WikiLeaks Expose US Duplicity, Zardari Govt's Complicity; Fuel Popular Anger In Pakistan

Diplomatic cables from the US Embassy in Islamabad released by WikiLeaks have exposed the criminal and duplicitous role played by both Washington and the Pakistani government, fueling popular anger against US operations in the country.

The Pakistani People’s Party coalition government led by President Asif Ali Zardari has been among the most vociferous in its denunciations of WikiLeaks’ release of the classified US documents, and for good reason.

Pakistan's Foreign Ministry described WikiLeaks as “irresponsible” in a statement issued Monday. A senior diplomat quoted in the Washington Post said that Pakistan was frustrated “over how the world’s sole superpower can’t keep its secrets and confidences and how that makes it so much more difficult to be America’s friend.”

For his part, the US ambassador to Pakistan, Cameron Munter, drafted a newspaper column published in both English and Urdu, which declared, “The United States deeply regrets the disclosure of any information that was intended to be confidential. And we condemn it.”

The cables underscore the extremely tenuous relationship between Washington and a government that is supposedly a principal ally in its “war on terrorism.” The cables indicate US mistrust and even contempt for Zardari and even greater suspicion toward the military and its secretive intelligence arm, the ISI.

A cable written last February by then US Ambassador Anne Patterson described Zardari and the civilian government as “weak, ineffectual and corrupt.” She added, “Domestic politics is dominated by uncertainty about the fate of President Zardari.”

Indeed, another cable cites a discussion between US Vice President Joe Biden and Zardari in early 2009 in which the Pakistani president expressed his concern that the “ISI director and [Gen. Ashfaq Parvez] Kayani will take me out.”

The US government apparently knew more than it was sharing with Zardari. Another cable describes a conversation held during the same period in which General Kayani told Ambassador Patterson that he “might, however reluctantly,” move to force Zardari from office.

Washington, which has over the years pursued its policies in Pakistan by backing a series of repressive military dictatorships, was apparently ambivalent over the threatened coup, viewing Zardari as a more pliant servant of US interests, while recognizing that the real power in Pakistan remained in the hands of the military.

Many of the cables expose Washington and Islamabad as partners in carrying out bloody crimes and deception against the Pakistani people.

As the US has stepped up its military operations in the region, dubbing its intervention the “Afpak war,” the Zardari government has attempted to assuage popular anger by posing as an opponent of US violations of Pakistani sovereignty.

This has particularly been the case in relation to the drone missile attacks carried out by remotely controlled unmanned CIA aircraft in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) bordering Afghanistan.

The Obama administration has sharply escalated these attacks, producing an ever-growing number of civilian casualties. Pakistani authorities acknowledged the deaths of some 700 civilians from drone missiles last year alone.

While Pakistani officials have routinely condemned the attacks, the cables make explicit the green light that the authorities in Islamabad gave for the CIA’s slaughter from the air.

One of these cables contains a request from an Interior Ministry official, Rehman Malik, that the US “hold off” the attacks until after the Pakistani military completed an operation in the FATA region of Bajaur.

Another cites an even more cynical statement from the country’s prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, who announced at a meeting, “I don’t care if they do it as long as they get the right people. We’ll protest in the National Assembly and then ignore it.”

It was widely understood that this was the real position of the Pakistani government. But having it produced verbatim in the form of a US diplomatic cable can only further inflame the hatred that millions feel for both the politicians in Islamabad and their patrons in Washington.

The cables also confirm that US Special Operations troops are participating in combat in the tribal regions.

Formally, the Pakistani government has declared its unyielding opposition to any US ground troops fighting on Pakistani soil. But, as the cables make clear, it agreed to it in practice.

As the Guardian newspaper, citing the embassy cables, reports, “Small teams of US special forces have been secretly embedded with Pakistani military forces in the tribal belt, helping to hunt down Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters and co-ordinate drone attacks.”

Cables from US representatives in Islamabad boasted of the Pakistani government’s agreement to allow the US counterinsurgency troops to operate inside the country, describing it as a “sea change in thinking” on the part of the country’s military. The embassy cautioned that the agreement had to remain secret, as it would be deeply unpopular with the Pakistani people, and its exposure could force the Pakistani military to shift its position.

Just as significant are cables that prove that the Obama administration deliberately covered up for war crimes by the Pakistani military in the course of a military offensive that Washington had demanded be undertaken against the Taliban in the tribal region.

The US ambassador, Anne Patterson, wrote to Washington in September 2009, warning that “A growing body of evidence is lending credence to allegations of human rights abuses by Pakistan security forces.”

She spelled out that members of Pakistan’s regular army and the paramilitary frontier corps were responsible for summarily executing many hundreds of people detained in the course of the offensive. She added that as many as 5,000 “terrorist detainees” were at risk.

In response, Patterson proposed that Washington could offer human rights training and promote prison reform. However, she steadfastly opposed taking any actions to actually stop the killings.

The embassy “fully recognizes that there is little that USG [US government] can do to change the culture of revenge that underlies many of the extra-judicial killings,” she wrote.

Patterson added, “Much of this is dependent on goodwill … that can easily erode if too much public criticism from USG officials over these incidents is forthcoming. For this reason, post advises that we avoid comment … and that efforts remain focused on dialogue and the assistance strategy.”

Under US law, the government is required to cut off assistance to foreign militaries found to have engaged in human rights violations.

The Obama administration followed the ambassador’s advice and covered up for the crimes of its ally as long as it could. Only last month, after a video surfaced providing incontrovertible evidence of summary executions of prisoners, did the US government announce plans to cut off aid to a few Pakistani military units.

This record of complicity and conspiracy notwithstanding, the cables also underscore the deep distrust that Washington feels for its client state in Pakistan.

This particularly emerges in relation to its nuclear program, which has been the focus of most of the media’s coverage of the Pakistan cables.

One cable sent by the US embassy to Richard Holbrooke, Obama’s special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan, expresses concerns that “someone working in the government” at Pakistan’s nuclear facilities “could gradually smuggle enough material out to make a weapon” to be used by terrorists.

Other cables expressed frustration over the Pakistani government’s stalling on an agreement reached with the US to remove unused fuel from a research reactor. It cited concerns by the Pakistani Foreign Ministry that if the plan became public the media “would portray it as the United States taking Pakistan’s nuclear weapons.”

While no doubt Pakistan’s ruling elite and military have built up a nuclear capacity for their own reactionary and predatory interests, it has also been pushed into an arms race largely by Washington’s own policy in the region. In particular, the US has sought to strengthen Pakistan’s regional rival, India, as a counterweight to China, giving New Delhi a pass for its defiance of the world nuclear regulatory regime and providing it with aid that allows it to turn its nuclear program to the buildup of weapons.

Similarly, a number of the cables express frustration over the Pakistani military’s refusal to undertake an offensive against Afghan armed resistance groups taking refuge in Pakistan, particularly the Haqqani network and forces loyal to Gulbaddin Hekmatyar.

A cable written by Ambassador Patterson in February of last year praises Zardari for agreeing on the need to jointly combat the insurgency on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. She adds, however, “The military and the ISI have not yet made that leap; they still view India as their principal threat and Afghanistan as strategic depth in a possible conflict with India. They continue to provide overt or tacit support for proxy forces (including the Haqqani group, Commander Nazir, Gulbaddin Hekmatyar, and Lashkar-e-Taiba) as a foreign policy tool.”

Under conditions in which Washington has poured billions of dollars worth of military aid into Pakistan, Patterson warned, “There is no chance that Pakistan will view enhanced assistance levels in any field as sufficient compensation for abandoning support for these groups.”

The Taliban came to power in the 1990s with Pakistan’s support, and Islamabad resists cutting off its ties to the movement out of fear that India will fill the vacuum, effectively encircling Pakistan.

The cables only underscore how much the US war, aimed at asserting hegemony over Central Asia’s vast energy resources, has only succeeded in destabilizing the entire region and deepening potentially catastrophic tensions.

Thank you Bill Van Auken/WSWS

Fort Hood: US Suffers Collateral Damage From Iraq And Afghan Wars

The impact of Washington's neo-colonial wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, including the moral impact of the enormous gulf between the “official story” and harsh reality, must find expression within sections of the US military itself. To fight an unpopular war against a hostile population is a demoralising and inevitably brutalising experience.

The mayhem at Fort Hood in Texas on Thursday, which has left 13 men and women dead and 30 injured, is a by-product of the brutal wars in the Middle East and Central Asia. It is a form of “collateral damage” for which the American political and military establishment is ultimately responsible.

The US interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan have now lasted a combined 14 and a half years Not only is there no end in sight in either case, there is the prospect of the wars’ expansion into Pakistan, with bloodier and more disastrous consequences. The invasions have already led to the devastation of Iraqi and Afghan society, the deaths of as many as a million Iraqis alone, and thousands of Americans killed, or maimed.

The wars are not about democracy, overthrowing tyrants, or protecting the American people from terrorism. The US ruling elite is waging these interventions to seize control of critical energy supplies, to strengthen its position vis à vis its rivals in Europe and Asia, to gain global hegemony through its military superiority.

The impact of these neo-colonial wars, including the moral impact of the enormous gulf between the “official story” and harsh reality, must find expression within sections of the US military itself. To fight an unpopular war against a hostile population is a demoralising and inevitably brutalising experience.

The alleged perpetrator at Fort Hood, Maj. Nidal M. Hasan, the son of Palestinian immigrant parents now both dead, spent most of his Army medical career at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, DC. For six years, from 2003 until last summer, he worked as a liaison between wounded soldiers and the hospital’s psychiatric staff.

In that capacity, he dealt with severely wounded military personnel. His aunt told the Washington Post that on the rare occasions “when he spoke of his work in any detail … Hasan told her of soldiers wracked by what they had seen. One patient had suffered burns to his face so intense ‘that his face had nearly melted,’ she said. ‘He told us how upsetting that was to him.’” An op-ed piece in the Baltimore Sun by a Vietnam veteran and psychiatrist asks, only half-facetiously, “Is post-traumatic stress disorder something you can catch from your patients like a virus?”

Hasan, a devout Muslim, apparently developed a fierce opposition to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Promoted to the rank of major in May, he subsequently learned he was going to be deployed to Afghanistan. He had hired a military lawyer and had been attempting to avoid being sent overseas and to leave the Army since September. Hasan’s aunt told the Post that the military “would not let him leave even after he offered to repay” the cost of his medical training.

His cousin commented to the media that Hasan was deeply traumatised about seeing wartime service. “We’ve known for the last five years that that was probably his worst nightmare. He would tell us how he hears horrific things [from the wounded] … that was probably affecting him psychologically.”

Many factors combine to produce the sort of breakdown that Hasan obviously underwent, including the overall social and political atmosphere in the country. A co-worker told reporters that Hasan was angry about American involvement in the ongoing wars, and that he “was hoping Obama would pull troops out and that things would settle down, and when things were not going that way, he became more agitated and frustrated with the conflicts over there.” The imperviousness of the existing political system to the sentiments of the population, along with the resulting feelings of alienation and powerlessness, is no small contributor to apparently “senseless” violence.

Personal mental instability is undoubtedly an element. Unmarried and without a girlfriend, a “bookish loner,” increasingly devoted to religion, Hasan had told relatives that “the military was his life.” Bitter disappointment and a sense of betrayal as he discovered the true character of the occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and horror over the possibility of being compelled to participate in those wars, may well have pushed a psychologically vulnerable individual over the edge.

The media is already harping on one of its favourite themes whenever a mass shooting takes place in America: how did the authorities miss the “warning signs”? Indeed, there seem to have been numerous such signs in this case, including Hasan’s alleged web site postings in defence of suicide bombers, and his frantic anxiety about deployment to Afghanistan.

On the one hand, the Army’s apparent indifference to Hasan’s state of mind gives some indication of the value the military command places on the work of its psychiatric staff, overworked and overwhelmed in any event as a result of the volume of mentally damaged Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans thrust into the system.
On the other, how is the military to pick out signs of a potential individual collapse, when there are so many indications of mass, collective breakdown?

The Wall Street Journal reported November 3, two days before the Fort Hood killings, that 16 US soldiers killed themselves in October, “an unusually high monthly toll that is fuelling concerns about the mental health of the nation’s military personnel after more than eight years of continuous warfare.”

The Journal notes that 134 active-duty soldiers had taken their lives so far in 2009, putting “the Army on pace to break last year’s record of 140. … The number of Army suicides has risen by 37% since 2006, and last year, the suicide rate surpassed that of the US population for the first time.” More soldiers killed themselves in 2008 than at any time since the Pentagon began keeping track nearly three decades ago.

In late October, a National Guard soldier, who had served multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, home on a 15-day leave, shot himself in the head in a Muncie, Indiana movie theatre. In July a 30-year-old soldier was shot and killed by a fellow soldier at a party at Fort Hood, and in September a soldier shot and killed a lieutenant at the base, before killing himself (Fort Hood, the largest military installation in the world, has suffered more than 500 combat deaths and 75 suicides since 2001). In Baghdad earlier this year, an Army sergeant walked into a combat stress centre and opened fire, killing five of his fellow soldiers.

Ten members of a single military unit at Fort Carson, Colorado, were charged with murder, attempted murder, or manslaughter from 2006 through the fall of 2008.

An article in the September 2009 issue of Management Science notes that the tempo of deployment cycles in Iraq is higher than for any war since World War II and that survey data suggests that the rate of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder among Iraq war veterans may be as high as 35 percent.

Endless war is wreaking havoc on American society. The Fort Hood shootings emerge almost inevitably out of this horror and confusion.

David Walsh

GM Bankruptcy: Treating Retirees As 'Road Kill'

In the name of “restructuring” to protect “shareholder value”, General Motors, with the blessings of the Obama administration and Wall Street is going full throttle to get rid of its workers and retirees who served the company well for a lifetime. It's another sordid saga of sacrificing the workers' hard-won rights and benefits at the altar of profitability. There's a lesson to be learnt by Indian workers who will face a similar fate if the Congress government's labour "reforms" are rammed through parliament.

A judge in New York City on July 5 approved the sale of General Motors assets to a new company, 61 per cent owned by the US government, opening the way for the auto company to emerge from bankruptcy. GM filed for bankruptcy protection June 1, the largest such industrial failure in US history, following a similar move by Chrysler April 30.

The ruling, by Judge Robert E. Gerber of the US Bankruptcy Court, is less a legal decision than a ruthless business measure taken as part of the restructuring of the auto industry in the interests of Wall Street and the corporate elite. The Obama administration, with the full complicity of the United Auto Workers (UAW), is presiding over and driving this process at the expense of tens of thousands of auto workers, their families and entire communities.

The bankruptcy plan has already meant the destruction of 21,000 additional jobs at GM, the closure of a dozen or more of its plants and the elimination of 2,600 GM dealerships.

Gerber’s approval of the asset sale, following three days of hearings and in the face of hundreds of objections, means that the deal between GM and the US Treasury may be consummated as early as Thursday, one day before the deadline set by the government. The Obama administration had made clear that it did not intend to provide another penny to the auto maker after July 10.

In addition to the US government, the Canadian government will own 12 per cent of the new firm, with the UAW, through a retiree health-care trust, controlling 17.5 per cent, and other unsecured creditors getting another 10 per cent. The Obama administration has committed some $50 billion to the restructuring. Administration officials have repeatedly explained they intend to take no part in the day-to-day management of the company and would like to sell the government’s stake in the new GM at some point in 2010.

Under the sale plan, the auto maker’s profitable assets—including the Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet and GMC brands—would be sold off to the new GM, “while assets and liabilities deemed to be a drag on the automaker would be left behind in bankruptcy.” (Washington Post)

In rejecting the claims of product-liability claimants and others, Gerber declared, “Bankruptcy courts have the power to authorise sales of assets at a time when there still is value to preserve—to prevent the death of the patient on the operating table.”

Lawyers representing the claimants had argued that the new company should be responsible for lawsuits arising from accidents involving GM cars before the company entered bankruptcy. GM management only recently accepted, under pressure from a number of state attorneys general, the principle that the new company should be required to take claims from future victims.

The GM bankruptcy process has been a stark demonstration of whose interests prevail within the US political and judicial system.

Gerber ruled in late June against General Motors’ retired salaried workers who wanted to see the creation of a special committee to represent their benefit issues. As part of the restructuring plan, GM will continue paying the 122,000 retirees’ health care and life insurance benefits for the moment, but the benefits are expected to be slashed and retirees will be forced to pay a far larger share of their costs.

GM attorney Harvey Miller argued that the company had always had the right to alter the salaried retirees’ benefits and the creation of a committee “would simply add more costs.”

Gerber also ruled against a request from an unofficial committee of individuals with asbestos-related claims to appoint a “tort czar,” according to the Associated Press, “that would oversee all future claims against the old GM, not just those related to asbestos.” While secured lenders—all major Wall Street banks and financial institutions—will be paid the $6 billion they are owed, unsecured creditors, like the asbestos victims, will see little, if anything.

On July 1, hundreds of retirees from GM plants whose bargaining agent was the International Union of Electrical Workers-Communications Workers of America (IUE-CWA) picketed the courthouse in lower Manhattan where the hearings were taking place to protest the likely eventual elimination of their health care and insurance benefits.

Lawyers for 50,000 retired IUE-CWA, United Steel Workers and International Union of Operating Engineers members asserted in court that GM was attempting to evade its legal responsibilities to these workers by pursuing bankruptcy under Section 363 of the Bankruptcy Code, which provides almost no benefit protection, as opposed to Section 1114.

The IUE-CWA claimed that a deal was worked out more than a year ago, ratified by its members, creating a GM-funded Voluntary Benefit Employee Association (VEBA). On January 9, 2009, a company lawyer informed the IUE-CWA that the auto maker would not live up to the deal.

In court IUE-CWA lawyer Tom Kennedy pointed to remarks made by a top member of Obama’s Auto Task Force, Harry Wilson, under cross-examination July 1. “We told GM to cut two-thirds, Wilson said; we told them to figure out how to do it. On June 4, Treasury rejected a 62 per cent cut. The additional 5 per cent taken out to meet the task force’s 67 per cent target represents $400 million in the [non-UAW] retirees’ benefit programs, Kennedy said.” (Youngstown Business Journal)

In a bitter press release, the IUE-CWA accused Obama’s Treasury Department of treating the retirees as “road kill.”

GM attorney Miller explained cynically that while the “new GM” needed the UAW to function, it didn’t need the other unions, whose members worked in plants that were no longer operating. Under questioning, GM CEO Fritz Henderson testified that he “expected” the non-UAW retiree health care benefits would be dropped by the new company. In response, Kennedy pointed to an email Henderson had sent the Obama task force’s Steven Rattner lobbying to keep GM executive retirement benefits.

Gerber rejected the IUE-CWA objections along with all the others.

The Washington Post noted, “Throughout the court proceedings, the government and GM were repeatedly questioned about why they chose to assume certain assets and liabilities while rejecting others.

“In response, government and GM officials said the only measure was whether or not the assets and liabilities would support the commercial viability of the new GM.”

Underlining the political character of his decision, Gerber rejected the claim that the US government had been overbearing in negotiations to restructure the car maker. “The US Treasury, in making hard decisions about where to spend its money and make New GM as viable as possible, made business decisions that it was entitled to make,” he wrote.

Elsewhere in his decision, Gerber declared, “The only alternative to an immediate sale [of GM assets to the new company] is liquidation—a disastrous result for GM’s creditors, its employees, the suppliers who depend on GM for their existence, and the communities in which GM operates.”

The decline of General Motors has already been an unmitigated disaster for auto workers, suppliers, dealerships and entire communities. The continued private ownership of the automobile industry, or government control on behalf of corporate interests, only holds more of the same in store.

The UAW apparatus, which hopes to prosper by operating the VEBA retiree health-care trust, merely reported on its web site—with obvious pleasure—that the Bankruptcy Court had “issued its ruling approving the proposed restructuring, and the UAW Retiree Health Settlement Agreement.”

The media campaign to convince auto workers that the judge’s decision will save GM and their jobs began as soon as the ruling was issued. The Detroit News lost no time in claiming, “The sale will preserve hundreds of thousands of GM jobs in North America, and around the world, and bolster a reeling network of auto industry suppliers.”

It will do no such thing. The sale will trigger a new round of plant closures and demands for concessions. With global auto sales plummeting, profitability can only be restored at GM and its rivals by impoverishing workers to insure the investments and profits of corporate executives and financiers.

David Walsh

The Significance Of Washington's Coup Attempt In Honduras

There should be no doubts about the US’ decisive role behind the now-crumbling military coup in Honduras. As commander and chief of the US armed forces, the blame for this intervention lies solely on President Obama.

The White House, however, would like you to believe that they “attempted to convince the Honduran military not to intervene.”

Rubbish.

When it comes to the Honduran military, the US government needn’t ask permission for anything. The decades long relationship between the two institutions is one of dependence — Honduras’ military has long been financed and trained by the US. The New York Times explains:

“The two nations have long had a close military relationship, with an American military task force stationed at a Honduran air base about 50 miles northwest of Tegucigalpa. The unit focuses on training Honduran military forces, counternarcotics operations, search and rescue, and disaster relief missions throughout Central America.” (June 28, 2009)

And from Latin American expert Eva Gollinger:

“The US Military Group in Honduras trains around 300 Honduran soldiers every year, provides more than $500,000 annually to the Honduran Armed Forces and additionally provides $1.4 million for a military education and exchange program for around 300 more Honduran soldiers every year.”

This year US aid to Honduras was $43 million.

It is utterly unimaginable that the Honduran military would act against the wishes of the hemisphere’s military and economic superpower.

In fact, the chief military leader of the Honduran coup — Joint Chief of Staff Romeo Orlando Vasquez Velasquez — lived and was trained at the notorious School of Americas (SOA), a US military base that trains Latin American military officers to act in the best interests of United State’s corporations. It is no coincidence that another coup leader — Air Force head Gen. Luis Javier Prince Suazo — is also an SOA graduate.

When Honduran President Manuel Zelaya realized that Vasquez was acting against him, he was fired — the rest of the military chiefs resigned in protest; and the coup was on.

The highly conservative Honduran Supreme Court then gave the military the “legal” cover it needed to pursue the coup, a fact the US media uses to justify the events.

The reason for the coup lies in President Zelaya’s recent foreign policy shift — away from the United States towards Venezuela and the rest of Latin America. This turn was the result of the United States largely ignoring Honduras, after a long lasting, villainous relationship had ended: the US had, for years, funneled large amounts of cash and arms to the Honduran government to kill the regions political leftists, the high point being the regions turbulent 1980’s.

After Zelaya was elected in 2006 (he still has one year left in his term), he promised to shift Honduras’ politics toward helping the poorer layers. He realized that he could not achieve any of his promises with the scant amount of aid from the US and looked instead to the Latin American trade association, ALBA. Zelaya explained:

"I have been looking for projects from the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, Europe and I have received very moderate offers ... that forces us to find other forms of financing like ALBA." ( Rueters, April 26,2008 )

The US government did not like this move, since it prefers US banks to dominate the economies of Latin American countries. The New York Times confirms:

“…[Washington’s] relations with Mr Zelaya…had recently turned colder because of the inclusion of Honduras in the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, or ALBA, a leftist political alliance led by Venezuela.” (June 28, 2009)

Nearly all of the US media’s writing about the Honduran coup is littered with negative references to Hugo Chavez, the “socialist project,” and other buzzwords meant to influence the reader toward acceptance of the coup.

For example:

“…[Zelaya] has the support of labor unions and the poor. But the middle class and the wealthy business community fear he wants to introduce Mr. Chávez’s brand of socialist populism into the country, one of Latin America’s poorest.” (New York Times, June 28, 2009)

Obama himself does nothing to condemn the coup. Yes, he is “deeply concerned” about the events in Honduras, but his vague comments about “dialogue” and respecting “legal procedures” is full of loopholes — big enough for a coup to squeeze through.

If Obama immediately refused to recognize the newly installed coup government in Honduras, while threatening to withdraw US military and financial aide — along with the US ambassador — the coup would dissolve in seconds. Strong actions like these, however, were completely absent.

Eva Gollinger comments:

“I think a clear coup d'etat against a democratic government that also happens to be a major dependent on US economic and political aid should provoke a more firm and concise statement by the US Government.”

Such a statement did come not only from the General Assembly of the United Nations, but from the formerly US-dominated Organization of American States (OAS). Both organizations are refusing to recognize the new coup government in Honduras and are demanding the return of Zelaya. This is a big blow to Washington, who in better times could rely on the OAS and UN to turn a blind eye to a US-sponsored coup, such as the one in Haiti in 2004.

Now, however, the OAS has largely broken from the U.S. stranglehold, emboldened by the independent path taken by numerous Latin American countries, though especially Venezuela.

And this is the broader motive for the coup. The US banks and other corporations that once dominated Latin America are being quickly pushed aside, so that governments may use their country’s wealth for social services and real economic development — not foreign for-profit plunder.

The US coup attempt in Honduras is thus a sign of desperation. It was also a huge gamble. Obama had hoped that the UN and OAS would let this one slide. It was also hoped that the Honduran people would be intimidated by martial law and a communications blackout. Neither was the case.

Huge protests have defied the military-ordered curfew. Latin American countries have united in defiance of a tyrannical US policy. It is reported that these happenings are causing splits in the Honduran military, while also a general strike was being prepared by the nation’s trade unions.

In consequence, the coup is likely to crumble, and Obama’s first attempt to re-tame Latin America will have failed. The actions of the UN and OAS are striking examples of the shrinking international influence of the US, meaning that future interventions — both military and economic — are likely to be more direct to restore US hegemony. Obama’s more-subtle attempts to uphold US “influence” in the world will ultimately require blunter, Bush-like tactics.

If the Honduran coup fails, Obama will eloquently discuss how pleased he is that “democracy was restored” — while refusing to admit that he tried to kill it.

Shamus Cooke/CounterCurrents.Org

Another US-Orchestrated ‘Colour Revolution’

By Paul Craig Roberts

(If you think my Iran election posts are a left-wing rant, read this piece. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during President Reagan’s first term. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal. He has held numerous academic appointments, including the William E. Simon Chair, Centre for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University, and Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He was awarded the Legion of Honour by French President Francois Mitterrand.)

A number of commentators have expressed their idealistic belief in the purity of Mousavi, Montazeri, and the westernised youth of Tehran. The CIA destabilization plan, announced two years ago (see below) has somehow not contaminated unfolding events.

The claim is made that Ahmadinejad stole the election, because the outcome was declared too soon after the polls closed for all the votes to have been counted. However, Mousavi declared his victory several hours before the polls closed.

This is classic CIA destabilization designed to discredit a contrary outcome. It forces an early declaration of the vote. The longer the time interval between the pre-emptive declaration of victory and the announcement of the vote tally, the longer Mousavi has to create the impression that the authorities are using the time to fix the vote. It is amazing that people don’t see through this trick.

As for the grand ayatollah Montazeri’s charge that the election was stolen, he was the initial choice to succeed Khomeini, but lost out to the current Supreme Leader. He sees in the protests an opportunity to settle the score with Khamenei.

Montazeri has the incentive to challenge the election whether or not he is being manipulated by the CIA, which has a successful history of manipulating disgruntled politicians.

There is a power struggle among the ayatollahs. Many are aligned against Ahmadinejad because he accuses them of corruption, thus playing to the Iranian countryside where Iranians believe the ayatollahs' lifestyles indicate an excess of power and money.

In my opinion, Ahmadinejad's attack on the ayatollahs is opportunistic. However, it does make it odd for his American detractors to say he is a conservative reactionary lined up with the ayatollahs.

Commentators are “explaining” the Iran elections based on their own illusions, delusions, emotions, and vested interests. Whether or not the poll results predicting Ahmadinejad's win are sound, there is, so far, no evidence beyond surmise that the election was stolen. However, there are credible reports that the CIA has been working for two years to destabilize the Iranian government.

On May 23, 2007, Brian Ross and Richard Esposito reported on ABC News: “The CIA has received secret presidential approval to mount a covert “black” operation to destabilize the Iranian government, current and former officials in the intelligence community tell ABC News.”

On May 27, 2007, the London Telegraph independently reported: “Mr. Bush has signed an official document endorsing CIA plans for a propaganda and disinformation campaign intended to destabilize, and eventually topple, the theocratic rule of the mullahs.”

A few days previously, the Telegraph reported on May 16, 2007, that Bush administration neocon warmonger John Bolton told the Telegraph that a US military attack on Iran would “be a ‘last option’ after economic sanctions and attempts to foment a popular revolution had failed.”

On June 29, 2008, Seymour Hersh reported in the New Yorker: “Late last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to $400 million, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country’s religious leadership.”

The protests in Tehran no doubt have many sincere participants. The protests also have the hallmarks of the CIA orchestrated protests in Georgia and Ukraine.

It requires total blindness not to see this.

Daniel McAdams has made some telling points. For example, neo-conservative Kenneth Timmerman wrote the day before the election that “there’s talk of a ‘green revolution’ in Tehran.”

How would Timmerman know that unless it was an orchestrated plan? Why would there be a ‘green revolution’ prepared prior to the vote, especially if Mousavi and his supporters were as confident of victory as they claim? This looks like definite evidence that the US is involved in the election protests.

Timmerman goes on to write that “the National Endowment for Democracy has spent millions of dollars promoting ‘colour’ revolutions . . . Some of that money appears to have made it into the hands of pro-Mousavi groups, who have ties to non-governmental organizations outside Iran that the National Endowment for Democracy funds.”

Timmerman’s own neocon Foundation for Democracy is “a private, non-profit organization established in 1995 with grants from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), to promote democracy and internationally-recognized standards of human rights in Iran.”

The End Of Objective Journalism: The Iran Election And The Corporate Media

In my last post I had pointed out how the Western corporate media has abandoned any pretence of journalistic objectivity in its coverage of the Iran presidential election. And as the days pass and more protest marches are reported from Tehran, we can see how major news outlets have stooped to brazen propaganda aimed at discrediting the election result.

It is not uncommon for election results to end in charges of fraud by the losing party that trigger mass demonstrations and even armed clashes. Just last April, elections in Moldova ended in violent protests, with the losing party claiming fraud and the winning one saying it was the victim of an attempted coup.

In November of last year in Nicaragua, nationwide local elections in which the opposition claimed irregularities led to confrontations involving thousands of people armed with bats, rocks, machetes and guns.

Last July, charges of election fraud led to mass rioting in the capital of Mongolia. There is no record of the corporate media becoming particularly exercised about any of these events.

But the corporate media uses a different yardstick while reporting Iran. Relying mainly on 'tweets' from 'citizen journalists' who are partisan at best, leading newspapers and channels – many of who do not even have a reporter on the scene - have not even bothered to report, much less analyse, the vote totals, which are readily available by both city and province and refute the claims made that the ballots were rigged to give Ahmadinejad a 60 per cent margin across the board.

Besides, they have simply ignored commentary from prominent analysts of the region who have suggested that the claims of a rigged election are not supported by the evidence. Mind you, these are men whose motto is “USA First” and they would willingly give an arm and leg to see the Ayatollahs out.

These men include chief military strategy and Middle East analyst for the Centre for Strategic and International Studies Anthony Cordesman, former chief Iran analyst on George W Bush’s National Security Council Hillary Mann Leverett, the and her husband Flynt Leverett, a long time CIA analyst and National Security Council (NSC) staffer, who together wrote a column entitled 'Ahmadinejad won. Get over it', and George Friedman, the head of the Stratfor private intelligence service.

All of them said Ahmadinejad retained substantial popular support in Iran, particularly among the rural poor and more oppressed social layers, and warned against 'Iran experts' who based their analyses on wishful thinking and contact with a more affluent, English-speaking minority in Iran.

Of course, the US has intense interests in Iran, with the country fighting wars on its eastern and western borders. There is, moreover, the long history of hostility between the two countries, stemming from Washington’s previous domination of Iran and its oil wealth through its dictatorial client regime under the Shah, and the revolution that brought that regime to an end.

But given these interests and this history, conscientious coverage of Iranian politics calls for not only objectivity, but also sensitivity to Washington’s intervention in Iran’s affairs and attempts to influence its politics.

The coverage, however, exhibits no such objectivity whatsoever. Instead, it typifies a presentation of Ahmadinejad's victory over Mousavi as a “fraud” without providing a scintilla of proof to back it up. Instead, the corporate media is uncritically repeating the insistence of the Mousavi camp that it is so.

It is sought to be portrayed that Mousavi won, in some cases, by a 2-1 margin precisely in the areas - the wealthier suburbs of Tehran, Shiraz and elsewhere - that are now the centre of the election protests.

Indeed, the New York Times has actually demanded a new election, portraying Iran's Guardian Council’s call for recounting ballots a “cynical gesture.” The newspaper is not interested in correcting vote fraud, but rather in bringing pressure to bear within the Iranian state to effect a political coup.

In this context it is particularly instructive to remember the corporate media's attitude toward the disputed 2006 presidential election in Mexico, when the conservative candidate Felipe Calderon - with just 36 per cent of the vote and amid substantiated charges of gross electoral fraud - claimed victory over his left-nationalist opponent Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

There was no call for a new election then, and the corporate media was largely indifferent to the evidence that the election had been rigged. While the massive crowds that took to the streets of Mexico City were comparable to those seen in Tehran, there was only disdain for the protesters.

On July 7, just five days after the contested vote totals were announced, the New York Times haughtily editorialised: “Mr Lopez Obrador has occasionally furthered his political career by inviting supporters to take to the streets... but he should resist inciting mass protests, which would harm Mexico’s stability and add to his image as a less-than-committed democrat.”

In Mexico, the victim of vote fraud was told to stand down in the interests of “stability,” while mass protests by his supporters were portrayed as a threat to democracy - the exact inverse of the newspaper’s approach to the Iranian events.

Why the difference? In Mexico, the candidate favoured by Washington won, and in Iran, the White House seeks not stability, but destabilisation.

And therein lies a tale.

(Based on a WSWS report by BV Auken)