US Policymakers Openly Plot Against Venezuela

May 24, 2017 (Tony Cartalucci - LD) - The US media has been paying increasing attention to the unfolding crisis in the South American nation of Venezuela. As the US media has done elsewhere, it is attempting to portray the unfolding crisis as a result of a corrupt dictatorship fighting against a "pro-democracy" opposition. 

In reality, it is simply a repeat of US-driven regime change aimed at toppling Venezuela's independent state institutions and replacing them with institutions created by and for US special interests. 

The "opposition" is comprised of US-backed political parties and US-funded fronts posing as nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) many of which are listed on the US State Department's National Endowment for Democracy (NED) website.

The UK Independent in a 2016 article titled, "Venezuela accuses US of plotting coup as Washington warns of 'imminent collapse'," would even admit:

...observers of the region point out that the US has a long history of seeking to interfere in the politics of Venezuela, as well as elsewhere in Latin America. 

In addition to supporting those who ousted Mr Chavez in 2002, the US poured hundreds of thousands of dollars to his opponents via the so-called National Endowment for Democracy.

To understand America's actual role amid Venezuela's unfolding crisis, one must read policy papers produced by organizations called "think tanks" which devise and promote US policy. 

The Brookings Institution is a Fortune 500-funded policy think tank. It is populated by policymakers who represent the collective ambitions of some of the world's most powerful corporate-financier interests including big-oil, defense, agricultural monopolies, pharmaceutical corporations, media interests, and more. 

Image: Just some of the Brookings Institution's corporate-financier sponsors.

Brookings and think tanks similar to it, have regularly produced policy and media guidelines later disseminated across the Western media and Western legislatures through public relations firms and lobbyists. Think tanks are where the real agenda of the West is agreed upon and promoted from.

A recent piece featured upon the Brookings Institution's website titled, "Venezuela: A path out of crisis," lays out a 5-point plan toward escalating Venezuela's already precarious situation (emphasis added): 

1. The United States could expand its assistance to countries that until now have been dependent on Venezuelan oil, as a means to decrease regional support for and dependence on the Maduro government.

2. The United States could increase monetary assistance to credible civil society organizations and nongovernmental organizations able to deliver food and medicines to Venezuelans. By doing so, the United States should make clear that international pressure aims to support democracy, not punish the Venezuelan people.

3. The United States could support efforts by the opposition in Venezuela to build an “off-ramp” that would split moderate elements of the government away from hardliners, encouraging the former to acquiesce to a transition to democracy by lowering their costs of exiting government.

4. The United States could coordinate with international institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to offer financial incentives for holding free and fair elections in 2018, and for the opposition to unify and compete in those elections. Such coordination would also involve developing and publicizing a credible plan to restart Venezuela’s economy.

5. As a last resort, the United States could consider raising economic costs to the government through an expanded sanctions regime that aims to limit Venezuelan earnings from oil exports and block further financing. This policy is risky, given that the Maduro government would be able to more credibly shift blame for the economic crisis onto the United States, and should be accompanied by well-publicized efforts to deliver humanitarian aid through credible civil society and nongovernmental organizations.

It is a prescription for further economic isolation, US-funded political subversion, and with its reference to "a transition to democracy," an oblique call for regime change.

USAID Exposed in Cuba - What it Tells Us About US Subversion Worldwide

December 13, 2014 (Tony Cartalucci - LD) - Revealed in an Associated Press (AP) investigation, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) had for two years attempted to create and exploit a social network within Cuba for the purpose of sparking unrest and overthrowing the Cuban government. The program was an abject failure, primarily because the Cuban government took the necessary measures to investigate, interrogate, and otherwise disrupt what was foreign-backed sedition.

AP would reveal in its report titled, "US co-opted Cuba's hip-hop scene to spark change," that:

The program is laid out in documents involving Creative Associates International, a Washington, D.C., contractor paid millions of dollars to undermine Cuba's communist government. The thousands of pages include contracts, emails, preserved chats, budgets, expense reports, power points, photographs and passports. 

The work included the creation of a "Cuban Twitter" social network and the dispatch of inexperienced Latin American youth to recruit activists, operations that were the focus of previous AP stories.

Far from the first time USAID and other US organizations claiming to be aiding in development but in fact engaged in political subversion, the Cuban program itself was based on another US-backed program used to topple the government of Serbia in 2000, AP would reveal.

The USAID operation involved money covertly funneled into Cuba through front companies and offshore banks. USAID, despite the evidence, has wholly denied the operation, as has other US organizations caught in blatant political subversion.

Regarding USAID's denial, AP would report:

"Any assertions that our work is secret or covert are simply false," USAID said in a statement Wednesday. Its programs were aimed at strengthening civil society "often in places where civic engagement is suppressed and where people are harassed, arrested, subjected to physical harm or worse."

If by "civil society," USAID means networks of political subversion operating in the interests of Wall Street and Washington, then that is precisely what USAID was doing in Cuba, and does elsewhere around the world. However, USAID's insistence that none of its work was "secret or covert" is simply a lie.

AP, in another report titled, "5 things to know about USAID's Cuban hip-hop plan," would reveal that USAID covered up its Cuban program under the guise of "health and civic programs."  The same report would claim that USAID funding was hidden from the Cubans themselves involved in the program, adding an extra layer of duplicity and deceit.

What USAID's Cuban Subversion Tells Us About US Subversion Globally 

1. The United States is engaged in political subversion around the world, disguised as "democracy promotion" and even development aid for "health and civic programs."

2.  It carries out subversion covertly through front companies, proxies, and third-party contractors, then blatantly denies all allegations no matter what evidence is produced by targeted countries, or even Western journalists investigating otherwise undeniable evidence.

3. The US uses social networks, youth groups of musicians, students, and social media groups based on Facebook and Twitter to create the illusion of growing opposition where none exists or exists but constitutes an obscure minority.

4. While the opposition movement engineered by USAID appeared oblivious to US involvement until the end, revealing documents published by AP illustrate just how utterly engineered the movement was, with psychological profiles of prominent members examined and with strategies, agendas, and objectives all determined from the top down by USAID and its contractors. Meeting minutes reveal overt attempts to manipulate individuals USAID sought to bring into their engineered opposition movement with meeting titles and talking points including, "What would motivate them to do what we ask?"

5. Despite lofty claims of "promoting democracy," US programs are manipulative, insidious, dishonest, exploitative, and deceitful - not only to those drawn into the program, but also both the general population subjected to it in the targeted country and the global audience lied to about the true genesis of such movements when they finally do gain traction.

Chavez & Thaksin: A Tale of Two Socialists and Western Hypocrisy

March 6, 2012 (LD) - Confounding was the Australian's (newspaper) recent op-ed titled, "Death of a ruthless autocrat," in regards to the late Hugo Chavez. Confounding not for the op-ed's condemnation of socialist policies or its criticism of Hugo Chavez, an obstruction to Western corporate-financier interests in South America for over a decade, but because of the obscene hypocrisy displayed throughout, from a newspaper and a corporate-financier-academic establishment in Australia that coddles a figure in nearby Thailand that is every bit as guilty of everything it accuses Chavez of.

Image: When is blood-red socialism ok (Thailand) and when is it "ruthless autocracy" (Venezuela)? The answer depends on whether or not you serve Wall Street and London's international order. Contrary to popular belief, socialism is not a unified global ideology and is instead like any tool - only as good or bad as the hands it finds itself in. The use of socialism by two governments no more indicates an affiliation than would guns in the hands of two opposing armies on a battlefield.

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The piece begins with:

HE was lionised as a hero by the Western Left, of course, but it would be hard to find a leader in recent history who more comprehensively betrayed the wellbeing of his country than Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. He was driven by an irrational, demagogic and self-defeating antagonism towards Washington that blinded him to his nation's best interests.

The rambling narrative of the Australian equates to condemning Venezuela for not opening itself up to Western exploitation, domination by corporate-financier monopolies, and the folly of its challenging of the West's campaign of global aggression from Mali, Libya, and Syria, to Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq.

US Plots Conquest of Venezuela in Wake of Chavez' Death

March 6, 2013 (LD) - US corporate-financier funded think-tank, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), declared in its "post-Chávez checklist for US policymakers," that the US must move quickly to reorganize Venezuela according to US interests. Upon its checklist were "key demands":

• The ouster of narco-kingpins who now hold senior posts in government
• The respect for a constitutional succession
• The adoption of meaningful electoral reforms to ensure a fair campaign environment and a transparent vote count in expected presidential elections; and
• The dismantling of Iranian and Hezbollah networks in Venezuela

In reality, AEI is talking about dismantling entirely the obstacles that have prevented the US and the corporate-financier interests that direct it, from installing a client regime and extracting entirely Venezuela's wealth while obstructing, even dismantling the progress and geopolitical influence achieved by the late President Hugo Chavez throughout South America and beyond.

The AEI "checklist" continues by stating:

Now is the time for US diplomats to begin a quiet dialogue with key regional powers to explain the high cost of Chávez’s criminal regime, including the impact of chavista complicity with narcotraffickers who sow mayhem in Colombia, Central America, and Mexico. Perhaps then we can convince regional leaders to show solidarity with Venezuelan democrats who want to restore a commitment to the rule of law and to rebuild an economy that can be an engine for growth in South America.

Of course, by "Venezuelan democrats," AEI means Wall Street-backed  proxies like Henrique Capriles Radonski and his Primero Justicia (Justice First) political front, two entities the Western media is already gearing up to support ahead of anticipated elections.

Argentina Unrest: Brought to you by Goldman Sachs

Wall Street-owned media group "Clarín" spearheading anti-government drive in South America's Argentina. 

Tony Cartalucci
Land Destroyer
November 11, 2012

The US-engineered "Arab Spring" brought us the "April 6 Youth Movement" in Egypt, run by Wall Street-backed Mohammed ElBaradei in coordination with the Muslim Brotherhood, the "February 17 Revolution," consisting of Al Qaeda terrorists of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group in Libya, and now Argentina has the "8N," or "November 8" movement working in coordination with foreign-owned Argentinian media group, "Clarín." Clarin has been enthusiastically supporting the protesters and laying the rhetorical groundwork justifying their street presence.

The Guardian reported in their article, "Argentina protests: up to half a million rally against Fernández de Kirchner," that (emphasis added):

Word of the demonstration spread through social networks. Many organisers remain anonymous, but Mariana Torres, administrator of the Facebook page El Anti-K, one of the most active in calling for the rally, said she was delighted: "It was a true feast for democracy."

There was no single cause of discontent. Many in the middle class are angry at the highest inflation in a decade, estimated at a yearly 25% by private economists, currency controls that have created a black market in dollars, and one of the slowest economic growth rates in Latin America.

Banners and chants also took aim at recent corruption cases and Fernández's efforts to limit the power of big newspaper and TV conglomerates. Clarín, the country's most powerful media group, has stepped up its criticism of the government before the introduction on 7 December of a law that will weaken its empire.

Color Revolutions: Argentina Next?

Suspicion grows as Western criticism of Argentina's nationalization and rebuffing of "rules of global finance" sharpens in tandem with street protests. 

Tony Cartalucci
Land Destroyer
November 9, 2012

Western media agencies have begun enthusiastically covering demonstrations in Argentina's capital, Buenos Aires. CNN, AP, and the BBC have all covered the protests in equally vague terms, failing to identify the leaders and opposition groups behind them, while BBC in particular recycled "Arab Spring" rhetoric claiming that, "opposition activists used social networks to mobilise the march, which they said was one of the biggest anti-government protests in a decade."

The Western media claims the protesters are angry over, "rising inflation, high levels of crime and high-profile corruption cases," all the identical, vague grievances brought into the streets by Wall Street-backed opposition groups in Venezuela. Underneath these unsubstantiated claims, lies the International Monetary Fund, and threats of sanctions aimed at Argentina's turning away from the US Dollar and the Wall Street-London dominated international financial order.

And like in Venezuela, a coordinated campaign against the Argentinian government, led by President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchne, has begun in op-eds across the Western media.

The Chicago Tribune in an op-ed titled, "A wrong turn in Buenos Aires: Argentina's populist economic policies court disaster," stated:

What a shame to see a country of such great economic promise swerving off the road to prosperity again.

The latest in a history of unforced errors began in 2007. National elections ushered in populist President Cristina Fernandez, who has led her nation to the brink of disaster by refusing to play by the rules of global finance. She restricted international trade, violated contracts and pumped out phony data to disguise the soaring inflation her policies brought about. All the while she scored cheap political points by blasting the rich countries of the north for their supposed economic imperialism.

Argentina took a grave step in May when it nationalized YPF, its main energy company. The takeover, condemned around the world, forced out Spain's Grupo Repsol, which owned a majority stake in YPF. Repsol was providing the engineering know-how and financial investment to develop Argentina's massive energy reserves—including the huge Vaca Muerta oil-and-gas find.

Negotiations to compensate Repsol for Argentina's asset-grab will end badly for Argentina. The European Union is likely to impose sanctions. Repsol wants $10 billion, and it has sent the message to rival energy companies that it will not permit others to profit from its confiscated assets. Argentina will have a hard time finding partners to help it develop what should be a lucrative resource.

The financial coup against Repsol won strong national support. The approval ratings of Fernandez temporarily shot up. Even opposition parties backed the move. Government officials talked about how they had restored Argentina's dignity by standing up to foreigners exploiting its natural bounty. Meantime, Fernandez kept the once-hot economy going by nationalizing private pension funds, redirecting the money into housing loans, and expanding welfare programs by decree.

Now Argentina has to pay the price.

What is likely to follow will be coordinated attacks including sanctions, isolation, political attacks, currency attacks, and of course US-engineered unrest in the streets, which can range from protesters merely clogging traffic, to escalating violence triggered by the now notorious "mystery gunmen" used in US unconventional warfare to destabilize, divide, and destroy nations.

But also like in Venezuela, if enough awareness can be raised in regards to what the West is doing, and the disingenuous intentions and interests driving opposition groups into the streets, these efforts being used to coerce Argentina back into the Western dominated "world order" articulated by US think-tank policy makers like Robert Kagan as serving "the needs of the United States and its allies, which constructed it," can ultimately be thwarted. 

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If you are in Argentina, or are familiar with the opposition groups now demonstrating against the Argentinian government, with knowledge of their leaders, demands, ideology, and affiliations, please contact the Land Destroyer Report at cartalucci@gmail.com. 

Venezuela's Victory Over Wall Street

Venezuela looks to have effectively outmaneuvered Western designs to overthrow national sovereignty, but many challenges lay ahead. 
by Tony Cartalucci

Image: President Hugo Chavez soundly defeated US-backed opposition, despite a coordinated propaganda campaign, and millions of US State Department dollars utilized to manipulate the elections. Venezuela still faces many challenges.

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October 8, 2012 - Venezuela has provided the world with a successful model to counter the subversive methods of Wall Street and London in their bid to overthrow yet another nation-state to be rolled into their global collective. However, many have noted that President Hugo Chavez is a flawed leader, with flawed policies - many of which run contra to concepts of personal freedom and liberty.

While this could be said about virtually any politician, the fact is that despite President Chavez' flaws, he has posed a substantial obstacle to Western ambitions across South America, and has consistently opposed Western machination across the world.

It has been pointed out however, that President Chavez is heading a political movement very similar to the highly criticized, Wall Street proxy, Thaksin Shinawatra of Thailand - that is, using populist policies to build a reliable voting bloc to stay perpetually in power. In many aspects this is true, though Venezuela's policies are sustainable, and a direct result of nationalizing the oil industry, while Shinawatra of Thailand simply took money out of state coffers while attempting to further privatize and sell-off to foreign multinationals, Thailand's vast resources.

Also, political and economic policies are erroneously viewed by many as "sides" one is either on or against. In reality, the global elite see them simply as tools, and their use dictated not by personal preference or ideology, but by utility given any specific circumstance. Whether one is "good" or "bad," when they are presented with boards that must be nailed together, they pick a hammer. Likewise, when a nation must be unified against a large, capable political opposition - political machines, populism, and socialist policies are generally used.

It is difficult to see what other effective method President Chavez could have used against the West in organizing the Venezuelan people against the collective corporate-financier interests arrayed against them and the substantial foreign subversion President Chavez has faced throughout his political career. Boards needed to be nailed together, and President Chavez elected to use a hammer. He is succeeding, and as his political structure is hammered together, taking a more distinct and stable form, it will soon be time to take out other tools to further refine it.

Ensuring A Stable, Enduring Structure

As Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez consolidates his position, it will be important to move beyond the populist policies required to win over people in the face of concerted efforts by foreign-funded opposition to win them over. In "Free Markets & Socialism: An Alternative View," it stated: 

Socialist handouts are tools. Like any tool they are only as good as the people using them. While the intentions of socialist medicine, welfare, education and so on seem noble, in reality they are primarily used by self-serving crooked politicians as bribes handed out in exchange for the voting public's servile dependency on a particular political agenda. Generations of voting blocs have been created using socialist handouts in just this fashion. Pragmatic solutions are never seriously pursued because pragmatic, permanent solutions - while alleviating entirely any particular social problem - would undermine the real purpose of the handouts, namely, building a dependent, servile voting bloc.

However, let us imagine socialist handouts for a particular social problem such as medical care applied in the context of a temporary stop-gap measure. While people are subsidized for care, the commitments are temporary and voluntary only to prevent people from dying without proper treatment. Meanwhile, investments are put into education and biomedical technology with specific benchmarks and time frames in mind. Simultaneously, barriers such as crippling "intellectual property rights" and monopolizing business practices are eliminated to allow real competition to flourish.

By increasing the supply of trained practitioners and biomedical engineers through improved education, and advancing biomedical technology past current levels of precarious scarcity the price for medical care will drop accordingly. With monopolies eliminated, real progress can be effected. If a particular company has a viable, affordable treatment for cancer, no established monopoly will be able to lobby Washington to regulate it out of business to protect their particular racket. Similar solutions could also easily be applied to the inadequate, antiquated, parasitic oil and car industries as well.

We should look around society today and take stock in industries and commodities we take for granted. We do not kill one another over the last chicken leg or leaf of lettuce nor do many people go without basic food. This is not because we have mastered subsidizing socialist handouts to feed our populations, rather we have developed agricultural technology that allows us to create an affordable market nearly anyone can benefit from under normal circumstances.

Likewise, medical technology and other essential industries can and must be advanced to where the market price is affordable to all. This will not happen with socialist handouts or monopolizing regulations in place. It will happen with improved education and healthy competition within the markets, where the only protection given is the rights of entrepreneurs big and small to pursue their trade without being hindered by monopolistic practices. In the meantime, it is sensible to transition away from total, permanent (and pandering) socialist solutions and move toward temporary stop-gaps until this is achieved.

It should be understood that the concept of a "free market" described above does not refer to absolute economic anarchy. For instance, should Venezuela elect to pursue more permanent, technological solutions to problems currently subsidized, they would not by necessity "open their markets" to foreign multinationals and crippling "neoliberalism." In many ways the West already observes truly "free markets," or economic anarchy where giant corporations are free to do anything they wish, including wage massive, global wars in pursuit of their interests. The constricting laws and regulations many well-intentioned free-market advocates abhor, have been imposed by these unhindered, anarchical corporations, not by a "socialist government." What these advocates perceive as a "socialist government" is in fact an interface created and controlled by unhindered, unregulated, unaccountable corporate-financier interests. 

Image: Building things, making things, technological and scientific progress moves forward the frontier of human knowledge and makes all that follows in its wake more accessible and affordable to the average person. The next step of any genuine socialist movement aiming to meet the immediate needs of the people, is to empower the people through education and technology with the means to develop permanent technological solutions to replace what should be only temporary government-dependent subsidies. Socialism as a final end, is but another system of control. 

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For Venezuela, the threat of foreign subversion is still very real. There is a very real global network of subversion maintained by the corporate-financier interests of Wall Street and London, forming the foundation of modern imperialism. For President Hugo Chavez to move on to the next step, to put down the hammer and begin using more articulate tools, he would have to effectively communicate these intentions to his support base and ensure that the Venezuelan people are aware of the dangers and payoffs of pursuing the next step.

Finally, as a growing front of nations begin to rise up against Western global hegemony and the "Washington Consensus," it is important that people around the world prevent an identical, but opposing global order to take its place. Global governance by any name, administered by any nation, or group of nations, is unnecessary and only serves to subvert national, local, and individual sovereignty. A mulipolar world where the mutual respect of national sovereignty, and the primacy of the nation-state is it's foremost principle, is what we the people of the world should not only demand of our representatives, but should work on a daily basis locally to achieve.

Venezuela Opposition Founded by Wall Street Alumni

US prepares to "restore democracy" with Wall Street-groomed opposition.
by Tony Cartalucci 

October 8, 2012 - In "US Prepares for Overthrow of Venezuela," US policy papers and US State Department National Endowment for Democracy (NED) funding was exposed as openly conspiring to meddle in and manipulate upcoming Venezuelan elections. The opposition party which includes presidential contender, Henrique Capriles Radonski, called Primero Justicia (Justice First) was co-founded by Leopoldo Lopez and Julio Borges, who like Radonski, have been backed for nearly a decade by the US State Department. Primero Justicia and the network of foreign-funded NGOs that support it have been recipients of both direct and indirect foreign support for at least just as long.

Image: US State Department document (archived) illustrating the role NED-funded NGOs play in supporting US-backed opposition figures in Venezuela. The US regularly fails to transparently list who is included in extensive funding NED provides opposition groups in Venezeula, so documents like this give a rare glimpse into the names and dynamics actually involved. As was suspected, NED money is going into networks providing support for current presidential candidate, Henrique Capriles Radonski.  In this particular document, NED-funded Sumate's legal trouble is described in relation to its attempted defense of Radonski. At the time this document was written, Radonski was in jail pending trial for his role in facilitating the 2002 US-backed failed coup against President Hugo Chavez. The document may still be online at the US State Department's official website here.

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All three co-founders are US educated - Radonski having attended New York's Columbia University (Spanish), Julio Borges attending Boston College and Oxford (Spanish), and Leopoldo Lopez who attended the Harvard Kennedy School of Government (KSG), of which he is considered an alumni of (and here).

The Harvard Kennedy School, which hosts the notorious Belfer Center, includes the following faculty and alumni of  Lopez, co-founder of the current US-backed opposition in Venezuela:

John P. Holdren, Samantha Power, Lawrence Summers, Robert Zoellick, (all as faculty), as well as Ban Ki-Moon ('84), Paul Volcker ('51), Robert Kagan ('91), Bill O'Reilly ('96), Klaus Schwab ('67), and literally hundreds of senators, ambassadors, and administrators of Wall Street and London's current global spanning international order. Harvard's Kennedy School of Government (KSG) is clearly one of several universities that form the foundation of both creating corporate-financier driven globalist-international policy, as well as cultivating legions of administrators to execute it.

To understand fully the implications of Lopez' education it helps to understand the leadership and principles guiding Harvard's mission statements, best exemplified by KSG' Belfer Center, which to this day, lends its public support to Lopez and his Primero Justicia opposition party.

Image: John P. Holdren (bearded, left), an advocate for population reduction through forced sterilization overseen by a "planetary regime," is just one of many "colorful" characters to be found within the halls of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government from which Primero Justicia co-founder Leopoldo Lopez of Venezuela graduated. To this day, KSG provides forums in support of US-backed opposition bids at seizing power in Venezuela. 

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Named after Robert Belfer of the Belco Petroleum Corporation and later, director of the failed Enron Corporation, the Belfer Center describes itself as being "the hub of the Harvard Kennedy School's research, teaching, and training in international security affairs, environmental and resource issues, and science and technology policy." Robert Belfer still sits in as an International Council Member.

Belfer's director, Graham Allison provides an example of self-serving corporatism steering US policy. He was a founder of the Trilateral Commission, a director of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), a consultant to the RAND Corporation, Director of the Getty Oil Company, Natixis, Loomis Sayles, Hansberger, Taubman Centers, Inc., and Belco Oil and Gas, as well as a member of the advisory boards of Chase Bank, Chemical Bank, Hydro-Quebec, and the shady International Energy Corporation, all according to his official Belfer Center bio.

Other questionable personalities involved as Belfer alumnus are Goldman Sachs, CFR member, and former-World Bank president Robert Zoellick. Sitting on the board of directors is CFR member and former Goldman Sachs consultant, Ashton Carter. There is also former director of Citigroup and Raytheon, former Director of Central Intelligence and CFR member John Deutch, who required a pardon by Clinton to avoid prosecution over a breach of security while fumbling his duties at the CIA. Meanwhile, Nathaniel Rothschild of Atticus Capital and RIT Capital Partners, Paul Volcker of the Federal Reserve, and former DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff all serve as Belfer Center's "advisers."

Last but not least, there is John P. Holdren, also a Council on Foreign Relations member, science adviser to both President Clinton and President Obama, and co-author with Paul Ehrilich, of the now notorious "Ecoscience." When Holdren isn't brand-building for "Climate Disruption," he is dreaming of a Malthusian fueled totalitarian global government that forcibly sterilizes the world's population. He feared, erroneously, that overpopulation would be the end of humanity. He claimed in his hubris filled, fact deficient book, "The No Growth Society," that by the year 2040, the United States would have a dangerously unsustainable population of 280 million he called "much too many." The current US population is over 300 million, and despite reckless leadership and policies, it is still sustainable.

One could argue that Lopez' education is in his past, independent of his current political activities, however, the interests driving the agenda of the Belfer Center are demonstrably still backing his Primero Justicia party's bid for seizing power in Venezuela. Lopez, Radonski, and Borges are to this day still receiving substantial funding and support through NGO networks funded directly by the US State Department's National Endowment for Democracy, and is clearly favored by the Western press. Furthermore, the CFR, Heritage Foundation, and other corporate-financier driven think-tanks have all come out in support of Radonski and Primero Justicia, in their bid to "restore democracy" American-style in Venezuela.

Whatever one may think about current Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and his policies, he has nationalized his nation's oil, forcing out foreign multinational corporations, diversified his exports to reduce dependency on Western markets (with US exports at a 9 year low), and has openly opposed corporate-financier neo-imperialism across the globe. He is an obstruction to Western hegemony and provides a point of leverage against the West's continued assault on the nation-state.

And while many critics are quick to claim President Chavez' policies are a "failure," it would be helpful to remember that the US, on record, has arrayed its vast resources both overtly and covertly against the Venezuelan people over the years to ensure that any system outside the West's sphere of influence inevitably fails.

Chavez, the US, and the Destabilization of Venezuela

Eric Draitser

StopImperialism.com

October 7, 2012 

Venezuela goes to the polls this Sunday in an election many are calling a referendum on President Chavez and his policies.  Although there is surely such a dimension, the significance of the elections goes far beyond political opinion and partisan bickering, striking at the heart of the Venezuelan state.   This is because these elections will be used as a front for an attempt to overthrow, by brute force if necessary, the democratically elected government and put in its place a government more amenable to US interests.  If this sounds familiar, it should.  This is precisely the same tactic tried in 2002 in a US-instigated coup that, though it briefly deposed Chavez, ultimately failed.  Now, ten years later, the US imperialist ruling class is prepared to try their hand at regime change in Venezuela once more.

The Destabilization Strategy

Sunday’s election presents the ideal opportunity for US intelligence to instigate some kind of coup or “color” revolution in Venezuela.  However, in order to achieve this insidious goal, there are very specific strategies, tactics, and contingencies which must be understood.  In his paper, published by the Council on Foreign Relations, former US Ambassador to Venezuela Patrick Duddy presents a number of scenarios in which the election becomes the centerpiece of a destabilization campaign.  Perhaps the most important of these scenarios, one which would be in keeping with the tradition of “color” revolutions all over the world, is the outbreak of violence in the hours after the winner is announced.  Duddy writes, “most plausible scenarios for instability and conflict in Venezuela derive from the premise that the Chavistas will not willingly surrender power and would be willing to provoke violence, orchestrate civil unrest, or engage in various forms of armed resistance to avoid doing so.”  Naturally, Duddy fails to explain for whom such a scenario would be deemed “plausible”.  Because of the nature of the paper and the author, it is fair to assume that he is referring to the US intelligence community for whom this is “plausible”.  Of course, this assertion is made with no precedent of historical evidence of Chavistas engaging in such behavior.  Rather, this is precisely the type of unrest fomented by the United States in the service of regime change.

Continue reading on StopImperialism.com 

US Prepares for Overthrow of Venezuela

Rigged polling, coordinated Western propaganda campaign, and open conspiracy to install Henrique Capriles Radonski as head of new Western client-regime.
by Tony Cartalucci

Image: CFR's "Center for Preventative Action's" Contingency Planning Memo #6 is in reality a blueprint for meddling in Venezuela's elections and providing a framework to further undermine the government of President Hugo Chavez should he win another term in office. The .pdf can be found archived here. 

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October 5, 2012 - The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), a think tank representing the collective interests and policies of the unelected, supranational corporate-financier interests that fund it, has issued a "Contingency Planning Memorandum (.pdf)" directed toward the South American nation of Venezuela which states the following:

In the coming months, Venezuela could experience significant political unrest and violence that lead to the further curtailment of democracy in the country. Presidential elections are scheduled to take place on October 7, 2012. President Hugo Chavez is in the midst of a tough reelection campaign against Henrique Capriles Radonski—the young and energetic governor of the state of Miranda––who enjoys multiparty support and appears to have a better chance of defeating the incumbent than earlier challengers. 

Over the course of the past year, Chavez and several of his most senior associates have asserted that there will be instability and violence if he is not reelected. At the same time, Chavez is battling cancer, but he has shared little information with the public about the state of his health beyond the fact that he has twice  been treated  for  the disease  since spring 2011.  Speculation about  Chavez’s health problems has generated considerable uncertainty among his supporters, especially since he has  not  anointed  a  successor.  Should  Chavez  appear  to  be  losing  the  election,  die  suddenly, or withdraw from public life for health reasons, tensions are likely to rise in Venezuela, especially if the public  suspects  that  Chavez  has  used  extra-constitutional  means to preclude  or  invalidate  an opposition victory in order to sustain his regime’s hold on power. Protests over such actions, which could turn violent, may in turn lead to the imposition of martial law and the further curtailment of democratic  rights  in  Venezuela. This would  almost certainly  trigger  a  major  political  crisis in the Western  Hemisphere that pits  countries seeking to restore democracy and the rule of law in Venezuela—including  the  United States—against  those  who  support  Chavez  and  the  principle  of noninterference in the internal affairs of other states. Longstanding U.S. efforts to promote good governance in Latin America as well as cooperation on a range of political, economic, and security challenges in the region would be threatened as a consequence.

Accordingly, the United States should seek free and fair elections in Venezuela. If Chavez or a replacement candidate is defeated, it should offer to help promote an orderly, peaceful transition. If Chavez is reelected in a process judged acceptably free and fair, the United States should seek to reset the bilateral relationship with an eye toward the eventual renewal of high-level communication on areas of mutual interest. If the election results appear fraudulent or apparently legitimate results are nullified,  the  United  States  should  encourage  international  pressure  to  restore  democracy  and suspend bilateral business as usual until a legitimate government is restored. 

The above scenario is one that has been repeated by the United States in nation after nation, from Eastern Europe, to Southeast Asia, across the Arab World during the US-engineered "Arab Spring," and already once in Venezuela itself in 2002, when similar rhetoric served as cover for the attempted but failed violent overthrow of Hugo Chavez' elected government.

Ironic indeed that one of the many co-conspirators involved in the US-backed 2002 coup attempt against Hugo Chavez' government, is the current candidate running against him this year for the Venezuelan presidency. Indeed, Henrique Capriles Radonski was arrested and implicated numerous times for his role during the 2002 orchestrated unrest, the same unrest the CFR predicts will rack the country this year should their proxy candidate not smoothly enter into office. In 2002, as mayor of Baruta, Radonski failed to protect the Cuban embassy located within his jurisdiction, and his police even arrested  President Chavez' Interior Minister, Ramon Rodriguez Chacin.

Now, the West is attempting to lay the groundwork for a repeat performance. The rhetoric under which overt, most likely armed violence will be carried out, hinges on a singular, very predictable talking point permeating the Western corporate media - that is, that twice elected Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez will lose upcoming elections and plans on "stealing them."

The Middle East & then the World

Globalist blitzkrieg signals largest geopolitical reordering since WW2.
analysis by Tony Cartalucci

Beginning in North Africa, now unfolding in the Middle East and Iran, and soon to spread to Eastern Europe and Asia, the globalist fueled color revolutions are attempting to profoundly transform entire regions of the planet in one sweeping move. It is an ambitious gambit, perhaps even one born of desperation, with the globalists' depravity and betrayal on full display to the world with no opportunity to turn back now.

To understand the globalists' reasoning behind such a bold move, it helps to understand their ultimate end game and the obstacles standing between them and their achieving it.

The End Game

The end game of course is a world spanning system of global governance. This is a system controlled by Anglo-American financiers and their network of global institutions ensuring the world's consolidated nations conform to a singular system they can then perpetually fleece. As megalomaniacal oligarchs, their singular obsession is the consolidation and preservation of their power. This will be achieved through a system of population control, industrial control, and monetary control, which together form the foundation of their Malthusian policies.

These policies are on full display in the UN's "Agenda 21," and by policy wonks like the current White House Science Adviser John Holdren in his book titled "Ecoscience."

Malthusian as their policies may be, they surely do not believe the world is in danger due to over-population or the environmental hazards posed by industrial progress. Instead, like all tyrants in history, they are establishing a convincing narrative to defend the immense concentration of undue power within their elitist hands and the implementation of measures to ensure such power stays in their hands indefinitely.

The immediate dangers posed to their plans are numerous, including an alternative media increasingly exposing the true nature of their agenda, and thus awakening a vast number of people who simply refuse to go along with it. There is also national sovereignty, where nations are openly challenging this Anglo-American centric world order and refusing to implement the conditions of their own enslavement.

These sweeping color revolutions, and coordinated military operations, both overt and covert, are dealing with the latter of these two challenges, while censorship, cognitive infiltration, and a tightening police state spanning the Western world under the very false premise of a "War on Terror" confronts the former.

Red = US-backed destabilization, Blue = US occupying/stationed.
China's oil and seaways are all covered.

The Middle East

With the globalist fueled destabilization in progress, concessions and regime changes are being made from Jordan to Egypt, all in the name of "democratization." The protesters' calls are verbatim repeats of the their local US funded NGOs' mission statements. Skeptical as many may be that all of this is being orchestrated by the West, one needs only read the RAND Corporation's 2007 report titled "Building Moderate Muslim Networks" where breathtaking confessions are made to not only reorder the Muslim world according to the West's interests, but how they would follow the same model of "civil society networks" they have already used for decades during the Cold War.

Egypt's recent "transition" played out as a direct translation of RAND's blueprint for meddling in the Muslim world. From the protest organizers and NGOs to the protest leaders, to the behind-the-scenes meddling by America's military leadership, the Egyptian uprising was entirely a US production. Even the drafting of the new Egyptian Constitution is being carried out by organizations funded by George Soros and the US National Endowment for Democracy.

The regional destabilization is resetting the geopolitical board in favor for a renewed effort to affect regime change in Iran. It has been extensively covered that the globalists have intricate and extensive plans, in the form of Brookings Institute's "Which Path to Persia?" report, to fund color revolutions, support terrorism inside of the Islamic Republic and even provoke war with a nation they concede would rather avoid conflict. No sooner did North African and Arab regimes begin to crumble did the "Green Revolution" in Iran start up again. As if reiterating the summation of Brookings' report, the globalist Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) has recently and overtly called on the US to back the "Green Revolution."

Iran's fall to the globalists, the extraction of its wealth, and the end of its support for Chinese and Russian economic and military ambitions would isolate the so-called Shanghai Cooperative Organization further.

NATO creeping forward, suffering failures in Ukraine, Belarus, and Georgia.

Russia's Encirclement

Russia, along with China appear to be the two biggest blocs of opposition to the Anglo-American establishment. Indeed there are plenty of people and organizations within each nation gladly working hand-in-hand with the globalists, who in turn, are overtly trying to tempt and coerce the two nations to integrate themselves into their global world order.

Men like Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who rose to power in Russia amongst an era of immense corruption, began building networks of NGOs modeled directly after those of the Anglo-Americans in the West, even naming this network the "Open Russian Foundation" after George Soros' Open Society Foundation. According to geopolitical researcher William Engdahl, this Open Russian Foundation included Henry Kissinger and Lord Jacob Rothschild on its board of directors and its goal was to transform Russia from a sovereign state and into something more palatable for globalist consumption.

Whatever Khdorkovsky's early successes may have been, they were cut short by Russian Prime Minister Vladamir Putin, who has safely confined Khodorkovsky behind the bars of a Siberian prison. Today, Khdorkovsky receives lobbying and legal services from notorious globalist lawyer Robert Amsterdam who leads international efforts to vilify Russia and justify the nation's encirclement by NATO.

After Tunisia fell and protests began brewing in Egypt, Foreign Policy magazine published the Freedom House's list of "Who's Next?" On the list was Belarus' Aleksandr Lukashenko, leader of a European nation directly bordering Russia's western border, staring Moscow in the face. NATO itself admits the reluctance of Belarus to join its now unjustified organization, while the mainstream media berates the Belarusian government for putting down protests launched after the results of recent elections that saw the Western-backed opposition defeated.

Looking at a map of Russia, not a nation touching its borders has been spared the globalist treatment, from the Ukraine and their US-backed Orange Revolution, to Georgia and its US-backed invasion of South Ossetia. For Russia, they seem more than prepared to fight back, humiliating the US-trained and equipped Georgian military on the battlefield and overseeing the results of the US-funded Orange Revolution overturned, with Ukrainian talks to join NATO halted.

By targeting the Middle East, and in particular Iran, which both China and Russia have been using to check the West's world domineering ambitions, the globalists' hope is to renew political unrest in Russia's satellite regions and complete its campaign of encircling Russia, thus forcing it to concede to its place amongst the new global order.

SSI's "String of Pearls:" China's oil lifeline.

China's String of Pearls

It is no secret China depends on oil imports to not only keep its economy growing, but to keep its vast population busy and prosperous, thus keeping the ruling government in power. This has been a long known realism by both China and the West. For China's part, they have begun building a presence on continental Africa, especially in Sudan where they have established a 1,000 mile oil pipeline from the vast nation's heartland to Port Sudan on the Red Sea. They have also provided relief to the country from UN sanctions and buys the majority of Sudan's oil exports.

China also imports an immense amount of oil from Iran. In fact, the Islamic Republic represents the world's second largest exporter of oil to China, behind Saudi Arabia.

From Sudan and Iran, across the Indian Ocean, and back to China's shores in the South China Sea, represents a "String of Pearls," or a series of geopolitical assets China is developing to protect this vital logistical route. This "String" includes a Chinese port in Pakistan's Baluchistan region, another facility in Myanmar (Burma), and expanded facilities in the South China Sea off the coast of Vietnam. China is also building up the size and capabilities of its fleet, including submarines which now shadow America's carrier groups, and the outfitting of their first aircraft carrier which is nearing completion.

The term "String of Pearls" was used as the title of the US Strategic Studies Institute's (SSI) 2006 report "String of Pearls: Meeting the challenge of China’s rising power across the Asian littoral." In this report, China's ambitions to project its power along this route is viewed as a direct challenge to American supremacy as well as a threat to the West's unipolar vision of a "new world order."

While China may not be a champion of human freedom, they do appear to favor a multipolar world where sovereign nations coexist instead of the Anglo-American unipolar world where, unsurprisingly, the British and American oligarchs dominate the planet.

To prevent such a multipolar world from coming into existence, the SSI report suggests several strategies regarding China, from engaging and enticing it to become what globalist pusher Robert Zoellick calls a "responsible stakeholder" in the "international system," to outright military confrontation and containment.

Of course this report was written in July 2006, and the ink hadn't even dried before Israel suffered a humiliating defeat in its war with Lebanon, the war with Iran stalled, and globalist minion Thaksin Shinawtra was ousted from power in Thailand in a display of jealously defended sovereignty in Southeast Asia.

It appears that the globalists, over the following years, would present China with a flattering role to play in their global order while simultaneously destabilizing nearly every nation along the "String of Pearls." The US has expanded its war in Afghanistan and is attempting to balkanize Pakistan in the process, specifically the Baluchistan region where China is establishing a naval presence. Pakistan's Baluchistan region is also the seaside starting point of an energy and logistical conduit running northward through the Himalayas and into Chinese territory. The US is also heavily involved in destabilizing Myanmar (Burma) to affect regime change and subsequently establishing a Washington dependent government.

Thailand neighbors Myanmar to the east and possesses the narrow Kra Isthmus China would like to develop into a Suez/Panama Canal-like project to shorten trips for its oil laden, China-bound tankers. Thailand also serves as an overland conduit, running north and south as in Pakistan, with a developed rail system connecting Singapore's shipping yards to Laos' capital of Vientiane. China has begun the development of a rail system through Laos and the upgrading of Thailand's rail system. Thailand also is one of the world's largest rice exporters, which makes the nation vital to China's future growth.

It is no surprise then, that Thailand, like Myanmar, has suffered multiple attempts by the US to affect regime change. Their man, Thaksin Shinawatra is an overt globalist, having formally served as an adviser to the Carlyle Group, and since his ousting from power in 2006, has been lobbied for by everyone from James Baker's Baker Botts, to ICG's Kenneth Adelman and the Edelman PR firm, to his current lobbyist and lawyer, Robert Amsterdam.

It is quite clear that Washington is using its control of the Middle East and its control of the seas, albeit challenged control, to check China's vastly superior financial and economic position. It is also clear that Washington is investing a great amount of military resources and intelligence assets to destabilize the entire "String of Pearls" to confound, contain, and leverage concessions from China, with the ultimate goal of folding the emerging Asian giant into the unipolar Anglo-American global order.

How well this strategy is working is debatable, however, the US military is politically hobbled, strategically stretched, and led by vastly incompetent leaders in Washington who have lost the faith and trust of their own population, not to mention the world. The bold and perhaps desperate gambit the US is playing out in the Middle East could be a bid to rectify years of failure against China and the Shanghai Cooperative since the SSI wrote their report in 2006. Regime change in Iran is still the linchpin in making this latest bid a success.

South America

Even South America is not spared. There has been a lull in overt American meddling, allowing South America to become a bastion of sorts against the agents of globalization, however, covert operations and staging has been ongoing.

Troubling reports coming from South America's Argentina, no stranger to the ire of Anglo-American ambitions, indicate that tension is building up between Buenos Aires and Washington. It has culminated in a diplomatic row over a recently seized US C-17 transport chalk full of suspicious equipment and an even more suspicious explanation. This is leading many, including the government of Argentina, to believe the US is staging another round of destabilization efforts in South America.

Venezuela and Bolivia have been overtly targeted by the West in recent years by efforts to undermine and even overthrow their respective governments. The muted-confused response over the coup in Honduras also raises suspicions that America has begun striking back against the wave of regional nationalism sweeping South America. A visit over to Movements.org reveals that the US State Department/corporate funded organization is backing dissidents in Venezuela and encouraging the spread of "civil society," gleefully noting the insidious effects it is having on bolstering the anti-Chavez opposition.

Conclusion

The recent US-backed wave of revolution sweeping the Middle East is just the beginning of a greater move to dislodge Iran and begin regaining ground against Russia and China after several years of disappointing results geopolitically. The ultimate goal in mind is to force Russia and China to accept their role as "responsible stakeholders" in the unipolar Anglo-American "new world order." The unipolar world of Anglo-American financier domination requires that all competition be eliminated, all nations become interdependent, and most importantly, all governments conform to the globalists' model of "civil society" which in turn answers to centralized global institutions.

Understanding the overarching plan reveals the danger of being apathetic or complacent about the current unrest in the Middle East. It will surely spread, and depending on the Shanghai Cooperative's response and their determination to remain the masters of their own destiny, greater confrontation may ensue. For the United States and its dwindling power, its meaningless offers to the world's nations to join their bankrupt, one-sided model of world governance, and their growing economic mire, there is no telling what their desperation may transform into. This unpredictability and desperation may be perhaps the only card they have left in their hand worth playing, and one that should trouble us all.