End the U.S. empire!

Eric Zuesse

Currently, the U.S. has exactly 900 military bases in foreign countries, in addition to the 749 bases inside the U.S. itself. The U.S. Government minimizes and tries to hide this reality from the public. Furthermore, although the U.S. is officially estimated to spend around 36% of the entire world’s military expenditures, the actual figure is around 50% of the world’s military expenditures, and the added approximately 14% is being paid-out through federal U.S. Departments other than the ‘Defense’ Department, so as to make the total U.S. figure appear to be only 36% of the global total. Moreover: on November 15th, the U.S. Department of ‘Defense’ announced that “The results of the fifth annual DOD [Department Of Defense] wide financial audit will be a disclaimer of opinion for DOD” and used other such obtuse phraseology, so that the reality that — as one of the very few published news-reports that was based on it headlined optimistically — “Defense Department fails another audit, but makes progress”, and it opened:

The Defense Department has failed its fifth-ever audit, unable to account for more than half of its assets, but the effort is being viewed as a “teachable moment,” according to its chief financial officer. 

After 1,600 auditors combed through DOD’s $3.5 trillion in assets and $3.7 trillion in liabilities, officials found that the department couldn’t account for about 61 percent of its assets, Pentagon Comptroller Mike McCord told reporters on Tuesday.

The UN Violates Venezuela’s Right to Vote on Matters of World Interest

Gustavo A Maranges

RESUMEN | November 06, 2022

This week the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) passed the resolution presented by Cuba to demand the end of the economic, commercial, and financial blockade of the United States of America over the island. The rejection was overwhelming, but there was a missing vote among those in favor. Venezuela, which traditionally supports Cuba’s position and is also a victim of the same type of unilateral sanctions, was absent.

In this context, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro once again called on UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to restore his country’s right to vote in the UNGA taking into account that Venezuela owes almost US$40 million, this right was withdrawn in January 2022 for the 5th time in the last 7 years.

The South American country has always been willing to pay, but the U.S. blockade has impeded Venezuela to fulfill its economic obligations. At first, the economic sanctions provoked a crisis that prevented Venezuela from paying its dues. Nevertheless, the current reason is even more Machiavellian.

Who is winning, who is losing, the Ukraine war?

Eric Zuesse

Speculation is rife that U.S/NATO are winning the military war in Ukraine (by arming and commanding Ukraine’s armed forces — it’s a proxy-war on the U.S. side), and also is rife that Russia is winning the military war in Ukraine (using its own forces), but “the fog of war” and propagandistic agendas dominate the military war on both sides (both the U.S.-and-allied side that gets its ‘information’ from Ukraine’s Government) and the Russian side that gets its ‘information’ from Russia’s Government).

It’s a two-front war: the military front, and the economic front. And that “fog of war” pertains ONLY to the military aspect of the war. It does NOT pertain to the economic front.

The ‘fog of war’ is almost 100% uncertainty on the military front, and nobody yet really knows which side is is actually winning this war militarily.

CIA Agent Reveals How They Plant Lies In News Media

The Jimmy Dore Show

From invading Iraq to Guaidó’s flop: the CV of coup-plotter John Bolton

In a recent interview with CNN, former US National Security Advisor John Bolton affirmed his role in coups abroad. The hardliner was an architect of the invasion of Iraq, and most recently, played a role in the attempted coup against Venezuelan President Maduro.

Tanupriya Singh

People’s Dispatch | July 15, 2022

John Bolton. Photo: Gage Skidmore / Wikimedia

On July 12, former US National Security advisor John Bolton, admitted on national television that he had helped orchestrate coups in foreign countries. Bolton was speaking to CNN host Jake Tapper amid the hearings in Congress on the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, by supporters of former president Donald Trump.

During the exchange, Bolton stated his disagreement with accusations that the riot was a “coup d’etat aimed at the US constitution”, arguing that it was a “once in a lifetime occurrence”. Tapper then stated “One doesn’t have to be brilliant to attempt a coup”.

Bolton’s response, in a widely circulated clip, was “I disagree with that. As someone who has helped plan coup d’etats, not here, but you know other places, it takes a lot of work. And that’s not what he [Trump] did.” Citing his expertise “having planned coups”, in Tapper’s words, Bolton declined to go into specifics, only to say “Well I wrote about Venezuela in the book [“The Room Where It Happened”], and it [the coup] turned out not to be successful– not that we had all that much to do with it– but I saw what it took for an opposition to try and overturn an illegally elected president and they failed…”

The world’s peoples can always count on Cuba to be present for just causes

Party First Secretary and President of the Republic Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez yesterday conversed with Latin American intellectual Atilio Boró in a radio interview, discussing Cuba’s creative resistance in the face of continuing U.S. attacks and imperialist threats around the world

Granma | April 25, 2022

Artwork by Ernesto Rancaño 

“We are not going to surrender, we are going to continue resisting, but with the concept of creative resistance, which is precisely the way in which we have faced COVID-19, that is, we resist, but with talent, effort and intelligence, we also grow; as we resist, we are capable of advancing.”

This observation was among those shared by Communist Party First Secretary and President of the Republic Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, in an interview with Latin American intellectual Atilio Borón, for the Argentine radio stations Madres de la Plaza de Mayo and the Universidad Nacional de Avellaneda, also broadcast on several community radio stations in Venezuela, Argentina, Ecuador and elsewhere.

Venezuela commemorates 20th anniversary of the failed coup against Hugo Chávez

The failed coup was the first victory of the Venezuelan people against US imperialism in the 21st century. It marked the beginning of the resistance of Venezuelans against the US attacks, which continue to this day

Tanya Wadhwa

People’s Dispatch | April 16, 2022

On April 13, hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans flooded the streets of Caracas to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the victory of the people and the defeat of the 2002 US-backed coup against president Hugo Chávez. Photo: PSUV/Twitter

April 13, 2022, marked 20 years since the people of Venezuela defeated the US-backed right-wing coup against the democratically elected socialist president Hugo Chávez in a record time of less than two days.

On Wednesday, hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans flooded the streets of the capital Caracas to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the historic victory of the people against the imperialist coup. Multitudes of citizens, members of political organizations, social movements and trade unions gathered in various parts of Caracas and marched to the Miraflores presidential palace to pay tribute to the civic-military uprising that beat the coup, rescued Commander Chávez and reinstated constitutional order in the country.

Alex Saab, a diplomat without immunity. Webinar, Apr 26 at 3pm ET / 12pm PT #Free Alex Saab.

Alliance for Global Justice | April 12, 2022

This webinar includes the latest updates on the case. We will be joined by Camilla Fabri Saab, wife of Alex Saab

Presenters include:

– Alfred de Zayas, former rapporteur on Venezuela for United Nations Human Rights Council

– Suzanne Adely, President of the National Lawyers Guild

– Oscar Lopez Rivera, former Puerto Rican political prisoner and Honorary Chair of the Free Alex Saab Campaign

– Jaribu Hill, human rights attorney and founder of the Mississippi Workers’ Center for Human Rights Organizers’ Conference

Register now >

Alex Saab is a Venezuelan diplomat who is imprisoned in a United States federal court in Miami, Florida, his arrest is a violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. The only crime that the Venezuelan diplomat has committed has been to evade the illegal sanctions imposed on the Venezuelan people by the United States.

Alex Saab was appointed as Venezuela’s special envoy in 2018, he was detained by order of the US on June 12, 2020. He was traveling from Caracas to Tehran when his plane made a stop to refuel in Cabo Verde. Saab had in his possession his diplomatic passport and other documents revealing his diplomatic mission.

He had been on a mission to procure humanitarian supplies of basic food, fuel and medicine for Venezuela from Iran in international trade, and while he was on that mission he was arrested, at an extremely critical moment when the pandemic was hitting South America very hard.

Join us and learn the latest details of the Alex Saab case.

Free Alex Saab Campaign supporters include:

Alliance for Global Justice, Task Force on the Americas, International Action Center, Chicago ALBA Solidarity, Asociación Americana de Juristas, The Canada Files, National Lawyers Guild International Committee, Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, Friends of Latin America, Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox, All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (GC), Friends of Irish Freedom, Cuba Inside Out, Massachusetts Peace Action, Popular Resistance, United National AntiWar Coalition, Chicago Anti-War Coalition, Fire This Time Movement for Social Justice, Frente Hugo Chavez para la Defensa de los Pueblos- Canada, Council on Hemispheric Affairs, International Family and Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal, Code Pink, AntiConquista, Orinoco Tribune, Alberto Lovera Bolivarian Circle, Center for Political Education, La Troika, Committees of Correspondence or Democracy & Socialism, Winnipeg Venezuela Peace Committee, Louis Riel Bolivarian Circle Toronto, Center for Global Studies – Purdue Northwest, African Awareness Association, Southsiders for Peace (Chicago), Just Peace Advocates, Committee to Stop FBI Repression, Samidoun NY/NJ, La Voz de los de Abajo, Sanctions Kill Coalition, US Peace Council, Pacific NW Latin America and Caribbean Task Force, LELO/A Legacy of Equality Leadership and Organizing, Portland Central America Solidarity Committee, Rochester Committee on Latin America, Casa Baltimore/Limay, Solidarity Committee of the Americas (Women Against Military Madness), Frente Independentista Boricua, Hostos Community College Puerto Rican Student Organization, El Maestro, Inc., NY Free Puerto Rico movement, Círculo Bolivariano de Miami Negra Hipólita, La Peña del Bronx, Struggle/La Lucha, Haiti Liberte, PECOA, Fuerza de la Revolución, Holyrood Episcopal Church ~ Iglesia Santa Cruz, National Boricua Human Rights Network, International US-Cuba Normalization Conference Coalition, NY—NJ Cuba Si Coalition, Family Action Network Movement, Fuerza de la Revolucion, Iglesia Santa Cruz, Holyrod Chuch, Padre Luis Barrios, Pro Libertad

If your organization would like to join this campaign, please email us at william@AFGJ.org

To join the campaign as an individual, please sign on here

How did China learn from the mistakes made by the Soviet Union?

Workers Today | March 30, 2022

For thirty years, the Chinese have been scrupulously studying and analyzing the disintegration of a great power, mainly to prevent such a scenario in their homeland. They argue what was the primary cause of the disaster. The crisis of the ruling party was generated by the general socio-economic decline of the USSR, or the degradation of the CPSU, which abandoned its allegiance to Marxism, resulted in the transformation of the entire socialist system and ultimately destroyed the state ,” Zuenko explains to the agency of Russian state communication.

If it were not for the triumph of the October Socialist Revolution in Russia, perhaps in China the Communist Party, an organization that has ruled the Asian country for more than 70 years, would not have appeared on the nation’s political scene.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the political, economic and social situation in China, as in many other countries, developed in a turbulent way, although in 1911, the Xinhai Revolution shook the empire of the Asian nation, giving way to the birth of a republic, the truth is that the new government of Chinese nationalists was unable to unify the country towards the adoption of a common development policy in any of its forms.

21st Century US Coups and Attempted Coups in Latin America

Stansfield Smith

Dissident Voice | January 06, 2022

During the 21st century, the US, working with corporate elites, traditional oligarchies, military, and corporate media, has continually attempted coups against Latin American governments which place the needs of their people over US corporate interests. US organized coups in Latin American countries is hardly a 20th century phenomenon.

However, this century the US rulers have turned to a new coup strategy, relying on soft coups, a significant change from the notoriously brutal military hard coups in Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, and other countries in the 1970s. One central US concern in these new coups has been to maintain a legal and democratic facade as much as possible.