, accelerating distrust of political institutions, such outrage at some future point can well lead to a serious challenge to the status quo.

Far, far better for the merciless ruling class to devise indirect, covert, often convoluted methods to commit murder and accomplish their inhuman ends.

/////////////////////////////////////////////

Перед нами сейчас -  коварный и опасный мошенник, расист, лжец и неофашист Дональд Трамп, порочный Конгресс, нацистские ФБР - ЦРУ,  кровавые милитаристы США и НАТО >>> а также и лживые, вредоносные американские СМ»И».

////////////////////////////////////////////

Прав��тельство США жестоко нарушало мои права человека при проведении кампании террора, которая заставила меня покинуть свою родину и получить политическое убежище в СССР. См. книгу «Безмолвный террор — История политических гонений на семью в США» - "Silent Terror: One family's history of political persecution in the United States» - http://arnoldlockshin.wordpress.com

Правительство США еще нарушает мои права, в течении 14 лет отказывается от выплаты причитающейся мне пенсии по старости.  Властители США воруют пенсию!!  

ФСБ - Федеральная служба «безопасности» России - вслед за позорным, предавшим страну предшественником КГБ, мерзко выполняет приказы се��ретного, кровавого хозяина (boss) - американского ЦРУ (CIA). Среди таких «задач» -  мне запретить выступать в СМИ и не пропускать большинства отправленных мне комментариев.   А это далеко не всё...

Арнольд Локшин, политэмигрант из США

BANNED – ЗАПРЕЩЕНО!!

ЦРУ - ФСБ забанили все мои посты и комментарии в Вконтакте!

… и в Макспарке!

[clubofinfo]

Expert: Latin America is re-converting into Washington’s backyard and as a sideline is returning to fascist rule, similar but worse than the sixties, seventies, and eighties, which stood under the spell of the CIA-led Operation or Plan Condor. Many call the current right-wing trend Operation Condor II which is probably as close to the truth as can be. It is all Washington / CIA fabricated, just with more rigor and more sophistication than Plan Condor of 40 and 50 years ago. As much as it hurts to say, after all the glory and laurels sent out to Latin America – with Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, Rafael Correa, Evo Morales, Lula, the Kirchners, José Mujica, Michelle Bachelet – more than 80% of the population of Latin America were living for some 15 to 20 years under democratically elected mostly left-leaning governments, really progressive. Within no time, in less than 3 years the wheels have turned. Latin America was for about 20 years the only western part of the world, that was fully detached from the fangs of the empire. It has succumbed again to the forces of evil, to the forces of money, the forces of utter corruption and greed. The people of Latin America have betrayed their own principles. They did it again. Humans remain reduced as in ancient times, to the unfailing powers of reproduction and ego cum greed.  It seems in the end, ego and greed always win over the forces of light, of good, peace and harmony. That’s why even the World Bank calls corruption the single most hindrance to development. They mean economic development; I mean conscientious development. This time the trick is false and fraudulent election campaigns; bought elections; Washington induced parliamentary coups – which in Brazil brought unelected President Temer to power, a prelude to much worse to come, the fascist, misogynist, racist, and self-styled military man, Jair Bolsonaro. The 2015 presidential election in Argentina brought a cleverly Washington manufactured win for Mauricio Macri, a friend and one-time business associate of Donald Trump’s, as it were. The election was manipulated by the by now well-known Machiavellian Cambridge Analytica method of cheating the voters by individualized messages spread throughout the social media into believing all sorts of lies about the candidates. Voters were, thus, hit on the head by surprise, as Macri’s opponent, the left-leaning Daniel Scioli of the Peronist Victory Front, the leader in the polls, was defeated. Today Macri has adopted a fascist economic agenda, indebted the country with IMF austerity packages, increased unemployment and poverty from12% before his election in 2015 to close to 40 % in 2018. He is leading Argentina towards a déjà-vu scenario of the 80s and especially 1990’s when under pressure from the US, IMF and World Bank, the country was to adopt the US dollar as their local currency, or to be exact, Argentina was allowed to keep their peso, but had to commit to a one-to-one parity with the US dollar. The official explanation for this criminal move, in economic terms (to impose the use of the currency of one country for the economy of another country is not only insane, it’s outright criminal), was to stop skyrocketing inflation – which temporarily it did, but to the detriment of the working class, for whom common staple and goods became unaffordable. Disaster was preprogrammed. And the collapse of Argentine’s economy happened in 2000 and 2001. Finally, in January 2002, President Eduardo Duhalde ended the notorious peso-dollar parity. The peso was first devalued by 40% – then it floated towards a 70% devaluation and gradually pegged itself to other international trading currencies, like the euro, the Japanese yen and the Chinese yuan. Eventually, the newly floating currency allowed the Argentine economy to get a new boost and recovered rapidly. Perhaps too rapidly, for Argentina’s own good. The economy grew substantially under the left, fully democratically elected Kirchner Governments. Not only did the economy grow rapidly, it also grew in a widely ‘distributive’ mode, meaning reducing poverty, assessed at almost two thirds of the population in 2001, cutting it to about 12%, just a month before Macri was catapulted into office, by Washington and Cambridge Analytica in December 2015. Argentina has become rich again; she can now be milked again and sucked dry by the banking sector, and international corporatism, all protected by three to be newly established US military bases in the provinces of Neuquen, Misiones and Tierra del Fuego. They will initially be under the US Southern Command, but most likely soon to be converted into NATO bases. NATO is already in Colombia and may soon spread into Bolsonaro’s Brazil. Though nobody really understands what the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has to do in South America – the answer is unimportant. The empire suits itself with whatever fits the purpose. No rules, no ethics, no laws – everything goes under neoliberalism. NATO is to become a world military attack force under Washington’s control and directed by those few “enlightened”, pulling the strings from behind the curtains, form the deep dark state. Macri marked the beginning of Latin America’s new fascism. South America struggled for 15 -20 years to become independent from the neoliberal masters of the north. It has now been reabsorbed into the northern elite’s, the empire’s backyard — yes, sadly, that’s what Latin America has become for the major part, a mere backyard of Washington. Argentina’s Washington imposed right-wing dictatorship was preceded by Paraguay’s 2012 parliamentary coup that in April 2013 brought Horacio Cartes of the right-extreme Colorado party to power. The Colorado Party was also the party of Alfredo Stroessner, the fascist brutal military dictator, who ruled Paraguay from 1954 to 1989. In Chile on 9/11 of 1973 a democratically elected socialist, Salvador Allende, was overthrown under the guidance of the CIA and a brutal military dictator, Augusto Pinochet installed for almost 30 years. After a brief spring of center and left-leaning governments, Chile, in December 2017, has returned to right-wing, neoliberal politics with Sebastian Piñera, a former associate of Pinochet’s. With the surroundings of his neoliberal friends and close accomplices in Argentina, Colombia, Brazil, Peru and even Ecuador, to be sure, he will move to extreme right, neo-fascist economic rules and, thus, please Washington’s banks and their instruments, the IMF and the World Bank. Fascism is on the march. And this despite the fact that 99.99% of the population, not just in Latin America, worldwide, want nothing to do with fascism – so where is the fraud? Why is nobody investigating the scam and swindle in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Colombia and then putting the results up for everyone to see? In the meantime, we have learned about Cambridge / Oxford Analytica (CA & OA). How they operate and cheat the electorate. They themselves have finally admitted to the methods within which they operate and influence voters with lies – and with data stealing or buying from social media, mainly Facebook; millions and millions of personal data to target electronically special groups of people – bombarding them with lies to promote or denigrate the one or the other candidate. And precisely this happened in Brazil. A week before the run-off election that took place this past Sunday, 28 October, Fernando Haddad, (PT), launched a criminal investigation precisely for that reason against Bolsonaro’s campaign. Of course, nothing happened. All the judges, courts and lawyers are under control of the unelected corrupt right-wing Temer Government – which came to power by a foreign directed ruthless parliamentary coup, impeaching under totally false pretenses democratically elected Dilma Rousseff. And now – there is nobody investigating what happened in Brazil, bringing a military boy, Jair Bolsonaro to power? The left is dead? Flabbergasted into oblivion indeed? How come? With all the lessons to be learned around the world, and not least in Argentina, the neighbor – why can the Brazilian left be so blind, outright naive, as to not understand that following the criminally legalized system in their country is following the path to their own demise and eventually to shovel their own grave? From day One, the US firmly counts on Bolsonaro to encircle Venezuela, together with Colombia. President Trump has already expressed his expectations to work ‘closely together’ with the new Bolsonaro Government in “matters of trade, military – and earthing else.” Bolsonaro has already met with Mike Pompeo, the US Foreign Secretary, who told him that the situation in Venezuela is a “priority’ for Brazil. There you go; Washington dictates foreign leaders their priorities. Bolsonaro will oblige, for sure. Wake up – LEFT! – not just in Latin America, but around the world. Today, it’s the mainstream media which have learned the tricks and cheats, and they have perfected the Cambridge and Oxford Analyticas; they are doing it non-stop. They have all the fake and fiat money in the world to pay for these false and deceit-campaigns.  They are owned by the corporate military and financial elite, by the CIA, MI6/5, Mossad – they are owned and directed by the western all-overarching neoliberalism cum fascism. The rich elite groups have free access to the fake and fiat money supply – its government supplied in the US as well as in Europe; debt is no problem for them, as long as they ‘behave’. Yes. The accent is on behaving. Dictatorial trends are also omni-present in the EU, and especially in the non-elected European Commission (EC) which calls the shots on all important matters. Italy’s Fife-Star Eurosceptic Government presented its 2019 budget to Brussels. Not only was the government scolded and reprimanded for overstretching its accounts with a deficit exceeding the 3% EU imposed debt margin, but the government had to present a new budget within 3 weeks. That is how a not-so-well behaving EU government is treated. What a stretch of authoritarian EU rule vis-à-vis a sovereign government. And ‘sovereignty’ is – the EU boasts – the key to a coherent European Union. On the other hand, France has for years been infringing on the (in)famous 3% rule. And again, for the 2019 budget. However, the French government received a friendly drafted note saying, would you please reconsider your budget deficit for the next year. No scolding. One does not reprimand a Rothchild Child. Double standards, corruption, nepotism, are among the attributes of fascism. It’s growing fast, everywhere in the west. It has taken on a life of itself. And the military is prepared. Everywhere. If only they, the military, would wake up and stand with the people instead of the ruling elite that treats them like their peons. Yet, they are part of the people; they belong to the most common of the people. In the end, they get the same shaft treatment as the people.  They are tortured and shot when they are no longer needed, or if they don’t behave as the neocon-fascists want. So, Dear Military Men and Women, why not pre-empt such risks and stand with the people from the very beginning? The entire fake and criminal system would collapse if it wouldn’t have the protection of the police and the military. You, dear Men and Women form the Police and Military, you have the power and the moral obligation to stand by the people, not defending the ruthless, brutal elitist and criminal rulers – à la Macri, Bolsonaro, Piñera, Duque, Macron, May and Merkel. And there are many more  of the same blood. One of the first signs for what was to happen throughout Latin America and spreading through the western world, was the “fake election” of Macri, in 2015 in Argentina. Some of us saw it coming and wrote about it. We were ignored, even laughed at. We were told we didn’t understand the democratic process. Yes, right. In the meantime, the trend towards the right, towards a permanent state of Emergency, a de facto Martial Rule has become irreversible. France has incorporated the permanent state of emergency in her Constitution. Armed police and military are a steady presence throughout Paris and France’s major cities. There are only a few, very few exceptions left in Latin America, indeed in the western world. And let’s do whatever we can to save them from the bulldozer of fascism. http://clubof.info/

[citizentruth-blog]

US Policy is Inextricably Linked to the Refugee Crisis in Central America

The modern Central American refugee crisis did not spring up in a vacuum, years of intervention by multinational corporations, and the U.S. institutions that supported them, bear significant responsibility. Despite all the vitriol surrounding immigration policy, the reasons behind the crisis in Central America are rarely examined in depth by mainstream media outlets. This article will provide a brief, and by no means exhaustive, summary of the United States involvement in the Central American countries that are home to the caravan of asylum seekers currently stirring controversy in the United States.

Latin America During the Cold War

During the Cold War, Latin America’s sovereign political institutions were molested with total impunity by the United States. When the CIA overthrew the democratically elected president of Guatemala in 1954, it was with the pretext of protecting national security and preventing communist expansion. But in truth, the president of Guatemala was redistributing unused land from a US-based multinational corporation, United Fruit Company, to the people of his country. The director of the CIA and the Secretary of State at the time were stockholders and former legal advisors to United Fruit Company, and used the full might of the US deep state to safeguard the business interests of their client. The political backlash against the US-backed coup-de-tat, and the vicious leaders who assumed power, ignited a 30-year civil war that Guatemala has still not completely recovered from. This is not a controversial conspiracy theory, this is a historical fact confirmed by CIA declassifications. Unfortunately, this story is far from unique. It would be reductionist to place the entirety of blame for Central America’s problems on the US and the exploitative multinational corporations it has facilitated. Immigration policy is complex and there is an important debate to have about the best solution to these crises. However, that debate cannot be held without accountability for the facts. To understand the violence and impunity driving the refugee crises in the Central American Republics of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, we will start with a short history of the United Fruit Company, the first truly modern multinational corporation.

United Fruit Company

  United Fruit originated in 1870’s Costa Rica when a young entrepreneur named Minor Cooper Keith began to plant bananas as a side hustle to his existing railroad business. The fruit quickly became a huge hit in the United States, and Keith’s railroad network aided the rapid expansion of his business. Recognizing the importance of compliant governments in optimizing profitability, the budding young company would soon enter the business of regime change. In 1911, the Honduran government blocked production of the fruit giant, concerned by its capacity for wealth extraction and dominance. The fruit company subsequently financed its first successful regime change in Honduras, overthrowing President Miguel Dávila and installing a leader who would be friendlier to their commercial interests. Honduras and Guatemala are the original “banana republics,” a term coined by the American writer O. Henry in 1901. A banana republic is a country in which an oligarchy colludes with favored monopolies to dominate a nation’s public lands and privatize the profits from their cultivation for the exclusive benefit of the ruling class. Banana republics are characterized by their reliance on grand-scale agriculture, and by their dependence on the exploitation of an impoverished working class. But while privatized profits benefit only a few, debts acquired become the responsibility of the state. In Honduras, extreme debt after the 1911 coup allowed private corporations like United Fruit to seize public assets (natural resources) and entrench dominance in the country’s economic infrastructure. “There are two ways to conquer and enslave a nation. One is by Sword. The other is by debt.” – John Adams, 1826

Throughout the early 20th century, the US military displayed remarkable commitment to sustain booming business abroad, invading Honduras seven times to crush the strikes and revolutions of disgruntled laborers. These conflicts, which resulted in the deaths of thousands, are now referred to as the “Banana Wars.” A US Major General (the highest rank at the time) and WWI veteran named Smedley Butler detailed his experiences in these campaigns in a book published in 1935. As the only man to have received both the Marine Corps Brevet Medal and two Medals of Honor (not to mention 13 other medals), Butler was the most decorated Marine in US history at the time of his death. This an excerpt from his book: “I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903... Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.” – Major General Smedley Butler, 1935 (War is a Racket) The nexus between the military and the fruit goliath doesn’t stop there, as United Fruit lingers in the shadows of some of the 20th century’s most significant historical events. For example, United Fruit contributed to the Cuban Missile Crisis with part of its “Great White Fleet” of 100 refrigerated ships, the largest private navy on the planet. Its operations in Cuba were instrumental in the rise of Fidel Castro, who warned the US that “Cuba is not another Guatemala” in one of the failed diplomatic exchanges before the event.

1916 advertisement for the United Fruit Company Steamship Line (Image via WikimediaCommons) United Fruit Company was the first truly modern MNC (multinational corporation), in that it sought to avoid taxes, minimum wages, and regulations by operating abroad, and in leveraging its ties with US institutions to dominate the governments of foreign countries. It also helped form the modern MNC template by its early utilization of the art of “Public Relations.” After decades of regime change in Central America, the company had developed a bad reputation. To help rebrand the company’s increasingly unsavory public image, United Fruit hired Sigmund Freud’s nephew, Edward Bernays, as a consultant in 1941. Bernays, who is known as the “father of public relations,” utilized Freudian principles of psychoanalysis to advise corporations on their advertising practices. In his 1928 text “Propaganda,” Bernays argued it was the duty of the intelligent minority to manipulate the instinct-driven masses, for the noble maintenance of freedom and democracy. "The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country...We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. -Edward Bernays, 1928, (Propaganda) In 1954, Bernays sent contacts to Guatemala to spread news of “communist terror” to lay the psychological groundwork for the destruction of the democratically elected government. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62rEzY0R4yY This is where John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State under the Eisenhower Administration from 1953-1959, and his brother Allen Dulles, the longest-serving director of the CIA (1952-1960), come into the picture. The Dulles’ brothers law firm represented United Fruit, and they were also stockholders in the company (Allen was a board member). The Dulles brothers dominated the foreign policy of the Eisenhower Administration, and committed a plethora of other shadow operations beyond the scope of this article (Reinstating Nazis into power in post WWII West Germany, overthrowing the democratically elected of Iran, as well as the elected leader of the Congo, just to name a few). Few know much about the Dulles brothers beyond the DC airport named after John Foster, but the ramifications of their actions are felt today. The ability to classify information in the name of national security allowed them to use the full power of the US intelligence apparatus for nefarious purposes without any oversight. This non-transparent alliance between MNCs, the intelligence community, and the US military is exactly what President Eisenhower was referring to in his famous farewell speech, in which he warned of the “Military Industrial Complex”: “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.” – President Dwight Eisenhower, 1960 During President Arbenz’s ten years of power in Guatemala, he provided 100,000 Guatemalan families with access to credit and land, as agricultural production increased and poverty fell. The United Fruit Company wildly understated the value of its holdings, paying a fraction of the taxes it truly owed to Guatemala as it paid employees grossly unfair wages. To reverse Arbenz’s progress, the CIA dropped bombs on Guatemala City, trained and armed militias to overthrow the government, and conducted a vast propaganda campaign under Eddie Bernays. The CIA had a specific strategic goal in mind: terrorism. “What we wanted to do was have a terror campaign, to terrorize Arbenz particularly, terrorize his troops, much as the Germans terrorized the population of Holland, Poland, at the onset of World War II.” -Howard Hunt, Head of CIA Operations in Guatemala The same year that John Foster instigated the replacement of a democratic government with a military dictatorship, he was awarded Time Magazine’s “Man of the Year.”

John Foster Dulles as Senator of NY (image in public domain via Wikimedia Commons) The counterculture revolution of the 1960’s brought a heightened criticality to US imperialism that worked against United Fruit, who eventually assented to giving workers a living wage and benefits during the second half of the 20th century. After a century of dominance, the colossal fruit company finally met its end alongside its final CEO, Eli Black, in 1975. Black had bribed the Honduran president, Oswaldo Lopez Arellano, with $1.25 million to pull out of a deal with domestic companies that would limit United Fruit’s operations. As the scandal was set to break in the news, Black couldn’t endure the shame, so he jumped out of a building on Park Avenue and killed himself. Eli Black’s suicide shocked Wall Street and public inquiry into United Fruit’s disturbing history resulted in crashing shares, ending the reign of what the Hondurans named “El Pulpo,” the octopus whose tentacles stretched across the continent and smothered its rich natural resources.

Chiquita and Dole

United Fruit has dissolved, but lesser, modern-day companies such as Dole and Chiquita maintain the fruit industry’s legacy of committing reprehensible crimes in the name of profit. In 2007, Chiquita plead guilty to paying over $1.7 million to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, a US terrorist-designated organization. Chiquita admitted they paid the terrorist organization to silence union organizers and intimidate farmers into selling solely to Chiquita. Chiquita was also accused of smuggling 3,000 AK 47’s to terrorists, but the US Department of Justice and State Department refused to extradite the responsible employees. One of the most alarming things about this story is that former Attorney General Eric Holder served as Chiquita’s attorney and represented the banana company during the scandal. Holder brokered a deal for Chiquita to pay $25 million to the Department of Justice in place of answering for their crimes in a hearing, continuing an alarming trend in which companies can pay fines directly to the justice department and evade public trial. With this justice system, corporations can break laws with impunity and calculate their payments to the DOJ later, avoiding the bad press that comes with a public trial. This is Holder’s comment on the settlement: If what you want to encourage is voluntary self-disclosure, what message does this send to other companies? Here’s a company that voluntarily self-discloses in a national security context, where the company gets treated pretty harshly, and then on top of that, you go after individuals who made a really painful decision. - Eric Holder, 2007. Holder’s professed empathy for the individuals who made the “painful decision” to fund and arm US-designated terrorist organizations that intimidated and murdered workers would be better placed with the victims of extortion and homicide. Even Chiquita deserves legal representation, but one would hope for a higher standard in the person selected to head the department responsible for fighting terrorism and holding corporate crime accountable. Interestingly, when serving as attorney general a few years later, Holder authored a crime memo stating, “the prosecution of a corporation is not a substitute for the prosecution of criminally culpable individuals within or without the organization.” In a sworn statement given in 2009 by ex-paramilitary “Carlos Tijeras,” the fruit companies provided up to 90 percent of his terrorist organization’s income for years: '"Managers for Chiquita and Dole plantations relied upon us to respond to their complaints...We would also get calls from the Chiquita and Dole plantations identifying specific people as “security problems” or just “problems.” Everyone knew that this meant we were to execute the identified person. In most cases those executed were union leaders or members or individuals seeking to hold or reclaim land that Dole or Chiquita wanted for banana cultivation."' This is only one of many confessions by ex-militiamen and paramilitary commanders in Colombia.

Guatemala

Beyond what has already been stated about the US-led coup of the Guatemalan government in 1954, (and US support of genocidal death squads throughout the following decades) Citizen Truth gained insight about the culture of legal impunity and violent misogyny in Guatemala by interviewing Robin Schmid, the Development & Communications Coordinator of the Women’s Justice Initiative, a Guatemala based NGO. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6ImtQgumvU

El Salvador

“Instead of favoring greater justice and peace in El Salvador, your government’s contribution will undoubtedly sharpen the injustice and the repression inflicted on the organized people, whose struggle has often been for respect for their most basic human rights.” – Archbishop Oscar Romero, Letter to President Jimmy Carter, 1980 Weeks before his murder in 1980, El Salvadoran leader and Archbishop Oscar Romero implored the US government not to arm the ruthless, right-wing military junta. A year after his Romero’s murder, President Carter sent $5 million in military aid to the brutal security forces. While Carter was still president, documents revealing the implication of right-wing militia leader Roberto d’Aubuisson in the murder of the Archbishop were ignored. Romero’s murder would mark a turning point in which El Salvador descended into one the most horrific civil wars in modern history.

Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez in 1978 on a visit to Rome. Photo first published in the Republic of Italy in the same year. It was also used by the Office for the Canonization Cause of Romero of the San Salvador Archdiocese (Image via Wikimedia Commons) Throughout the next twelve years, the US would spend six billion dollars supporting the government, involving itself in every aspect of the war from intelligence gathering to training foot soldiers. But the most appalling element of US involvement in the civil war is the tremendous measures US officials took to hide human rights atrocities committed by US-supported militias, and their continued support after the sadistic nature of the El Salvadoran military had become unquestionably clear. Much of the following information comes from investigative journalist Raymond Bonner, author of Weakness and Deceit: America and El Salvador’s Dirty War. Four American churchwomen were sexually assaulted and murdered in El Salvador in December 1980. Secretary of State Alexander Haig told a congressional committee that the nuns were trying to run a roadblock when they were killed. Top Reagan foreign policy advisor Jeanne Kirkpatrick denied government involvement as well, adding that “the nuns were not just nuns. The nuns were also political activists.” Ambassador Robert White was fired from the State Department when he refused to participate in the cover-up of the Salvadoran military’s rape and murder of the American churchwomen. Another official with integrity emerged from the otherwise mendacious administration, junior diplomat H. Carl Gettinger of the US embassy in El Salvador. Gettinger engaged in an independent investigation and discovered the Salvadoran soldiers guilty of murdering the churchwomen. The Salvadoran military had successfully covered up the scandal until Gettinger exposed the truth. In 1981, a US-trained division of the Salvadoran military, the Atlactl Batallion, performed one of the worst atrocities of the war, in what is known as the “El Mozote Massacre.” The battalion rounded up 700-1,000 plus people from the mountainous villages of northeastern El Salvador, and separated the men, women, and children before slaughtering the groups one by one. An exhumation found that the average age of the murdered was six. The Reagan administration steadfastly denied allegations that government troops were involved, calling reports “guerilla propaganda.” Declassified documents and findings from the UN Truth Commission proved the Reagan Administration’s knowledge of the massacre and complicity in the terror campaign. The UN Truth Commission found that the civil war in El Salvador killed at least 75,000 civilians, and that more than 85 percent of the atrocities were committed by the US-supported Salvadoran military. The El Salvadoran government, which was ruled for years by the right-wing militias who won the war, overturned an amnesty for war crimes law two years ago, and generals who ordered these massacres have begun to be prosecuted. In 2015, Honduras was rated as the most violent country in the world, with a homicide rate of 103 per 100,000. This is in part because MS-13 does not originate in El Salvador, it originates from California gangs. The US deported around 20,000 convicts to the country between 2000 and 2004, without informing the Salvadoran government which of the deported people had criminal histories. With weak institutions shaped in the aftermath of the war, MS-13 quickly grew to become a dominant presence in the country and now a US-designated “transnational terrorist organization.”

US trained "death squad" victims in San Salvador, 1981. (Image via WikiLeaks, https://wikileaks.org/wiki/US_Special_Forces_counterinsurgency_manual_analysis) It cannot be understated how abnormally sadistic the Salvadoran military was during the civil war. This article has barely described the details of its most revolting atrocities. The United States funded and supported a military that slaughtered a peaceful resistance formed by churches and peasants, a military that tortured and killed children in monstrous ways. They knew the grisly details for years, and they protected sadists from prosecution. They tried to deport or silence those who spoke the truth. Now many of the people involved in the US’ Central America foreign policy cover-ups of the 1980’s are celebrated as esteemed statesmen. Elliot Abrams, who called the El Mozote massacre “commie propaganda” and said that “the Administration’s record on El Salvador was one of fabulous achievement,” was found guilty of two counts of lying to Congress but pardoned by George HW Bush. He then went on to an illustrious career as a fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations, Professor at Georgetown, Advisor to George W. Bush, and foreign policy advisor to Senator Ted Cruz. Former Exxon Mobil CEO and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson allegedly chose Abrams as his first pick for Deputy Secretary of State, but was blocked by Trump because he didn’t support the President’s campaign. Terrorist supporter and perjurer Oliver North is now the head of the NRA. North’s connections to drug trafficking led Costa Rican president Óscar Arias to ban the White House official from entering his country in 1989. When North was coming under investigation for the Iran-Contra scandal, he ordered so many files to be destroyed that the shredder crashed and White House maintenance had to be called to fix it. He was pardoned by George HW Bush in 1991. John Negroponte was President Reagan’s ambassador to Honduras, which served as a central base in the administration’s various covert wars in Central America during the 1980’s. During Negroponte’s tenure, military aid to Honduras increased from $5 million to $100 million. Extensive investigations later revealed Negroponte’s knowledge of human rights abuses in Honduras were far greater than he chose to share with the State Department. He later served as the George W. Bush Administration’s ambassador to Baghdad and is now a professor of International Affairs at George Washington University. Negroponte’s suppression of information about death squads and human rights abuses in Honduras leads to an examination of the current state of Honduras, the home of the original caravan heading towards the US-Mexican border.

Honduras

It is not a coincidence that Honduras has the highest murder rate for environmental activists in the world. Since the military coup in 2009, at least 110 environmentalists have been killed, as well as soaring numbers of journalists, trade unionists, and human rights activists. Most famously, esteemed environmentalist and indigenous leader Berta Cáceres was murdered in 2016 after receiving forty filed death threats for opposing development projects like dams, mines, and illegal timbering. Berta was a congresswoman and mayor of her city who codified a national law requiring consent from local Honduran communities before companies could begin development projects on their land. “These are not isolated incidents – they are symptomatic of a systematic assault on remote and indigenous communities by state and corporate actors.” – Billy Kyte, Global Witness Of the eight people arrested for the murder of Cáceres, six have connections to government security services, and two have links to the Honduran company behind the dam project, Desarrollos Energéticas. Due to the outcry after her assassination, Chinese, Dutch, and the Finnish investors all pulled out of the project. Caceres’s successor, Tomas Gomez Membreño, described the situation, “We are seeing the recolonization of our country. More and more of our natural resources are being handed out to foreign corporations. There is more and more repression of people who fight back.” On June 28, 2009, democratically elected leader Manuel Zelaya was forced onto a military plane and ousted from the presidency. While the UN, EU, and OAS condemned the Honduran military coup of 2009, the US equivocated on its official legal designation, as declaring a coup would have restricted relations with the country. A batch of WikiLeaks cables released in 2015 show Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pushing the Organization of American States to support new elections and to keep Zelaya from regaining power. Before the coup, President Manuel Zelaya had introduced a minimum wage and had ordered an investigation into land disputes between palm oil conglomerates and peasant farmers. His ouster followed a referendum to the constitution that would have allowed him to seek reelection. Clinton feared his ties to Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez, and Honduras’s ruling class feared he would threaten their business interests. “There is no doubt that the military, supreme court and National Congress conspired on June 28 in what constituted an illegal and unconstitutional coup against the executive branch.” – Hugo Llorens, US Ambassador to Honduras In the years after the coup, reports of killings and human rights abuses have skyrocketed, but the US has increased military assistance. The femicide rate increased by 260 percent between 2005 and 2013. LGBT murders have gone from an average of 2 per year before the coup to 30 per year after. Organized crime has gained dominance of Honduras, which was the most violent non-warzone country in the world from 2010-2014, with 80 percent of cocaine smuggling flights between the US and Latin America estimated to pass through it.

Fusion's Dan Lieberman traveled to San Pedro Sula, Honduras in 2014 to find out why the murder rate was so high. (Image via YouTube) Poverty and inequality have spiked rapidly alongside a debilitated economy that has gutted social services, as the militarized police is used as a weapon against protests. The World Bank continues to underwrite cheap loans to huge landowners on lands stolen from small farmers to help them export cash crops. A new law in Honduras breaks up full-time jobs and prevents employees from forming unions, earning a living wage, and accessing the national health service. Citizen Truth previously reported the details behind a healthcare scandal that saw the current president steal millions from the National Health Service and funnel the money to his political party. “We strategized on a plan to restore order in Honduras and ensure that free and fair elections could be held quickly and legitimately, which would render the question of Zelaya moot.” – Hilary Clinton, Hard Choices The US is the most powerful external actor in Honduras by far. Two hundred US corporations are in operation in the country and nearly half of Honduras’ total economic activity is tied to the US. The elections following the coup have been widely condemned as fraudulent and the US continues to fund and train a militarized police force that violently suppresses the population.

Where We Are Now

In 2015, the Honduras newspaper La Prensa showed that citizens of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras collectively made $651 million in extortion payments to criminal organizations annually. Many asylum seekers in the US claim that they will be murdered if they fail to make these payments. Boys are forced to join gangs and girls are forced into prostitution. These people are not willing to embark on the extremely dangerous journey to the US border because they have a better choice. Dehumanizing people for their nationality and race is unequivocally wrong. Separating children from their families is child abuse, as corroborated by psychologists who have condemned the traumatic consequences of the Trump Administration’s policy. In April, the Intercept reported 1,224 complaints of sexual and physical abuse in immigration detention centers, half of which were made by employees of ICE. Nineteen ICE agents signed an open letter asserting that the immigration crackdown was drawing attention away from real national security issues. Furthermore, deporting hardened criminals to countries with legal impunity and corrupt institutions is only going to perpetuate a crisis caused by people fleeing violent crime.  

A Honduran migrant arriving at the US Mexico border April 2018 (Image via YouTube) Additionally, it cannot be understated how much the demand for drugs in rich Western countries incentivizes criminals to form sophisticated cartels that circumvent the expensive apparatus of law enforcement entities built to wage the War on Drugs. Cocaine is cheap to produce, but its value soars when factoring in the cost and risk of doing business in the shadows of the US federal government. John Kelly, former Department of Homeland Security and current White House Chief of Staff, agrees: “Yes, we try to rehabilitate drug addicts. Yes, we try to arrest our way out of this, but we do very little in our country, my country, the United States of America, to try to get at this incredible drug demand . . . that as a direct result is what is happening in Central America: a breakdown of societies, lack of police effectiveness and a lot of other things." - John Kelly, 2017. “There are some in officialdom who argue that not 100 percent of the violence today is due to the drug flow to the U.S., and I agree, but I would say that perhaps 80 percent of it is” - John Kelly, 2014 (“Central America Drug War a Dire Threat to US National Security,” Military Times) The CIA has a term for the unintended consequences of an operation: Blowback. In the notorious Iran-Contra scandal, the Reagan administration funded Contra rebels in Nicaragua (with money sold by illegally selling weapons to Iran) who supported themselves through the cocaine trade. Simultaneously, the government passed reforms to “get tough” on drugs domestically, with the 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse law that put full accountability on users, spiking the number of nonviolent drug offenders imprisoned. The cycle then continues with a criminal justice system characterized by high levels of recidivism. We support drug manufacturers abroad while bloating the criminal-justice system domestically, and deport refugees who have been hardened into criminals within our prisons to violent countries that have been destabilized by our foreign policy decisions. The US support of fascist dictators in Latin America to streamline ruthless exploitation legitimized radical leftist revolutionaries like Che Guevara and Fidel Castro. Guevara was in Guatemala during the CIA-led coup, after which he told his mother “I left the path of reason.” The United Fruit Company fanned the flames of communism by causing extreme anti-US sentiment and exemplifying the worst version of capitalism possible. The total hypocrisy of a country that constantly congratulates itself on its dedication to freedom and democracy, but regularly performs heinous crimes against its avowed principles throughout the world, ultimately leads to the abandonment of public trust in the government.

Migrants traveling to the US Mexico border in April 2018. (Image via YouTube) Refugee crises will worsen in the coming years as climate change strengthens freak storms and droughts destabilize crop cycles. The shortsighted greed of elites has paved the way for the populist rage that is defining our era, everywhere from the United States to Europe and most recently in Brazil. Demagogues like Donald Trump take advantage of the people’s anger, directing it towards the vulnerable when it really should be aimed at people like him. But if we are to preserve this beautiful Earth and create conditions in which everyone has the opportunity to succeed, we must recognize the limitations of anger and engage in a hard conversation about the evils of the past, and how we can change to fight for a better future. Read the full article

[melbynews-blog]

The Obama Hit Men in the Russiagate Coup-Attempt Can No Longer Hide the British Controlling Hand

Neuer Beitrag veröffentlicht bei https://melby.de/the-obama-hit-men-in-the-russiagate-coup-attempt-can-no-longer-hide-the-british-controlling-hand/

The Obama Hit Men in the Russiagate Coup-Attempt Can No Longer Hide the British Controlling Hand

As LaRouchePAC documented in the September 2017 investigative report „Robert Mueller Is an Amoral Legal Assassin,“ the entire Mueller witchhunt was set up and executed by British intelligence, willing to induce their assets in the Obama intelligence community to commit treason, to work with a foreign intelligence agency to impose regime-change on their former colony. According to the operative British intelligence officials — Christopher Steele and Sir Richard Dearlove of MI6, and former GCHQ director Robert Hannigan, among others — the crime of Donald Trump was to pursue friendly relations with Russia and China, and to threaten to restore the American System economic policies, to save the U.S. from British „free market“ speculative destruction.

None of Trump’s intentions have been realized as yet, in large part due to the Russiagate operation. On Sunday, Trump announced his intention to demand that the DOJ open an investigation into „whether or not the FBI/DOJ infiltrated or surveilled the Trump Campaign for political purposes,“ and whether or not the Obama Administration was part of it. Within hours, Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein tasked the DOJ Inspector General to do precisely that, stating that if it is shown to be true, they would „take appropriate action.“

At the center of this is the desperate effort by the DOJ and the FBI to hide the identity of one Stefan Halper as the source whose exposure would somehow cause a disaster to Western Civilization. In fact, however, his name was not hard to discover and has been widely reported in the press. Halper is an American who has longstanding ties to the Bush family and the Pentagon’s China-bashing Office of Net Assessment, who is now teaching at Cambridge University, where he is close to former MI6 chief Richard Dearlove. It is Halper, a longstanding CIA and FBI informant, who initiated contact with minor players in the Trump Campaign, planting lies about Russian hacking of the DNC emails, aiming to facilitate the dodgy Christopher Steele dossier lies about Trump collusion with Russia in order to steal the election.

The criminals in the Obama intelligence team are squirming. Obama’s CIA chief John Brennan sent a message to Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan demanding that they act to stop Trump’s „self-serving actions“ or „bear major responsibility for the harm done to our democracy.“ Trump re-tweeted a message from a former Secret Service officer that „John Brennan is panicking. He has disgraced himself, disgraced the country, he has disgraced the intelligence community. He is the one man who is largely responsible for the destruction of Americans‘ faith in the intelligence community…, he’s worried about staying out of jail.“

But the British role can no longer be concealed. The same is true for the pending financial crash, which also is too hard to hide these days. Bloomberg’s headline: „Corporate Bonds Sink Fast in One of Worst Tumbles Since 2000.“ At the same time, the currency crisis, brought on in part by the U.S. finally raising interest rates, is rapidly turning into a debt crisis in developing sector nations around the world. Capital flight is driving down currencies in many of these developing countries, while their debts, contracted in dollars, are coming due, even while interest rates for those debts are rising. In a classic case of what EIR has long called „bankers‘ arithmetic,“ entire nations are suddenly watching their debts skyrocket, not from borrowing more, but because they have to buy dollars with devalued currencies to pay them back. Bloomberg writes that Brazil and Turkey are „the two leaders“ in this danger, but wishfully stating that it „still isn’t as extreme as it was in Thailand and Indonesia“ before the 1998 Asian debt explosion. Indonesia’s debt tripled overnight when Soros and others broke their banks by speculating against their currency.

The British model of a deregulated speculative „Casino Mondial,“ which has replaced American System credit policies, has destroyed the financial system as a whole. As Lyndon LaRouche has demonstrated since the 1980s, the system can not be fixed — it must be replaced, with a Hamiltonian credit system and a restoration of science drivers, pushing ahead at the frontiers of human knowledge. This is the necessary means to both raise the productivity of the workforce, and inspire young minds with optimism, that they can create a better future for themselves and for posterity. This is the purpose of LaRouche’s Four Laws, which can and must replace the bankrupt British financial structure which is falling apart at the seams.

The new paradigm represented by the New Silk Road has, over the past two weeks, brought nearly the entire Asian continent — including China, Japan and Russia — into a level of cooperation not witnessed in modern history. At the same time, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited France, Spain and Portugal, where agreements were reached to work together in joint infrastructure development projects in countries along the New Silk Road.

The world is changing rapidly, but the Empire will not go quietly. The war party is desperate to provoke a war between Israel and Iran, Jew and Arab, Sunni and Shi’a, and any other form of divisiveness between human beings which they can use to their advantage.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche responded to an uplifting report from LaRouchePAC organizers Monday on the intense response from Americans across the country, young and old, to the message from LaRouche: to stop the coup, implement the Four Laws, and join the New Silk Road. „This war can be won,“ she said. „We have come a long way, and there are more battles to be fought, but history will be shaped by the ideas of Lyndon H. LaRouche.“

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[itsfinancethings]

In the long-running shadow war across the Middle East, the United States and Iran have avoided direct confrontation at all costs. Their tense and unpredictable conflict has unfolded instead in covert operations through proxy forces, subterfuge and sabotage. So President Donald Trump’s order on Thursday to assassinate Qasem Soleimani, military commander of Iran’s elite Quds Force, in a high-profile drone strike outside the Baghdad airport has plunged the two adversaries into uncharted territory.

Soleimani, an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) major general who reported directly to Iran’s supreme theocratic ruler, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, helped build, organize, fund and deploy constellations of Shi’ite militias mounting insurgencies in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen. Soleimani projected an image as master of the Middle Eastern chessboard, posting selfies from battlefields across the region. Venerated among legions of devotees, Soleimani cultivated an international following that eclipsed terror leaders better known in the West, including Osama bin-Laden and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who were also killed by American forces.

The death of a man considered a hero by millions is a tectonic event that carries unknown consequences for Washington and Tehran and risks igniting a wider conflict that could engulf the Middle East. Khamenei called for three days of mourning on Friday, but promised vengeance. “His demise will not stop his mission,” Khamenei said, according to the Fars News Agency, a semi-official news outlet in Iran. “But the criminals who have the blood of General Soleimani and other martyrs of the attack on their hands must await a tough revenge.”

The Trump Administration, for its part, says it killed Soleimani in order to stave off more bloodshed. American officials said the U.S. received intelligence that Soleimani was planning another attack in the region. “We took action last night to stop a war,” Trump said during brief remarks at his Mar-a-Lago resort in south Florida, where he was vacationing. “We did not take action to start a war.”

The President’s remarks appear to be an attempt to ease tensions. But Administration officials privately warned members of Congress that Iran is expected to retaliate against the U.S., either at home or abroad, “within weeks,” according to a senior congressional staffer, who described a Friday briefing from the State and Defense Departments as well as U.S. intelligence agencies. “There is no indication that there is going to be a de-escalation in the near future,” the staffer says. “The only question is how bad is the retaliation going to be and where and what is it going to hit.” Administration officials did not immediately respond to request for comment.

Over the past six months, Iran has been blamed for several high-profile security incidents, including the protests outside the U.S. embassy in Iraq; the shoot-down of a U.S. surveillance drone over the Strait of Hormuz; the sabotage and seizure of several oil tankers near the Persian Gulf; the aerial bombardment of oil facilities in Saudi Arabia; and a rocket attack on a military base in Iraq, which killed an American contractor and injured four U.S. service members.

Close observers of the region fear the conflict could now move from low-grade, one-off attacks into a full-blown war. The Trump Administration on Friday urged all American citizens to leave Iraq “immediately” and bolstered the number of forces to the Middle East in anticipation of retaliatory violence. The Pentagon announced the deployment of about 3,000 soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division to Kuwait, an “Immediate Response Force” that joins the 15,000 American troops sent to the Middle East since the situation with Iran began to deteriorate last spring.

White House National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien says Iran now has two options. “One is further escalation, and pursuing that path will lead to nowhere for the Iranian people or for the regime,” he told reporters on a conference call Friday. “The alternate path is for them to sit down with the United States; for them to give up its nuclear program; for Iran to stop its regional escapades and proxy wars in the Middle East; to stop taking hostages; and to behave like a normal nation as part of the community of nations.” O’Brien said the U.S. was willing to meet with Iranian leadership without preconditions. But the Trump Administration has delivered this message before, only to be rebuffed by Tehran.

But few U.S. officials believe Iran will choose the latter path. Tehran’s retaliation could range from a protracted campaign against U.S. forces in Iraq, Syria, Bahrain and elsewhere to terrorist attacks on American and allied embassies or other targets to cyberattacks, says a U.S. official who was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter. If the Iranian regime seeks to avoid an outright war it would be destined to lose, it might refrain from backing a major attack or renewed assaults on shipping in the Persian Gulf, the official says. Even a comparatively muted response could inflict significant costs, especially on oil shipping and facilities. Some energy experts estimate that even without a protracted conflict, oil prices could reach or exceed $150 a barrel, increased U.S. production notwithstanding.

“Definitely there will be revenge. There will be harsh revenge,” Iranian Ambassador to the U.N. Majid Takht Ravanchi told CNN’s Erin Burnett on Friday. “Iran will act based on its own choosing, the time, the place…We will decide.”

Despite such pledges, Soleimani’s killing may compel Tehran to think twice before they attack the U.S. or its partners, says Norman T. Roule, a former senior CIA officer who managed the Iran portfolio at the office of the Director of National Intelligence in both the Trump and Obama Administrations. “Iran will need to respond, but the way they do so must simultaneously save face without risking a broader conflict,” Roule says. “Regime survival must be their primary goal.”

Douglas Silliman, a former U.S. ambassador to Iraq and Kuwait who is now president of the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, says Iran is patient and may not respond immediately or directly. “Retaliation against this strike may not necessarily come against American targets,” he says. “You could see a variation on what you’ve seen the past four months,” including strikes on Saudi oil facilities and shipping as in the past, all the way up to U.S. targets. “There are plenty of American targets in the Gulf,” Silliman adds, “not just soldiers and sailors and airmen and marines, but spouses and children as well.”

Iran is also likely to respond using allies, rather than its own forces, following Soleimani’s lead as Quds commander in activating proxy forces to launch attacks against the U.S. and its allies. Soleimani oversaw Iranian-backed groups such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which among other things attacked the U.S. Embassy and Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983. The Pentagon assessed in April that Iran-backed militants killed at least 603 U.S. troops in Iraq, or 17% of all Americans killed between 2003 and 2011.

Through these forces, Tehran is involved in every single major military conflict in the Middle East, almost always on the side of America’s enemies. Israel and Gulf nations have pressured the White House to address what they see as a growing Shi’ite sphere of influence across the region. The personal relationships Soleimani forged in the region will be hard for Iran to replace, but the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Quds Force are organized, hierarchical military machines that are sure to follow their new command, Silliman said. Iran named Soleimani’s successor, Brigadier General Esmayeel Qaani, in less than 24 hours.

America’s allies in the region, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Bahrain are likely targets of Iranian military or cyber retaliation. Iran already has attacked the computer networks of Saudi Aramco oil company and Qatar’s Rasgas natural gas company. There could be plots far beyond the region, says Eric Edelman, former ambassador to Turkey under President George W. Bush. “They will look for ways to hit us where we don’t expect it,” he says. “But they will be patient. When their nose is bloodied, they tend to take a step back and reassess, before making the next move.”

Analysts fear that if Iran misjudges Trump’s willingness to use force, the conflict could quickly spiral out of control. The Trump Administration has been hollowed out by departures within the State, Homeland Security and Defense Departments, and much of the National Security Council deliberation processes have been eliminated.

Trump has already authorized cyber attacks against Iranian computer systems, increased the U.S. troop presence in the region and continued to ratchet up its “maximum pressure” campaign. The Administration has imposed tougher economic sanctions since walking away from the 2015 six-nation deal to curb Iran’s nuclear-weapons program more than a year ago.

Partly as a result, Iran’s economy is collapsing and the population is exhausted and frustrated, says Gerard Araud, a former French ambassador to Washington and the U.N. Even in Lebanon and Iraq, citizens are demonstrating against Iranian influence. Tehran recognizes it is in a difficult situation.

“People are talking about World War Three. The Iranians are not suicidal. The regime has always been very shrewd and very keen on surviving,” Araud says. “The options of what the Iranians can do are very limited. Trump didn’t react in September to the Iranian provocation, but now they know he is ready to react and he is totally unpredictable—because no one was expecting this—and he is brutal. So they have to calculate their response in a very prudent way.”

[opedguy]

Tillerson Fired as Secretary of State

LOS ANGELES (OnlineColumnist.com), March 14, 2018.--Firing 65-year-old former ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State March 12, the media went into its predictable seizure, claiming proof again that 71-year-old President Donald Trump was in chaos.  Tillerson’s firing happened last Friday while on the tail end of an African trip, abruptly postponing a visit to the sub-Sarharan country of Chad.  At that point, Tillerson was notified by White House Chief of Staff Gen. John Kelly that he was being replaced by 54-year-old CIA Director Mike Pompeo.  When Tillerson went through his confirmation hearing Jan. 23, 2017, there were objections on both sides of the aisle that the former ExxonMobil CEO lacked foreign policy experience, other than putting deals together for the world’s largest oil company.  Tillerson barely got through his confirmation with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), questioning his experience and competence.

            Now that he’s been fired by Trump for a variety of reasons, he’s become the media’s darling of White House moderation—a steady hand in a chaotic Oval Office.  When the South Korean Foreign Ministry announced March 8 that 33-year-old North Korean Dictator Kim Jong-un asked for a meeting with Trump, it was clear that Tillerson was the wrong man for the job.  When Tillerson suggested the Trump enter into direct talks with Kim Dec. 13, 2017 Trump rebuked his Secretary of State, essentially saying it was premature to hold direct talks.  “I told Rex Tillerson, our wonderful Secretary of State, that he’s wasting his time trying to negotiate with Little Rocket Man,” Trump tweeted, prompting the anti-Trump media to pounce on his hypocrisy.  But back in January, Kim showed zero interest in meeting with Trump, insisting his country would never give up its nukes and ballistic missiles.

            Yet the anti-Trump media has a field day with Tillerson’s firing, proving its  White House chaos theory.  Tillerson never disavowed caling Trump a Trump a “moron” in a Pentagon meeting Oct. 5, 2017, showing, if nothing else, the two didn’t see eye-to-eye.  Unlike other key Cabinet posts using former Pentagon generals, Tillerson was a former CEO of ExxonMobil, not used to taking orders, no matter how distasteful.  Like former CIA Director James Comey, the media’s now in love with Tillerson, when they had nothing but disdain for Secretary of State.  Comey was reviled by Democrats and their media friends for sabotaging former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign only nine days before the election.  Yet once Trump beat Hillary Nov. 8, 2016, Comey became Democrats and Media’s best friend in their relentless attacks on the 45th president.

            When faced with the high stakes of war-and-peace meeting Kim in May, Trump realized that Tillerson was over his head.  He didn’t really get Trump’s tough approach to Kim, threatening U.S. military intervention if Kim did not disarm his nukes and ballistic missiles.  Showing how disingenuous the media, Trump pushed Kim into making concessions, when all thought it was impossible, by a combination of tough U.N. sanctions and, more importantly, the threat of U.S. military force. When Kim weighed out his options, after trading barbs with Trump over the last year, he realized his regime was threatened by continuing to harbor nukes and ballistic missiles. When North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Hong-ho told the U.N. General Assembly Sept 24, 2017 that it was “inevitable” that Pyongyang’s nuclear missiles would hit the U.S., Trump heard enough, realizing the consequences.

            Handing the baton to Pompeo, Trump has a unified front heading into direct meetings with Kim.  Kim told South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha that he was ready to talk to Trump about nuclear disarmament.  Putin said Sept. 5, 2017 that Kim would rather “eat grass” that give up his nukes and ballistic missiles.  Six months later, he’s ready to discuss disarming his nukes and Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles [ICBMs].  Tillerson was fired because he disagreed with Trump’s get-tough approach with Kim and Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei about the Iranian Nuke Deal.  Trump wants a tougher approach with Iran, to whom the Obama administration gave $150 billion to end Iran’s uranium enrichment program.  Pompeo agrees with Trump that Iran is poised for a nuclear weapon.

            Tillerson’s firing stemmed from his past insults of Trump but, more importantly, that he did not support backing out the July 15, 2015 Iranian Nuke Deal with the U.S., U.K, France, Russia, China and Germany. Iran refused to give the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA] unfettered inspections at military sites, something Iran insisted was off limits.  Without unfettered inspections, the deal had no teeth, leaving Trump to believe its better to re-institute economic sanctions to prevent Iran from getting the bomb.  Every time the U.S. suggests scrapping the deal, Iran threatens to ramp up uranium enrichment, proving, beyond any doubt, that Iran’s real goal is developing an A-Bomb. Instead of getting on the same page, Tillerson backed the Iranian Nuke deal, taking a hard line against Russian meddling in the 2016 election, something that discredits Trump.

About the Author    

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.