Manuel E. Yepe 112
The Hackneyed Imperialist Tool of Demonization
The Hackneyed Imperialist Tool of Demonization
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann.
“The systematic dehumanization of the leaders of other countries; the routine exaggeration of their military capabilities; the monotonous falsification of the nature and attitudes of other peoples; the reckless application of double standards in comparing the conduct of others with our own, as well as the inability to recognize the common character of many problems of others with our own, and the consequent tendency to see all aspects of the relationship with others in terms of a total and irreconcilable conflict of concerns and purposes. These, I believe, are not signs of the maturity and discernment that can be expected in the diplomacy of a great power…”.
Although the above description may seem applicable to Washington’s current foreign policy, it is a warning that George Frost Kennan (1904-2005), a long-serving diplomat and American historian, reminds us of the fact that it was Kennan who formulated and advocated a “policy of containment” against alleged Soviet expansionism, but later changed his theory.
Kennan enunciated his “containment policy” in February 1946 in a text that is remembered as the long message (“the Long Telegram”) he sent from Moscow in 1946 against so-called Soviet expansionism at the end of World War II. The text, signed with just one “X”, appeared in the July 1947 issue of Foreign Affairs magazine, intended to analyze the structure and psychology of Soviet diplomacy at that time. It was widely disseminated by Washington and brought Kennan a lot of popularity in the academic world.
Shortly after that same year, he was appointed director of policy planning at the State Department and, in 1949, advisor to that department. He returned to Moscow in 1952 as his country’s ambassador and in the following year, he had to return to the United States after being declared persona non grata by the Soviet government.
In the late 1950s, Kennan revised his views on “containment” and began advocating a program of “disengagement” from areas of conflict with the Soviet Union. He later emphatically denied that containment was applicable tp situations in other areas of the world, such as Vietnam.
Kennan is identified as one of the architects of the Cold War. His postwar writings about the supposed Soviet threat nurtured the U. S. policy of containment that led to the devastating arms race that still threatens the world with utter destruction.
But the development of events and variables in Washington’s foreign policy led Kennan to reconsider his initial views and to formulate those with which he begins this article.
Kennan then suggests that, although the Russians were still fundamentally opposed to peaceful coexistence with the West and inclined to achieve the extension of the Soviet socialist system around the world, they were particularly sensitive to the logic of military force and will respond or retreat in the face of skillful and determined resistance to their wishes for expansion.
Thus, Kennan goes on to advocate a policy of “counter-pressure” where the Soviets threatened or it could be predicted that such counter-pressure could lead to the Soviets being willing to cooperate with the US or, eventually, be seen to lead to an internal collapse of the Soviet government. This point of view would eventually become the focus of US policy towards Russia.
It is remarkable how much the imprint of Kennan’s policy of containment has influenced U. S. imperial policy, despite its belated retraction. It is something that can be noticed in the current stage of Washington’s hegemonic decline with an almost identical performance in the manner of demonizing its enemies or those who do not agree with its designs.
It is as if the complacent media and the two political parties that govern alternatively could only agree to attack their opponents when they have fabricated an image that fits into certain diabolical and perverse preconceived patterns.
In Latin America, the current U. S. offensive against dissident governments in its hegemonic area goes through a period of great intensity in which Bolivarian leader Nicolás Maduro Moro, president of Venezuela, occupies the prominent place that for half a century had Cuba sitting in the chair of the accused. The head of the Caracas government has reached, if not surpassed, the level of gossip that Fidel and Raúl Castro used to have, although the latter do not escape today from the diarrhea of lies and dehumanizing insults of Donald Trump.
February 27, 2018.
All Out to Defend the Bolivarian Revolution
All Out to Defend the Bolivarian Revolution
By Manuel E. Yepe
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
It is evident that U. S. military intervention in Venezuela is already something determined and underway. It’s the prow of an imperialist strategic plan aimed at politically liquidating the Bolivarian integrationist example and appropriating the great energy, aquiferous and jungle mineral wealth of this nation.
The vitality of the Bolivarian liberating process, in spite of how much the oligarchy spends, and especially Washington, to regain control of that nation, has driven the empire to despair.
The recent tour of Latin American countries by U. S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, had the unhidden purpose of increasing tension in the region, arousing support for coup action in Venezuela, tightening political and financial isolation against Caracas and proclaiming that the United States has brought back the Monroe doctrine, whose motto “America for the Americans” reflects its true imperialist meaning.
In Latin America, the harassment of the Venezuelan government, orchestrated by the extreme right-wing warrior which follows Washington, has formed a bloc led by the presidents of the countries of the Pacific Alliance. Collectively and individually, they cynically declare Venezuela must “recovers freedoms, democracy, the rule of law and respect for human rights and must overcome the serious economic and humanitarian crisis that is causing suffering to the Venezuelan people”.
Central American journalist, lawyer, writer and anthropologist Ollantay Itzamná has pointed out how, after discrediting and politically punishing several of the honest precursors of Latin American dignity promoted by MERCOSUR, CELAC and ALBA, the U. S. government has turned to its very helpful and grotesque tactics of using the OAS and the fourteen subservient and corrupt governments of the Lima Group (Argentina, Brazil, Canada, child, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and St. Lucia). to support Washington in its infamous plan to invade and loot Venezuela.
And what is the democratic and moral quality of these anti-Venezuelan governments? The leading analyst asks himself and describes some of them:
Mauricio Macri, president of Argentina, who is still in power thanks to pacts with corrupt politicians. As soon as he took office, evidence emerged of his tax evasion in the Panama Papers cases. Then, he was involved in the great Odebrecht scandal, with the corrupt Brazilian businessman who bought Latin American presidents and legislators at prices lower than those of the beasts of burden during the colonial era.
Juan Orlando Hernández, president of Honduras through fraudulent and unconstitutional elections. During his first administration, he turned his impoverished country into the most violent and hungry in Latin America. To the massive protest over the manipulation of the results of the unconstitutional re-election, he responded by killing almost fifty political activists and imprisoning many others.
Jimmy Morales, current president of Guatemala, was denounced and investigated by the International Commission against Corruption and Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) for having used drug money for his election campaign.
Juan Manuel Santos, president of Colombia who negotiated the pacification of the country but, in this “Colombia at Peace”, a massacre is carried out of human rights defenders, indigenous people and peasants who demand the restitution of their lands.
Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, host and mainstay of the so-called Lima Group, serves as president of Peru thanks to the purchase of deputies from Alberto Fujimori, who with his votes, prevented the removal and punishment of this American citizen who, in order to govern the Andean country, had to renounce his U. S. citizenship.
Michel Temer, president of Brazil without having won any election at the polls. He is one of the corrupt politicians of that country who led the coup d’ état against Dilma Rousseff and stopped investigations against corruption.
And Donald Trump is counting on this team to impose his will on Venezuela. This is the same logic with which he proposed to arm teachers to ward off the increasingly frequent shootings in U. S. educational centers.
Determined to consolidate their revolution, the Venezuelan patriots are ready to defend it with the weapons of democracy, while this is possible!
Latin America – and Humanity as a whole – hopes that the Venezuelan will to silence arms using democratic measures will stop imperialist barbarism without the peoples having to resort to revolutionary violence to defend it, and thereby set the prairie on fire.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator
What is DACA and Who Are the Dreamers
What is DACA and Who Are the Dreamers
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann.
In the United States, approximately 2.1 million undocumented immigrants who arrived in the United States as children face a situation that is very different from the American dream.
For their benefit, in June 2012, the Barack Obama administration proposed an immigration policy known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). It allowed a number of people admitted to the United States as minors who had entered or remained in the country illegally to receive residence permits for renewable periods of two years, deferring the action. Every two years they should be able to reaffirm these data to retain the benefits of DACA.
Approximately 800,000 people who have taken refuge in five years with DACA’s deportation protection can apply for a 2-year work permit with a renewable option, ask for their Social Security registration number, and apply for driver’s license.
Although DACA has never been subject to specific legal approval, its visibility and that of the dreamers grew enormously in the American public. The dreamers, who have lived in a limbo of illegality for most or all of their lives, in an atmosphere of sympathy and sympathy, if not rejection, have become the subject of debate beyond the negotiations in Congress.
After several months of presidential silence on the matter, on September 5,2017, U. S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that the Trump regime had decided to end the DACA program. He said this was because nine general prosecutors, hard-line conservatives on immigration issues from as many states in the country, threatened to denounce the official policy implemented by their predecessor, Barack Obama, arguing that the policy was the responsibility of President Obama
Sessions called DACA an unconstitutional exercise by the Obama Administration. Trump only sent out one of his usual twitter sketches: “I am not in favor of punishing children, most of whom are now adults, for the actions of their parents. But we must recognize that if this is a nation of opportunity, it is because we are a nation of laws.
Since the beginning of his presidential campaign, Trump has issued dramatically opposed opinions about what he intends to do with the Dreamers. In a White House ceremony, he said they should be deported. But shortly afterwards, he said they should be protected from deportation “because they are great guys.”
On another occasion he said he will treat them with “big heart” but at the end of Obama’s term in office he has put an end to the program that protected them, USA Today points out.
Although members of the two parties that monopolize the U. S. electoral landscape complain that they can’t identify what the White House is looking for, Sarah Sanders, Trump’s press secretary, repeats over and over again: “The President has been clear about what his priorities are in that process.
At the height of the presidential campaign in 2016, Trump’s most significant political initiative was the promise to build and a “big and beautiful” wall that will separate the United States from Mexico, which will be paid for by the Mexican side.
Trump promised to speed up the deportation of the country’s eleven million undocumented immigrants, but when asked on Meet the Press if he would make an exception with the dreamers, he simply answered: “They have to go.”
Fifteen states and the District of Columbia have spoken out against the presidential decision to end .DACA. They will file a lawsuit against the federal government against such a decision by Trump. The original complaint was filed in New York, led by the Attorney General of that state and Massachusetts. He has been joined by North Carolina, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, New Mexico, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and the District of Columbia.
Chuck Schumer (D-NY), leader of the Democratic minority in the Senate, offered a very different definition of the image Trump wants to project as a white supremacist male, saying that arguing with Trump is like “negotiating with Jell-o.”
February 12, 2018.
A Conflict That Was Avoidable
A Conflict That Was Avoidable
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
A CubaNews translation. Edited by Walter Lippmann.
Cuba produces, consumes and exports substantial amounts of Havana cigars and rum, products that enjoy a lot of prestige and are in high demand in international markets.
It is somehow perplexing that a nation which –according to United Nations specialized agencies– contributes greatly to the prevention and cure of ailments through the medical assistance offered by its scientists in many countries, is likewise an important supplier in the world market of products that are harmful to health, such as alcohol and tobacco.
The inhabitants of the islands that make up the Cuban archipelago took control of their destiny after a bloody liberation struggle. By then, the humble and exploited Cuban peasants and workers had managed to develop –with sweat and tears resulting from strenuous capitalist exploitation– cultivation techniques, handicraft and manufacturing techniques which, together with climatic and agricultural conditions specific to parts of the Cuban archipelago, had placed the island at the head of the world in these product which make it proud today.
Cuba had always been denied democratic paths. It had to achieve its independence, in the decade of the 1950’s, through an armed struggle waged by a rebel vanguard at the cost of thousands of lives.
But when the popular revolution won and the Cuban people became owners of the country’s destiny, the new government was forced to limit the scope of its social welfare goals.
This was because of the need to defend against the counter-revolutionary actions of the oligarchy, already displaced from the government but supported by the United States superpower.
After the proclamation of Cuba’s independence from Spanish colonial rule, the US played the same hegemonic role that Spain had exercised previously.
Not all the big companies that were nationalized by the revolution reacted in the same way.
Virtually all non-US foreign companies accepted the path of negotiation and resolved the matter sensibly, without further conflict. Several of them, over the years, have returned to have investments in Cuba at much higher levels.
For more than sixty years, US companies nationalized in Cuba were not allowed by the US blockade laws against Cuba (euphemistically called “embargo”) to sit down and normally discuss compensation issues.
Everything had to be done in an organized manner, and the inevitable impact had to be treated carefully to minimize violent effects, always in the hope of future understanding and tolerance.
In the case of Bacardí, the former owners of the firm opted for making a legal war against Cuba.
Shortly after the triumph of the revolution, they registered the Bacardí Company in Bermuda and fought a legal battle in the International Court of The Hague for the ownership of the brand.
They managed to maintain the right to the Bacardi brand and the bat as its symbol, but they were denied the right to identify their rum as Cuban or originally from Havana.
In 1999, thanks to their political links and the blockade, Bacardi managed to get the US Congress to approve a provision that would allow it to seize the Havana Club brand within the US territory.
The World Trade Organization condemned the action, but allowed Bacardi to market, within the United States, the fake Havana Club rum made in Puerto Rico.
Through bizarre legal maneuvers, Bacardí allegedly had acquired from an industrialist named José Arechabala, the property of a small rum factory called Havana Club. This had been his property since 1934 until its nationalization in 1960. In truth, those rights were non-existent, because they belonged to the Cuban state.
Despite the blockade, Cuba has regularly renewed the Havana Club brand with the US Patent Office since 1976.
The brand was given to the rum Cuba produces that in the past had been named Bacardí. Cuba has continued producing the Havana Club rum with total international legal backing. Obviously, because of the US blockade, the Havana Club brand could not be registered in the United States.
Since 1994, the production of Havana Club rum and its worldwide distribution, except in the United States, has been done by a joint venture of the French Pernod Ricard and the Cuban Ron Cuba. This is a measure of defense against the intense harassment of the blockade against the Island.
In a short time, the Cuban Havana Club rum quality has captured the preference of rum drinkers from around the world who have stopped consuming Bacardi (manufactured in Puerto Rico). Drinkers of the best rum in the world, including Americans, do not settle for the fake that Bacardí is today.
February 6, 2018
What the United States Owes to Haiti
What the United States Owes to Haiti
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
The crass coarseness of the president of the United States, Donald Trump, in matters of civic and formal education cannot justify the daily barbs of this false lunatic turned head of state that, ultimately, goes to the main detriment of the reputation and dignity of US citizens.
Following Trump’s racist pronouncement, which described Haiti and the whole of the countries of Africa as “shithole nations”, Cuban journalist José A. Téllez Villalón published on the Spanish site “Rebelion” a work to remind us that a large part of the arms, ammunition and men with which France contributed to the independence of the then Thirteen Colonies, passed through the then-French colony of Saint-Domingue (today Haiti) which had contributed with the blood of its children to the triumph of the forces in struggle for their independence from the British metropolis.
On March 12, 1779, the French colonizers began the recruitment of a body of volunteers to participate in the American Revolution. “The Volunteer Hunters of Saint-Domingue,” as the contingent was called, was made up of French settlers and between 500 and 800 black and mulatto freedmen.
Between the end of 1780 and the middle of 1781, the troops commanded by General George Washington and those commanded by the French general Jean Batiste de Vimeur, Count of Rochambeau, had been left without resources to land a final blow on the English troops positioned in Yorktown.
George Washington, the leader of the independence movement, reflected it on May 1, 1781 in his diary: “In a word, instead of having everything ready to go to the campaign, we have nothing. Instead of having the perspective of a glorious offensive campaign before us, we have but a confused and defensive situation, unless we receive powerful aid in the form of ships, land troops and money from our generous allies. For now, this is too eventful to be able to count on it. “
French Marshal Rochambeau wrote to French Admiral François Joseph Paul, Count de Grasse: “I must not hide from you, Sir, that the Americans are at the limit of their resources. Washington does not have half the troops it calculates, and in my opinion, although he remains silent about it, he does not have 6,000 men, nor does Mr. de La Fayette gather 1000 regulars in the militia to defend Virginia … “.
Téllez Villalón explains that Rochambeau asked the head of the fleet to recruit troops and bring them with him as reinforcements for General Washington’s Continental Army. The Admiral complied with instructions, recruited 3,000 volunteers from Port-au-Prince and Cap-Haïtien, and placed them under the orders of the young officer Claudius Henry of Saint-Simon who was the founder of French socialism and utopian socialism. The same man who, for Engels, was, together with Hegel, the most encyclopedic mind of his time and in whose work most of the later ideas of socialism are contained.
The multinational reinforcement, consisting of a battalion of ex-slaves, pardos [tri-racial descendants of European, black and indiginous peoples] and mulatos from Port-au-Prince and Cap-Haïtien commanded by Saint-Simon, disembarked in the Chesapeake Bay, Maryland, and took part, between September 26 and October 19, 1781, in the Siege of Yorktown.
So, says Tellez, the Americans owe a lot to foreign forces -French, Latin American and Haitian- for the achievement of their Independence. It was ratified by the United States Congress on November 15, 1784, after Great Britain capitulated on September 3, 1783 with the Treaty of Paris.
Alexander Hamilton, one of the founding fathers of the American nation, acknowledged in an editorial published on July 5, 1803 in the New York Evening Post that “to the fatal climate of Saint-Domingue (Haiti), and to the courage and obstinate resistance of its black inhabitants, that we owe the obstacles that delayed the colonization of Louisiana until the favorable moment when a rupture between England and France gave a new turn to the latter’s projects”.
Nevertheless, another American founding father, Thomas Jefferson, principal author of the Declaration of Independence, who was second vice president (1797-1801) and third president (1801-1809) of the United States, showed no gratitude for this assistance. On the contrary, he suspended all trade with Haiti in 1804.
The United States resisted recognizing the newly independent country for many years, joining the European empires in punishing Haiti for its insubordination. It was not until June 5, 1862 that President Abraham Lincoln granted American diplomatic recognition of the generous and heroic Fatherland of Toussaint Louverture and Jean-Jacques Dessalines.
February 7, 2018.
The “American Dream” has Become a Nightmare
The “American Dream” has Become a Nightmare
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann.
The projected wall to separate Mexico from what had been its own territory until the day that it was taken away by United States. US President Donald Trump’s characterization of some nations in Africa as shitholes. The eviction from US soil of Salvadoran, Nicaraguan and Haitian residents. The deportation of undocumented young people who’d arrived in the US in childhood and are known as the “dreamers”. The rejection of refugees. The reduction of green cards by half. These and other anti-immigration actions have characterized Washington’s foreign policy during the Trump administration.
Wide-reaching, all over the world, hegemonic corporate propaganda has always presented the US as a model of democracy and a welfare paradise. It has made the US a dreamland fantasized about by millions of would-be emigrants from poor nations. Now, the US President is doing even the unimaginable. He wants put an end to such an image, by resorting to decisions that may bring about great violence.
The project of an expanding nation has prevailed since English immigrants, through the annexation of lands populated by indigenous peoples or occupied by Dutch immigrants, created the Thirteen English colonies. They later united to fight
against the natives and especially against the French immigrants.
The United States, in a continuous and expansionist process, through the purchase of territories from France and Spain, the dispossession of Mexico from a good part of its territory and several asymmetrical wars, has expanded its territory, possessions, and global hegemony..what today President Donald Trump defends with the motto “America First!” and consists of closing borders as a new phenomenon, opposed to expansionism.
The US of the fantasized American Dream is no longer being built. Having achieved its objective, it has turned to defending its accomplishments. Now, the America First doctrine is the calling card of a nation that Trump, as a white multimillionaire in love with his own genetics, considers the best in the world.
By the way, when we talk about a country called “the United States of America” we refer to an impossible entity or an entelechy. This is because America is geographically a continent made up of several independent nations. None should claim the right to represent the union of all the states that make up the continent.
Originally, the name “United States of America” could have been the expression of a legitimate and plausible aspiration of the precursors of a dream of unity that has never been made possible, but which today embodies a deceptive purpose of domination and hegemony.
Even if this were the historical reason for the imbroglio, the nations of the affected continent can survive the terminological confusion provided there is absolute respect for the sovereignty of all countries involved.
Regrettably, there have been, and still are, many occasions when conflicts arise because one of the parties, always Washington, takes advantage of the semantic confusion for its own benefit.
The United States was born practically accompanied by the doctrine of Manifest Destiny. This is the idea that the United States of America will expand because of its obvious (manifest) need and definite destiny. First, it would expand from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific. Then, the northeastern states would carry their concept of “civilization” throughout the continent through territorial expansion.
For US commercial interests, expansion offered great and lucrative access to foreign markets. This allowed them to compete under better conditions against the British. Owning ports facing the Pacific would facilitate trade with Asia.
The ideological and philosophical connotation of its name was not embraced by all of US society. Differences within the country about the objectives and consequences of the policy of expansion would determine its acceptance or rejection.
Only when the peoples who inhabit the region today known as the American continent want to proclaim in common the unification of their territorial sovereignties, could the resulting nation be legitimately declared the “United States of America”; or else when humanity reaches its eternal yearning to live in a communist world, without classes or borders.
January 30, 2018
Unrest Within US Diplomacy
Unrest Within US Diplomacy
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
A CubaNews translation. Edited by Walter Lippmann.
The multiple crises affecting Donald Trump’s administration from the day the real estate multi-billionaire entrepreneur arrived at the Oval Office of the White House has not spared the State Department.An article by journalist Gardiner Harris, correspondent for the The New York Times at the White House, discusses the serious situation the diplomacy of the superpower has been going through since that day. He predicts it will tend to grow more serious in tune with the vices inherent in Trump’s administration, even when, in this case, it is Secretary of State, Rex W. Tillerson, the first-acting figure.
Harris describes what has been happening in the upper ranks of the State Department as “a parade of dismissals and early retirements”. Tillerson’s intense campaign to clean out the State Department has called upon each office of the Department to contribute to this goal.
The guarded optimism that greeted the arrival of Rex Tillerson to the post of Secretary of State soon gave way to concern about the lack of communication between the boss and his subordinates.
By midyear, Tillerson’s reiterated focus on issues such as inefficiency and the need to reorganize foreign policy provoked increasing anger and concern about his performance within the department.
Now, the estrangement is in the open. Diplomats going out the door are making their feelings known and a number of members of Congress have raised questions about the impact of these firings and resignations on US foreign policy.
In a recent message addressed to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, the Democratic members of the House Foreign Relations Committee of Representatives, citing what they said was the “exodus of more than 100 Senior Foreign Service Officers of the State Department since January “, expressed concern about what “appears to be the intentional hollowing out of our senior diplomatic ranks.”
Tillerson, a former chief executive of the EXXON corporation and a supporter of fundamentalist capitalism, has made no secret of his belief that the State Department is a bloated bureaucracy. He regards much of the day-to-day diplomacy that lower level US diplomats conduct (and he now leads) as unproductive.
Even before Tillerson’s appointment was confirmed by the Senate, his team of assistants fired 6 of the State Department’s top career diplomats, including some who had been appointed during governments headed by Republican presidents. None were given any reasons for their dismissals.
Secretary Tillerson announced a reorganization to be carried out in the following months. He stressed that this would be the most important action that he would do while in office. He hired two consulting companies to lead the process.
Since he announced, before arriving at the State Department, that he would slash its budget by 31%, many in the Department have always seen the reorganization as a smokescreen for drastic cuts.
Tillerson has frozen most hiring and offered $25,000 buyouts, hoping to get about 2,000 career diplomats and civil servants to leave their positions by October 2018.
His small group of assistants has managed to fire some diplomats and gotten others to resign by refusing them the assignments they wanted, or taking their duties away altogether.
Among those fired or sidelined there is a high proportion of Latino and African-American diplomats, as well as women. These were important to maintain the Department’s troubled diversity balance.
Gardiner Harris quotes Nancy McEldowney, a career diplomat and former ambassador who retired last June after 30 years as a US Foreign Service Officer, “There is a vacuum throughout the State Department and the junior people now working in these top jobs lack the confidence and credibility that comes from a presidential nomination and a Senate confirmation.”
An example of the trend being followed in the State Department was seeing during the farce against Cuba about “sonic attacks” (which never existed and were probably the result of Senator Marco Rubio’s initiative to promote his image as the probable future Republican president). One of the episode’s first outcomes was the reduction of the staff at the US Embassy in Havana to such an extent that it practically brought to a standstill the consular relations between both sides of the Florida Strait.
January 23, 2018.
Marco Rubio’s Sonic Attacks
Marco Rubio’s Sonic Attacks
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
A CubaNews translation. Edited by Walter Lippmann.
Observers of US policy argue that senator Marco Rubio has been developing a project for some time aimed at becoming the first Latino president of the United States.
The logic of those who support him within the Republican establishment rests on the idea that if the Democratic Party could achieve it with a Black person and almost did it with a woman, it may be time to shine for a Latino Republican who, theoretically, enjoys the favor of the Pentagon and of Wall Street.
Rubio’s hopeful project involves risks and many conflicts, but the young senator seems to be willing to risk a conventional political career that is going well in order to keep the Republican Party in the White House. Even more so, given the circumstance that Trump’s re-election looks increasingly doubtful considering his constant blunders exercising the presidency.
Not too long ago, Marco Rubio was seen raging furiously against Trump in his bid for the Republican nomination. Later, he’s been allying with Trump from a position of blackmail. This is because Rubio sits on a Senate committee that could result in Trump’s impeachment due to his alleged collusion with Russia once he entered the White House.
Currently, Rubio is deeply involved in the chancy accusation against Cuba for the alleged “sonic attacks”. If successful, it could win him prestige as a skilled politician who was able to get Trump a victory “out of nothing” against the rebellious island. This would be something that a dozen previous administrations –of both parties– have not been able to achieve. Rubio has disregarded the possibility that this move may carry the risk of ridicule for him and his acolytes in the adventure.
After several months of investigations and four trips to Cuba with all the facilities and official support from the top officials of the Cuban government, the Technological Operations Division of the US Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) officially declared that they have not found any evidence of those alleged “sonic attacks” against US diplomatic personnel in Havana.
The conclusions of the US investigators concur with those of the Cuban Expert Committee which conducted an exhaustive investigation on the alleged incidents.
With his scandalous lie against Cuba about to be exposed, Senator Rubio and his sponsors have been resorting to one manipulation after another, the last of which was to submit the case to the consideration of a Congressional Committee headed by the Florida Senator: Rubio himself.
To assess the “attacks”, several congress members and government officials testified, but the alleged victims of the attacks did not. They were excused because, being US intelligence and counter-intelligence officials accredited as diplomats in Cuba, their identities should not be revealed.
It seems evident that there has been no way to confirm the existence of the sonic attacks that Senator Marco Rubio claims. They only seem to exist in the imaginations of President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
For Trump, the whole thing could be taken as just another of his blunders, but for Rubio it could mean his political funeral. In this context, the senator fabricated his theory about the origin of the “sonic attacks” in a desperate effort to find sacrificial lambs for the big lie.
According to Marco Rubio, the attacks have been so sophisticated that they cannot even describe how they happened. They “could be the work of a) a group of Castro’s opponents with the purpose of damaging the Cuban initiatives to dialogue set forth by Obama; b) a dissenting force within the Cuban government; or c) a third country: logic pointing at Russia and Vladimir Putin. “
In the great farce of the “sonic attacks”, which already has overtones of slapstick, no guilty parties are identified and the alleged victims are not known. Evidently, they do not exist.
Used as the main sponsor of the show, was President Donald Trump of whom — as Michael Wolff points out in his book Fire and Fury-– a lot has been written. Examples: “his childish acting; psychopathologies such as delusions of grandeur and paranoia; ignorance, inability to read, listen and comply with the tasks and responsibilities of his high office.”
That is why it is foreseeable that, within a few weeks, nobody will remember the farce of Trump’s sonic attacks. These will have joined the list of his “eccentricities”. Rubio will do everything possible to get out of the scene and will think: “I lost, but it was a good try. They will blame Trump. “
January 16, 2018
Toward the Reunion of the Two Koreas
TOWARD THE REUNION OF THE TWO KOREAS
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
A CubaNews translation, edited by Walter Lippmann.
Just at beginning of the new year 2018, on Tuesday, January 2, South Korea proposed to North Korea the holding of high-level talks on the following week to discuss the participation of both countries in the Winter Olympic Games. They are to be hosted by Pyeong Chang, a South Korean county located about 70 kilometers south of the inter-Korean border. It would represent “an innovative opportunity to improve relations,” said the south.
South Korean Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon proposed that the two Koreas meet on Tuesday, January 9, in the truce village of Panmunjom, in the Demilitarized Zone, the usual place for this kind of encounter.
If Pyongyang accepts, and the proposed meeting takes place, it would be the first contact of this nature between the governments of the two Koreas in more than two years.
The proposal came after the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, in year’s end speech, said that he would be open to dialogue with the South so that his country could send a delegation to the Olympic event to be held in South Korea, February 19-25.
So far, only two artistic skaters from the DPRK have been announced: Ryom Tae-ok and Kim Ju-ik, already qualified for the Pyeong Chang games.
Joint military exercises between the United States and South Korea was to take place, as every year, in the next few days. However, the President of South Korea, Moon Jae-in, and his US counterpart, Donald Trump, agreed to postpone them until after the Olympic Winter Games in Pyeong Chang. They want to try to improve conditions to work for an understanding between Pyongyang and Seoul.
“I think it would help enormously to ensure the success of the Pyeon Chang Winter Olympic Games that you show your intention to delay the exercises during the event” These were Moon’s words to Trump in a recent phone conversation. The US president agreed and told Moon that he could inform Pyongyang that there will be no war games during the sports event, as can be read in the transcript of the conversation
The decision to postpone joint military exercises occurred after the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, in his New Year’s message, expressed his wish that his country participate in the Winter Olympics.
Seoul had already asked Washington to consider postponing the exercises, to prevent the government of North Korea from responding by carrying out a new weapons test.
For now, North Korea’s response to the meeting proposed by Seoul for next January 9 is still pending. It is expected that the participation of the North Korean athletes in the games will be closely examined.
“Ratifying the will of our leader, we will maintain a close and sincere contact” regarding North Korean participation in the Olympic Games to be held in South Korea from 9 to 25 February,” said Ri Son-gwon, who leads inter-Korean affairs in Pyongyang, to the South Korean news agency Yonhap.
“We will hold working conversations about our potential sending a delegation to those Winter Olympics that will be held in South Korea.”
However, Ri did not specify whether North Korea would accept the offer to hold a high-level meeting on January 9, or if the talks for the time being will be limited to communication through the telephone line installed at the border. It has not been operated for two years and has been the only communications channel between the two countries.
In Seoul, Yoon Young-chan, on behalf of President Moon Jae-in, celebrated the news. “I think the announcement shows an advance towards a situation in which communication [between the two countries] is possible at all times,” he said in a brief statement to the media.
In case the high-level meeting takes place, it would be the first of this kind in more than two years between the two countries, which have remained [formally] at war for the last 65 years. It would come after a year of special tension over Pyongyang’s weapons tests, Yoon said to Yonhap.
The South Korean president, Moon, since coming to power last May, has tried to achieve a rapprochement through dialogue with the North Korean government headed by Kim Jong-un. He has also insisted that Pyongyang participate in the Winter Games.
It should be recalled that, in September 2017, Donald Trump made derogatory comments about Moon Jae-in because of his position toward Pyongyang. Trump offended the South Korean, calling him a “beggar,” for his insistence on dialogue with North Korea. “
January 4, 2018
Trump on Iran: Wrong Again
Trump on Iran: Wrong Again
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
A CubaNews translation edited by Walter Lippmann.
The United States’ intention to turn the protests in Iran between December 28, 2017 and January 3, 2018 into an “Iranian spring” failed miserably.
Washington’s expressions of support harmed a movement that, perhaps, arose spontaneously, but that did not last. It lost all its support due to the unwanted backing from Washington that made it offensive to the nation’s identity.
Trump took several days to figure out what was happening in his own country in August of 2017, with the social unrest in Charlottesville, Virginia. However, the US President saw the protests in Iran as an appetizing sweet served on his plate. He tried quickly to gobble it up. He issued half a dozen tweets in support of the protests, but it was obvious that his true intention was to fan the flames and not put them out.
There is no evidence that the protesters followed a script produced by Trump or that they paid any attention to what he wrote. It cannot even be assumed that the protesters were receiving instructions from outside.
For most Iranians, Trump is just a source of animosity toward their people. He had shown that from the moment he became President. While joyfully hugging the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Iran’s regional rival, Trump included Iranian nationals among the excludables in his anti-Muslim immigration rules. This, despite the fact that there has never been an Iranian involved in terrorist acts against the United States.
At the end of 2017, demonstrations and protests began to take place in several Iranian cities. These were apparently motivated by mass popular discontent. Among their demands: broader political and social freedoms, insistent denunciations of corruption in public administration. They rejected price increases in gasoline, eggs and other consumer goods and services. Added to this was dissatisfaction with the approval of a budget that projected the reduction of various social benefits and an increase in expenses related to military investment.
In an act of astonishing intervention into the internal affairs of another nation, Washington announced its support for the protests. White House Press Secretary, Sarah Sanders, called them “real popular uprisings led by brave Iranian citizens”. Trump posted his already-mentioned tweets and praised the Iranian protesters as “hungry for food and freedom” that Washington should assist. He even promised them support.
Since his arrival in the Oval Office, Trump has systematically opposed the Nuclear Agreement that the G5 + 1 group (USA, Russia, China, France, United Kingdom and Germany). It had been negotiated with Iran for 18 months, until it was signed on July 14. The historic agreement with Iran requires the limitation of certain aspects of the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program on terms accepted by Tehran.
“The United States will not repeat the shameful mistake made in our past when others stayed on the sidelines and ignored the heroic
resistance of the Iranian people who were fighting against their brutal regime, ” said Vice President Mike Pence, who criticized Barack Obama’s Administration for staying out of the protests that took place in Iran in 2009.
Once the July Agreement was announced, President Barack Obama signed the executive order lifting economic sanctions on Iran. The official in charge of the European Union’s policy, Federica Mogherini, confirmed a similar decision by the EU after a long day of diplomatic negotiations. “All parties believe that this historic agreement is as strong as it is fair,” said Mogherini, who coordinated the negotiations of the six great powers with Iran.
The Iranian people had great hope that the nuclear agreement would serve not only to prevent a war with the United States, but to get their country out of political isolation and the financial situation imposed by Washington.
The agreement opens the door for the release of the Iranian assets frozen in several world banking institutions valued at between 45 and 90 thousand billion Euros. Iran plans to increase its oil exports by no less than half a million barrels when the sanctions are lifted.
Despite the failure of their plans to produce a self-destructive “Iranian spring” in Tehran, Washington keeps going ahead with its basic purpose. Now it is working toward calling a meeting of the United Nations Security Council to examine the situation.
Taking advantage of the widespread US media coverage of the Iranian protests and its wide impact on the global media, the US delegates are trying to put on the meeting’s agenda “a dangerous problem that harms the human rights of the Iranian people” in order to create a false image of Iran and promote its destabilization.
January 8, 2018.