IMPERIALIST SICKNESS

F WILLIAM ENGDAHL—The NED, along with Freedom House, has been at the center of all major US State Department-financed ‘color revolutions’ in the world since 2000 when it was used to topple Milosevic in Serbia. The NED was created during the Reagan Administration to function as a de facto CIA, privatized so as to allow more freedom of action.  Allen Weinstein, who helped draft the legislation establishing NED, said in a Washington Post interview in 1991, “A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.”

The NED was the brainchild of Reagan’s CIA Director, Bill Casey. Casey wanted to create a funding mechanism to support groups inside foreign countries that would engage in propaganda and political action that the CIA had historically organized and paid for covertly. To partially replace that CIA role, the idea emerged for a congressionally funded entity that would serve as a conduit for this money.

The broad historical trend of development in Latin America, as well as current developments, is therefore clear from these facts. From a situation where for a century almost all Latin American countries were subordinate to the US, and a number remain so, an increasing number are seeking national independence – and a few are seeking a socialist path of development. Mutually beneficial relations with China interact with and aids this.

China does not interfere in the internal affairs of Latin American countries, and, as already analyzed, seeks to maintain good relations with all Latin American countries regardless of their political orientation. Nevertheless, the fact that an increasing number of Latin American countries are seeking to maintain national independence strengthens their relations with China. Furthermore, while China does not attempt to persuade any country to follow its socialist path nevertheless, of course, other countries can study China and draw lessons for their own experience.

PHILIP M GIRALDI—It is well past time to get rid of the Israel parasite that feeds on the American government and people. The special relationship with Israel, sanctified in the halls of Congress and by a Jewish dominated media, does nothing good for the United States and for the American people. Israel’s constant interference in the U.S. political system and economy comes at a huge cost, both in dollars and in terms of actual American interests.

And then there are the hot buttons which, if the U.S. actually had a functional government that is responsive to the people, should have been pushed long ago. Israel is ranked by the FBI as the number one “friendly” country in terms of its spying against the United States. Pollard is an exception, but Israeli spies are routinely slapped on the wrist when caught and never face prosecution.

Jimmy Dore denounces the cowardly betrayal of alternative journalism by Cenk Uygur, head of the Young Turks, and in particular Julian Assange, a man horribly persecuted by the reigning oligarchy for revealing the empire’s ugly political and war crimes. Jimmy spares no words in his public flogging of Uygur, who is now one more CIA asset repeating the agency’s dangerous falsehoods. 

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE—Western propaganda hasn’t gotten less advanced since the Iraq invasion, it has gotten more advanced. The Russiagate psyop and the smear campaigns against Assange and Corbyn make this abundantly clear. The idea that the lies and propaganda which led to the Iraq invasion were a one-off fluke is itself the product of propaganda. You need to be more critical of western narratives than with Iraq, not less.