40,000 dead Venezuelans no big deal to Cruz, Rubio and Menendez

In one respect crippling US economic sanctions can be worse than dropping bombs on countries whose regime we're trying to change. Take Venezuela for example. We’ve been hopeful and supportive of regime change there since 2002, first against hated socialist Hugo Chavez; then against his hated socialist successor Nicholas Maduro. But overt US support to control the government, indeed the oil of Venezuela, became overt in 2014 with the Venezuela Defense of Human Rights and Civil Liberty Act. Sure sounds nice but it’s simply imposing punishing economic sanctions designed to inflict so much human suffering the people will be inspired to overthrow the target of regime change. A state department memo in 1960 stated this policy explicitly with regards to Cuba. In sixty years it hasn’t worked there and five years on it still hasn’t worked in Venezuela. But it has kept the 40,000 deaths largely attributed to the sanctions due to lack of food and medicine under the radar of public scrutiny.

 That would not be possible if all those dead were courtesy of US bombs; hence the lethal mendacity of sanctions.

With the current two-year sanction law set to expire, US senators Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Bob Menendez introduced a reauthorization of the nice sounding law that simply perpetuates the march of dead people in Venezuela. The 1920’s Yankees may have had their Murderers Row of Ruth, Gehrig and Lazzeri, but for real destruction they can’t top Uncle Sam’s Murderers Row of Cruz, Rubio and Menendez.

Biggest learning from the Afghanistan Papers - failure to learn

Forty-eight years ago I celebrated release of the Pentagon Papers, purloined by patriot whistleblower Dan Ellsberg, which showed the utter failure of the Vietnam War, its secret expansion into Laos and Cambodia, and endless efforts to hide its failure from Congress and the public. I hoped its release and subsequent exoneration of Ellsberg would prevent a recurrence of senseless perpetual wars and governmental efforts to hide their utter failure to keep them going. Alas, a half century on we get the Afghanistan Papers, not purloined by a patriot, but dug up through the Freedom of Information Act by the Washington Post. In 2,000 pages spanning over 400 interviews we learn that the government, the military and the media learned virtually nothing from the lesson of the Pentagon Papers. Hundreds of thousands killed, injured or displaced, over a trillion squandered and not a word of truth on the futility, corruption, failure and disinformation that has continued this war into its nineteenth year with no end in sight.

The Pentagon Papers helped lead to the eventual collapse of US involvement in the Vietnam War four years later. Let's hope the release of the Afghanistan Papers doesn't take nearly that long in ending our involvement in this sad chapter in the United States long litany of perpetual war.

Bolivian coup...Another notch on Uncle Sam's regime change gun?

The ouster of Bolivia's first indigenous president Evo Morales November 10 by high ranking members of his command wasn't even called a coup by US media. The Economist pondered "Was there a coup in Bolivia?" Foreign Policy retorted "Coup isn't the right word". But coup is was and audio recordings released by independent Costa Rican publication El Periodico purports coup plotters mentioning support from US Senators Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and Bob Menendez, all long term proponents of regime change in Latin America.

It may take awhile to sort out possible US involvement. Uncle Sam knocked off Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddegh in 1953 but didn't acknowledge it till 2009 after 56 years. It only took 45 years to acknowledge our coup that ousted Guatemalan leader Jacobo Arbenz in 1954. President Clinton actually apologized for that coup. Poor Mosaddegh ran afoul of Big Oil as in British Petroleum; Arbenz irritated Big Fruit as in United Fruit Company. As President Coolidge famously said, "The business of America is business".

It Bolivia was America's latest coup victim in Latin American it likely won't be the last. We're still trying to knock off Nicholas Maduro in Venezuela, Danny Ortega in Nicaragua and after 60 years, still lusting to topple the hated Castro - Diaz Canel regime in Cuba.

In his first Inaugural Address, March 4, 1933, FDR announced a Good Neighbor Policy for Latin America, seeking to turn the page on decades of US intervention there. Eighty-six years later Uncle Sam is still the neighbor from Hell.

Ives: Be Like Sean

If former Republican state rep Jeanne Ives has any hope of defeating freshman Democratic 6th District congressman Sean Casten, she needs to master the art of intelligent fibbing about Casten’s record. She offered up this whopper that every informed 6th District voter knows is untrue: Casten only addresses friendly voters at “invite only” town halls. Casten vaulted out of the starting gate in January, 2019, meeting more unscreened voters in his first month than his absentee predecessor Peter Roskam met with in his 12 years. Not only did Casten meet with all who attended, he displayed his intelligent views of governance without apology but with a willingness to engage in spirited discussion that impressed supporter and opponent alike. No one walked away thinking Casten was a prevaricator interested solely to pandering to his base. He represented everyone calling the 6th District home.

On second thought, Ives should not try to master the fine art of fibbing. She should just ‘Be Like Sean’ and tell the truth.