Obama’s Friday Afternoon Document Dump for this Week: US Begins Overt Aid to Syrian Death Squads After 13 Months of Covert Support [video]
Webster G. Tarpley, Ph. D.
TARPLEY.net
April 14, 2012
Bizarre US-backed Cult on Pilgrimage to Meet Exiled Leader [videos included]
US-backed Cult Leader to Address Thai Followers in Cambodia.
by Tony Cartalucci
April 9, 2012 – While it is often called Thailand’s “pro-democracy” movement, the “United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship” (UDD) or simply the “red shirts” have all the markings of a Pol Pot-esque personality cult and have already demonstrated a capacity for extreme violence and hysteria on par with any tale told of Kim Jong Ill’s North Korea.
Video/Photo: Unlike in North Korea where tears were shed for “Dear Leader’s” passing, these devotees to Thaksin Shinawatra, whose picture they clutch, are actually shedding tears for a court seizure of $1.4 billion of Thaksin’s personal assets, criminally procured while holding public office. The video can be found here.
The UDD are devotees of Wall Street-proxy, billionaire, and former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who has for decades served a pro-Western neo-liberal agenda of eroding Thailand’s nationalist institutions and replacing them them with Wall Street and London-funded “civil society” networks. Thaksin, who served as Thai prime minister from 2001-2006 was ousted from power by a military coup. He has since used the UDD as cannon-fodder for an increasingly violent bid to return to power and steer Thailand back on course toward foreign servitude.
Images: The cult of Thaksin manifests itself as the UDD, or “red shirts.” Despite attempts to portray it to the outside world as a “pro-democracy” movement, cult-like veneration of Thaksin dominates rallies, many of which feature an Orwellian “big brother” phone-in by Thaksin himself, who currently resides in Dubai. Media outfits like BBC, CNN, and others simply hope people don’t read Thai, don’t move too close to their monitors, and don’t question what is clearly an unhealthy obsession with a billionaire politician. (click on images to enlarge)
The “Thaksin” Pilgrimage
In perhaps the most bizarre stunt to date, Thaksin is planning a mass pilgrimage for his Thai devotees to meet him, ironically enough in neighboring Cambodia, the crime scene of Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge’s (Red Khmers) genocidal rise to power. It is more than mere coincidence that Thaksin’s cult of personality also identifies with the color red, is being hosted by Cambodian “president for life” Hun Sen, a former Khmer Rouge henchman himself, and is cultivating what for all intents and purposes is a modern day version of the Maoist-styled Khmer Rouge. Both movements were created to overthrow historical, indigenous national institutions, both were funded from the beginning by the West eager to overwrite both nations culturally, socially, and politically.
Video/Photos: Blood for the Billionaire. This is perhaps a close second for “most bizarre stunt” carried out by Thaksin’s cult of personality. A “blood protest” carried out shortly after Thai courts seized billions of Thaksin’s ill-gotten assets. Note in the photo montage the man in the lower left, around his neck is a Thaksin Shinawatra amulet. It is scenes like this where cult-like devotion transcends reasonable protests and ascends into the realm of the bizarre, dangerous, and irresponsible, especially when it is abundantly clear it is being carried out in the name of a man, not the pursuit of any given principle.
AFP reports in their article, “Ex-Thai PM Thaksin to address rally in Cambodia,” that “”tens of thousands” of supporters in total are expected to greet Thaksin” in both Cambodia and another planned appearance in nearby Laos. And while AFP mentions the “warm ties” Thaksin maintains with Cambodian dictator Hun Sen, it fails to mention that Hun Sen has for years allowed Cambodia to serve as a staging ground for Thaksin’s Wall Street-backed subversion. Thaksin’s political proxies have fled to Cambodia for refuge after failed armed insurrections in both 2009 and 2010.
Photos: Top: Machete wielding thugs during 2009’s failed insurrection. Bottom: The establishment of politically exclusive zones called “red villages” and “red districts” where Thaksin is literally declaring political monopolies and intimidating opposition from expressing themselves. While the UDD denies this is their intent – there have been horrific incidents of violence throughout UDD’s northeast epicenter of support, including the infamous hacking to death of a radio DJ’s father after speaking ill of the UDD – covered inan interview with red shirt propagandist Kanyapak Maneejak (DJ Aom) of the UDD’s Chiang Mai Rak 51 faction. Kanyapak states that red shirt mobs were simply “following their hearts” when they butchered the old man outside the gates of his own home.
America’s Next “Khmer Rouge”
Thaksin’s “red shirts” are indeed led by a clique of self-confessed Maoists who are systematically building up a “people’s power” movement built on political indoctrination camps and politically exclusive zones called “red villages,” and now “red districts.” This is done in accordance to Maoist “people’s war” doctrine of politically monopolizing villages, then towns, then cities, and eventually entire provinces – a goal eagerly admitted to by UDD leaders. Anond Sangnan, the UDD’s “secretary-general” in Thailand’s Udon Thani province admitted in a Reuters interview that eventually, “the bigger goal is to carve out entire red districts and provinces.”
Just like Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge, Thaksin and his Wall Street sponsors plan to subvert Thailand’s 800 year old royal institutions, the nationalist Thai military, and any form of political opposition – permanently and violently. And while Thakin’s political devotees and their agenda are described in terms of indigenous democratic aspirations, in reality Thaksin and his movement have been, and still are servants of Wall Street and London.
Wall Street Proxy
Thaksin was a former Carlyle Group adviser, and recipient of extensive US backing, including lobbying services from fellow Carlyle member James Baker and his firm Baker Botts, warmonger Robert Blackwill of Barbour Griffith & Rogers, and PNAC signatory Kenneth Adelman of Edelman. During Thaksin’s term in office from 2001 until a coup ousted him in 2006, upon the eve of which he was literally reporting to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, he had committed Thai troops to the US invasion of Iraq and allowed the CIA to use Thailand for its abhorrent rendition program.
Photo: Deposed Thai prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra sitting before the Council on Foreign Relations on the eve of the 2006 military coup that would oust him from power. Since 2006 he has had the full, unflinching support of Washington, Wall Street, and their immense propaganda machine in his bid to seize back power.
….
Thaksin has been living in self-imposed exile primarily in Dubai since being convicted and sentenced to two-years in prison for corruption. He runs his proxy political party through his own sister who was just recently elected as Thai prime minster with much backing from the West. While “democratic” aspirations are described as the primary motivation of the UDD’s “red shirts” it is clear that it is a personality cult hinging entirely on Thaksin Shinawatra – so much so that bizarre, unprecedented stunts such as moving tens of thousands of impressionable, horribly exploited rural people across the border into Cambodia are done to bolster a movement that otherwise has no real political underpinnings.
In addition to direct support for Thaksin and his UDD, the US openly funds a network of fake-non governmental organizations (NGOs) like “Prachatai” to peddle propaganda on behalf of members within Thaksin’s movement as well as movements operating on Thaksin’s political peripheries, like the fraudulent “Nitirat” group.
Greater Geopolitical Implications: Target China
Of course, folding Thailand into Wall Street and London’s neo-liberal unipolar world order is just one goal of getting Thaksin back into power. The greater geopolitical goal is to create an alliance of Southeast Asian nations to hinder the rise and expansion of China while serving Western corporate-financier objectives.
This was described in great detail by US policy wonk Robert Kagan who in his 1997 report, “What China Knows That We Don’t: The Case for a New Strategy of Containment,” claimed proxy regimes will have China “play Gulliver to Southeast Asia’s Lilliputians, with the United States supplying the rope and stakes.” Two of these “Lilliputians” are Thaksin’s sister and current Thai PM Yingluck Shinawatra and Aung San Suu Kyi in neighboring Myanmar (Burma). This concept of realigning Southeast Asia behind US hegemonic aspirations in Asian was repeated again more recently by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a Foreign Policy article tilted, “America’s Pacific Century.”
Image: Top: The “Lilliputians” though small in stature were collectively able to tie down the larger Gulliver from the literary classic “Gulliver’s Travels.” In the same manner, the US wants to use smaller Southeast Asian nations to “tie down” the larger China. Bottom: From SSI’s 2006 “String of Pearls” report detailing a strategy of containment for China. While “democracy,” “freedom,” and “human rights” will mask the ascension of Thaksin and others to power, it is part of a region-wide campaign to overthrow nationalist elements and install client regimes in order to encircle and contain China has been long underway.
….
This “new strategy of containment” manifested itself fully when Thai PM Yingluck Shinawatra and Thai Foreign Minister Surapong Tovichakchaikul (Thaksin’s cousin through marriage) pledged full support for the US agenda throughout Asia including a nuclear non-proliferation act opposed by China and the sovereignty-crushing Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) economic integration.
Yingluck has also pledged support for US designs toward Myanmar, ahead of Secretary of State Clinton’s visit with Aung San Suu Kyi last December. Previously, during Yingluck’s brother Thaksin’s regime, Thailand, and in particular, the northern city of Chiang Mai, played a pivotal role hosting US corporate-funded “NGOs” working to foment sedition, unrest, and eventually regime change in neighboring Myanmar.
Should Thaksin manage to continue growing his violent cult of personality, the West may succeed in overwriting Thailand culturally, historically, socially, and politically just as the US-backed Khmer Rouge did to Cambodia. Cambodia today is a nation bent in absolute servitude to Wall Street and London, with nearly 50% of its territory belonging to foreign speculators and units of its military pawned off as private mercenaries to protect the holdings of foreign corporations. This will be Thailand’s fate, and indeed the fate of Southeast Asia if Western hegemonic aspirations are not exposed and foiled – holding dire consequences for the region, particularly China, and tipping the balance of global power further in favor of Wall Street and London.
Outrage over picture of Chinese forced abortion at nine months
by Katerina Nikolas
Digital Journal
April 2, 2012
An image of a nine-month-old baby born as the result of a forced abortion and thrown in a bucket to die caused outrage when it was circulated on Weibo, China’s version of Twitter, last week.
The forced abortion was carried out by Chinese family planning authorities in the town of Moshan, because the parents already had one child. Prison Planet reported the parents were hunted down and the mother injected with poison to induce an abortion. The report said after “the baby was ‘pulled out inhumanly like a piece of meat,’ it was still alive and began to cry before doctors slung the defenseless child into a bucket and left it to die.” According to a commentator on Beijing Shot monetary rewards are offered to women who agree to abort their children in order for family planning authorities to meet their targets. If the birth quota is exceeded then the whole village faces a penalty.
FROM LIBYA TO SYRIA: “WAR IS A RACKET. IT ALWAYS HAS BEEN”
by James Corbett
Global Research
April 14, 2012
“War is a racket. It always has been.” These words are as true now as they were when Major General Smedley Butler first delivered them in a series of speeches in the 1930s. And he should have known. As one of the most decorated and celebrated marines in the history of the Corps, Butler drew on his own experiences around the globe to rail against the business interests that use the U.S. military as muscle men to protect their racket from perceived threats. From National City Bank interests in Haiti to United Fruit plantations in Honduras, from Standard Oil access to China to Brown Brothers operations in Nicaragua, Butler pointed out how intervention after intervention served the business interests of the well-connected even as American taxpayer money went to foot the bill for these adventures. The names and places may have changed, but the old adage holds: the more things change, the more they stay the same.
The National Transitional Council that is nominally in charge of what is left of Libya announced this week that they’re beginning a probe of foreign oil contracts brokered during Gaddafi’s reign by his son, Saif al-Islam. Libya is sitting on the largest oil reserves in Africa, and it is no coincidence that within weeks of the start of the NATO campaign last year the rebels had already secured the country’s oil ports and refineries on the Gulf of Sidra and established their own national oil company for negotiating contracts with the invading forces. Although the oil contract probes are supposedly meant to show the transparency of the new “government” and their willingness to root out the graft and kickbacks inherent in the old regime, it’s quietly acknowledged that the process will be used to reward the nations that most visibly supported last year’s invasions and punish those who were more reticent.
Surprising, then, that the first companies on the block are Italy’s Eni and France’s Total. Both countries fostered close ties with the NTC last year and France was the first country to officially recognize them as the government of Libya. But now Libya’s general prosecutor is reviewing documents related to these companies for possible financial irregularities. The SEC is getting in on the act, too, requesting documents relating to both companies’ Libyan operations to check for suspected violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The potential blow to the European giants’ share in the Libyan market is especially painful in light of the upcoming Iranian oil embargo that threatens to squeeze the crude imports of Greece, Italy and Spain. Now, as Libya ramps up oil production to pre-war levels the obvious potential winners in the probe are the American and British majors, who could end up eating up some of Eni and Total’s share in Libya’s oil production should the investigation lead to charges.
China may also have reason to be wary of their standing with the new government. Chinese-Libyan ties were increasingly close in the years leading up to Gaddafi’s ouster, with trade volume having reached $6.6 billion in 2010. In 2007, as the US was beginning to put AFRICOM together and the competitive scramble for African resources was heating up, Gaddafi delivered an address to the students of Oxford University where he praised China’s hands-off approach to investment in Africa. At the time, Gaddafi suggested that Beijing was winning the hearts and minds of Africans with its reluctance to interfere in local politics, while Washington was alienating the population with their heavy-handed interventions. In the wake of the NATO bombing the would-be government of Libya is singing a different tune and relations with China have cooled down. Last August a senior NTC official suggested that China would be punished when it came time to award reconstruction contracts in Libya because of their initial reluctance to support the rebels. Although the statement was downplayed, it was revealed earlier this month that Chinese companies are still waiting to begin negotiations on losses to frozen and outstanding contracts worth $18.8 billion. Relations are still cordial, though, and the Libyan government is assuring China that the contracting companies will be in a better position to resume negotiations after national elections in June.
These latest moves from Tripoli may be as much about projecting the idea that the NTC is actually functioning as a government than anything else, though. Armed militias are still waging violent turf wars throughout the country, with 26 people dying in fighting between rivals in the western town of Zwara earlier this month and 150 dying in skirmishes last month in the southern city of Sabha. One militia stormed a hotel in Tripoli and opened fire, then beat and kidnapped the manager after he told a militia member to pay an outstanding room bill. Last week hundreds marched in Benghazi to call for an end to the violence between the armed gangs. The country is deeply divided along tribal lines and armed militias still occupy government buildings and openly flaunt the pronouncements of the erstwhile government. The idea that the NTC is actually functioning as a government is a pipe dream at this point, but as long as they keep the oil pumping and the victors of last year’s humanitarian love bombing get their spoils, there’s hardly a peep out of Washington, Paris, or London. Smedley Butler wouldn’t be surprised.
Meanwhile in Syria, the racketeers’ plans for a Libyan repeat are proceeding apace. Last week we reported on the so-called “Friends of Syria” and their agreement to begin openly funding the rebels to the tune of millions of dollars. This week we have been watching the inevitable, pre-scripted “break down” in Annan’s UN-brokered ceasefire. Exactly on cue, unverified reports from unnamed activists have begun rolling in to the usual media mouthpieces via foreign-based NGOs proclaiming so many people have died in continued fighting. The unacknowledged elephant in the room, however, is that, exactly as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has been attempting to point out all month, it’s impossible to expect a cessation in fighting when you are openly arming, training and funding an insurgent proxy army that is hell-bent on toppling the government. However, Lavrov is banging his head against a brick wall. The ceasefire was never meant to be a ceasefire and it’s all political theater at this point anyway. Any and every unverified rumor of fighting or violence in the country will now be taken as a sign that Assad has broken the agreement and the pressure to get Beijing and Moscow to acquiesce to the toppling of the Syrian government will intensify.
In the end, this will not be a carbon copy of Libya. There will be no NATO-led bombardment or large-scale military intervention, because Russia couldn’t allow that to happen. Besides, Syria has Russian supplied surface-to-air missiles and no compunction about using them. Instead, political pressure will increase for Assad to step down and the funds and arms to the rent-a-rebel force will continue increasing until the government is toppled. The dangerous factor in this equation is that neither the west nor China/Russia have blinked yet and there is a significant amount of face to lose for one side or the other in this proxy struggle. The one with the most to lose is clearly Iran, which all things being equal would be a dominant power player in regional politics. All things, however, are not equal. With their oil increasingly embargoed, the sanctions getting progressively tighter, and one of their key allies in the region threatening to topple in favor of a hostile Sunni insurgency, Iran has to know that when and if the Syrian domino falls, it falls on them.
At the same time, attention is turning once again to another of the war racketeers’ key interests: Pakistan. There has been newfound congressional interest in the so-called “Free Baluchistan” movement seeking independence for Pakistan’s Baluchi nationals. Citing human rights violations, Rep. Rohrbacher (R-California) has introduced a resolution calling on Pakistan to recognize Balochi self-determination. He has even written an op-ed in the Washington Post where he begins his argument with recourse to human rights and switches seamlessly in the fourth paragraph into noting with evident glee the region’s natural gas, gold, uranium, and copper reserves.
Interestingly, Russia agreed last week to pony up $1.5 billion in financing and technical assistance for a proposed Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline. The projected course of the pipeline? It would start in Iran’s southern Assalouyeh Energy Zone and enter Pakistan from the west, crossing straight through Baluchistan. Coincidence, surely. The IP pipeline has had a tumultuous history, complete with plans to run the pipeline all the way to India (an idea from which India has distanced itself but never completely abandoned) and the potential involvement of China, which has flirted with the idea of incorporating the pipeline into a planned logistical network running from the port of Gwadar in Pakistan’s southwest all the way to Xinjiang province. Now, with a proposal for Russian funding on the table the pipeline looks closer than ever to becoming a reality.
From the outset, the US has used every bit of leverage it has to get the parties involved to scrap the idea. Diplomatic pressure has been brought to bear on China, Pakistan, and India, with Beijing and New Delhi both appearing to buckle under the pressure and pull out of the project. The US has backed its own alternative pipeline, a Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India route, but that idea is looking less feasible by the day. Iran has nearly completed its share of the proposed IP pipeline, but Pakistan has been hesitant. Now along come the racketeers to fund yet another rebel movement in another geostrategically vital corridor, and before you know it “Free Baluchistan” might derail the project altogether. Look for US pressure on the Pakistani government regarding Baluchistan to increase as the pipeline comes closer to completion.
Butler was right. War is a racket, after all. These days the muscle men are rent-a-mobs and insurgents more so than the U.S. military, but the idea is the same: fund, arm and train the fighters to secure the resources and control the strategic areas. In Libya the NATO-backed rebels wrested the oil spigot from the unpredictable Gaddafi. In Syria the “Friends of Syria” are overthrowing a key Iranian ally and taking over an important square on the geopolitical chessboard. In Pakistan, American-backed rebels may succeed in driving a wedge through a key Iran-Pakistan pipeline. And the racket continues. One would do well to remember the grand finale of Butler’s speech: “To hell with war!”
|
In order to access the Corbett Report: http://www.corbettreport.com
|
|
| James Corbett is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by James Corbett |
Love Bombs for Syria? – Syrian Girl on Intervention and Hypocrisy [video]
The Corbett Report
April 15, 2012
Syrian commentator “Syrian Girl” joins us to discuss the latest news on the moves toward outside intervention in Syria.
Download audio: http://www.corbettreport.com/interview-495-syrian-girl-on-the-syrian-interven…
Syrian Girl’s recommended websites on Syria:
Website: http://www.syrianews.cc/
Real Friends of Syria blog http://friendsofsyria.wordpress.com/
Youtube channel exposing media lies: http://www.youtube.com/user/SyriansWorldWide
UN approves monitors’ deployment to Syria [video]
Russia Today
April 14, 2012
The UN Security Council has voted unanimously on a resolution to send a team of observers to Syria. The group of up to 30 monitors will help oversee the country’s fragile ceasefire. This, amid reports of fresh shelling and more bloodshed in the country, despite the truce. RT’s Marina Portnaya is following the events in New York.
RT on Twitter: http://twitter.com/RT_com
RT on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/RTnews
Faux-Feminist’s Ridiculous “Women Under Siege” Syria Map
CIA Asset Gloria Steinem’s “Women Under Siege” Joins Syrian Propaganda Campaign.
by Tony Cartalucci
April 14, 2012 – Ironically, faux-feminist Gloria Steinem’s “Women Under Siege’s” latest campaign to demonize the Syrian government in tandem with the US State Department and its vast stable of media and intelligence assets, stands to set the stage for extremist ideologues to overrun Syria, ending its secular society and entirely stripping away the “women’s rights” Steinem claims to have spent a lifetime fighting for.
Image: “Women Under Siege – Documenting Sexualized Violence in Syria” attempts to demonize the Syrian government and raise the level of feigned humanitarian-hysteria ahead of NATO maneuvering to rearm and redeploy militant extremists sure to end all human rights in currently secular Syrian society – just as they’ve done in Libya.
Of course, when one understands that Steinem is an establishment asset merely leveraging/perverting legitimate concerns regarding women to manipulate, divide, and control people for a corporate-financier agenda, such hypocrisy makes perfect sense.
Women Under Siege is a project of Steinem’s “Women’s Media Center,” which is itself a spinoff of its umbrella organization, Ms Foundation. Steinem’s Ms Foundation is funded by convicted criminal and Wall Street speculator George Soros‘ Open Society Foundations, the Ford Foundation, Tides Foundation, New York Life, Google, the United Nations, AT&T, Lifetime, the ACLU, and many others featured in their 2011 Annual Report starting on page 27. So what appears to be a feminist crusade turns out to be yet another facade of Wall Street and London’s (ironically very male-dominated) charade of manipulating, exploiting, dividing, and controlling the population.
Further evidence exposing Steinem and her expansive propaganda empire as nothing more than a tool of special interests is the documented fact that she was at least for a time, an asset of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as described in the New York Times article “CIA Subsidized Festival Trips; Hundreds of Students Were Sent to World Gatherings” (full text can be found here). Steinem’s “Independent Research Service” was anything but “independent,” as it was bankrolled by the CIA. While Steinem claims the CIA did nothing to influence her organization’s policy, a tenuous defense used by many operatives caught receiving dubious funding, it is clear that her activities dovetailed with the CIA’s agenda, making her at best what is called a “useful idiot.”
Now Steinem is once again conveniently co-facilitating the agenda of the establishment though the US State Department, the National Endowment for Democracy, and the various intelligence and military agencies involved in destabilizing Syria and overthrowing President Bashar al-Assad. She does so with her “Women Under Siege – Documenting Sexualized Violence in Syria” project, featuring a map of unverified, hearsay reports of atrocities carried out allegedly on “women.” Clearly, considering the corporate-financier backing Steinem’s Ms Foundation receives, this is not merely a convenient convergence of interests – rather more manipulative propaganda abusing and ultimately undermining real human rights – as the very term “women’s rights” is indicative of bigotry in and of itself.
Image: Pictured is “Gay Girl in Damascus.” Far from an editorial oversight, “Gay Girl in Damascus” was in reality a 40 year-old American man living in the UK. The Western media shamelessly exploited his narrative until it unraveled, and simply moved on to other actors, like “Danny” who directs fake gunfire off-camera while giving casualty reports to CNN. CIA asset Gloria Steinem’s new “Women Under Siege – Documenting Sexualized Violence in Syria” map makes a nice fit for the constant din of lies and fabrications coming out of the West in its pursuit of dividing and destroying Syria.
However, Steinem’s efforts find good company amongst the constant din of unverified reports fabricated by London-based NGOs like the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, exposed frauds like CNN’s “Syrian Danny,” and “Gay Girl in Damascus” who turned out to be a middle-aged American man living in the UK.
[hat tip: End the Lie]
