The Same Ol Game In The Congo

[JRSWRITER]

“Formerly the Belgian Congo, this territory was inhabited by ancient Negrito peoples (Pygmies), who were pushed into the mountains by Bantu and Nilotic invaders. The American correspondent Henry M. Stanley navigated the Congo River in 1877 and opened the interior to exploration. Commissioned by King Leopold II of the Belgians, Stanley made treaties with native chiefs that enabled the king to obtain personal title to the territory at the Berlin Conference of 1885. Leopold accumulated a vast personal fortune from ivory and rubber through Congolese slave labor; 10 million people are estimated to have died from forced labor, starvation, and outright extermination during Leopold's colonial rule. His brutal exploitation of the Congo eventually became an international cause célèbre, prompting Belgium to take over administration of the Congo, which remained a colony until agitation for independence forced Brussels to grant freedom on June 30, 1960. In elections that month, two prominent nationalists won: Patrice Lumumba of the leftist Mouvement National Congolais became prime minister and Joseph Kasavubu of the ABAKO Party became head of state. But within weeks of independence, the Katanga Province, led by Moise Tshombe, seceded from the new republic, and another mining province, South Kasai, followed. Belgium sent paratroopers to quell the civil war, and with Kasavubu and Lumumba of the national government in conflict, the United Nations flew in a peacekeeping force.
Kasavubu staged an army coup in 1960 and handed Lumumba over to the Katangan forces. A UN investigating commission found that Lumumba had been killed by a Belgian mercenary in the presence of Tshombe, who was then the president of Katanga. U.S. and Belgian involvement in the assassination have been alleged.� http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0198161.html
The whole African continent is the target of ongoing rape, pillage and plunder by European (those there and the ones here) elites, their NeoLiberal (IMF, World Bank and USAid) surrogates and a Eurocentric minded African elite most who were put in place overtly or surreptitiously by whites. These “leaders� are being supported and propped up by the West or they are like Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe targets of Western animus. We see this in so many African “hot spots� like Zimbabwe, Somalia and Sudan that occasionally make the news. But the same thing is happening in many African “countries� that do not make the nightly newscasts. Countries like the Democratic Republic of the Congo rarely make the nightly news in AmeriKKKa. But it is a major hot spot. The Democratic Republic of the Congo finds itself mired in an ongoing civil war and is being set up for long term destabilization by Western backed forces working on behalf of multi-national corporations that covet the abundant natural and mineral resources (bauxite, cobalt, copper, cadmium, manganese, tantalum, tin, oil, industrial and gem diamonds, gold, silver, uranium, coal. Hydro-power and timber) the nation possesses.
The region has been the victim of massive European rapine, exploitation, depopulation and destabilization since 1885. It’s “post colonization� history has been a continuation of Western intervention, mischief and larceny with the Belgians, US and other European nations playing pivotal roles in keeping the region in debt, disorganized and in a dependent and vassal condition. Currently the Democratic Republic of the Congo is experiencing problems reorganizing after both internal and external strife (Western backed money and corporatist forces prompted Rwanda and Uganda to attack the country and engage in a protracted fight over territory and natural resources) which kept the various governments the country has had in recent years wobbly and on shaky ground. “U.S., European, and South African military interests have continued to support various factions in Central Africa, arming militias and rebel groups through proxy armies from Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) in south Sudan. France's presence in Central Africa is based out of Gabon, the major point of French military penetration on the continent... It is important to note that the conflict in Central Africa revolves not around ‘governments’ so much as militarized power blocks and multinational corporate alignments which are transnational. Thus while powerful U.S. government interests may back the Kagame and Museveni regimes in support of destabilization of Central Africa and the annexation of the Kivu and Orientale provinces, other powerful interests-such as the International Rescue Committee -maintain a constant international media presence that appears to be in conflict with that agenda, but which nevertheless exists as a major lobby in support of or defense of certain interests at the expense of certain others. Notable personalities on the IRC's Boards of Directors and Overseers include Morton Abramowitz, Tom Brokaw, and Henry Kissinger.� Rwanda's Secret War U.S. - backed destabilization of Central Africa By Keith Harmon Snow (February 2005) http://www.africaresource.com/content/view/252/68/
When you read about the region most sources cloak direct Western involvement by citing the ethnic and tribal dynamics of the various conflicts. Keep in mind this is the primary strategy of the West: divide, conquer and rule! Where do African “rebels� get the needed arms, food, trucks, air and logistical support to wage their assaults and wars? How do the “rebels� pay their troops many of whom are mere children? We have to look below the surface and peak beyond the spin and Eurocentric propaganda to see the real deal. Is there corruption in Africa ? Certainly, but who is offering the African leaders money, support and illusionary trappings of power? Certainly not the indigenous ethnic or tribal groups most of whom suffered from Western induced poverty and privation. Make no mistake about it, the West primarily US and multinational corporations covet the resources of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. They are working assiduously behind the scenes to gain control via tried and true Neo-Colonial strategies. Wording on the US State Department Website indicates the importance of the region to the US government and its corporate masters. “The United States remains a partner with the D.R.C. and other central African nations in their quest for stability and growth on the continent, and facilitated the signing of a tripartite agreement on regional security in the Great Lakes region between the D.R.C., Rwanda, and Uganda in October 2004. Burundi formally joined the Tripartite Commission in September 2005, and the Tripartite Commission is now Tripartite Plus. The United States also strongly supported U.N. efforts to create a Joint Verification Mechanism to monitor the border between the D.R.C. and Rwanda. From the start of the Congo crisis, the United States has pursued an active diplomatic strategy in support of these objectives. In the long term, the United States seeks to strengthen the process of internal reconciliation and democratization within all the states of the region to promote stable, developing, and democratic nations with which it can work to address security interests on the continent and with which it can develop mutually beneficial economic relations. The United States appointed its current ambassador to the D.R.C. in 2004. The D.R.C. appointed its current ambassador to the United States in 2000. The Congo has been on the State Department's travel advisory list since 1977.�
State Department hypocrisy about partnership and desiring stability aside, the US does lust after the natural resources in the Congo for their corporate puppeteers. Just as we pay for “blood diamonds� we are paying for other blood natural resources that go into making modern Western lifestyles possible. “ Coltan - which is found in 3 billion-year-old soils, like those in the Rift Valley region of middle Africa, western Australia and central Asia - has become a critical raw material in high-tech manufacturing. The tantalum extracted from the ore is used mainly to make tantalum capacitors, tiny components that manage the flow of current in electronic devices. Many semiconductors also use a thin layer of tantalum as a protective barrier between other metal coatings. The metal, which is also found in other minerals and can be extracted as a byproduct of tin refining, is used in the airline, chemical, pharmaceutical and automotive industries as well. The market for the material is huge. Last year, about 6.6 million pounds of tantalum was used around the world, 60 percent finding its way into the electronics industry, where it can be found in products like mobile phones, computers, game consoles and camcorders. (The United States is the largest consumer of tantalum in the world, accounting for 40 percent of global demand.) In 2000, demand for tantalum capacitors exploded in tandem with the mobile phone and PC markets, causing a severe shortage. Tantalum ore prices shot up, with per-pound charges for refined powder climbing from less than $50 to a peak of over $400 at the end of last year. Today, with demand softening worldwide, prices have fallen to around $100 a pound. In response to the increased demand, coltan miners all over the world increased production. In the Congo region, both legitimate and rogue coltan merchants joined the rush. The boom brought in as much as $20 million a month to rebel groups, as well as independent factions, who were trading coltan mined mostly from northeastern Congo, according to the U.N. report. That money helps fuel the war.� Guns, Money and Cell Phones By Kristi Essick http://www.globalissues.org/Geopolit...dardColtan.asp
Once we scratch below the surface we see things haven’t changed since the Belgians and their Western allies deposed Patrice Lumumba in 1961 because he was an African nationalist looking out for the interests of his people. We have seen on numerous occasions in many different countries around the world, this is a no- no! A secondary benefit for the psychopathic Western elites is, all the death, devastation and displacement caused by their resource wars furthers their aim of non-white global depopulation. The current situation in Congo has been suppressed by the corporate media. So if and when you do see something about it in the media, keep all this in mind and view what you see and hear from this perspective.

posted by Junious Ricardo Stanton @ 4:11 PM 0 comments links to this post
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
The Beat Goes On

The Beat Goes On

On the surface George W. Bu$h’s commutation of the three year prison term of Irvin Lewis Libby (Liebowitz) to just a fine and probation appears to be merely another example of the good ol’ boy network at work. It was like when white juries would routinely acquit a white man of murdering a Black man or of raping a Black woman or child back in the day. In many ways Bu$h’s intervention on behalf of one of the prime movers behind the disinformation and lies about Iraqi WMD used as the pretext to launch an illegal and preemptive war against a sovereign nation that posed no threat to the US is part of that same old good ol boy legacy. However on a deeper and more nefarious level, Bu$h’s actions are the continuation of his family’s ongoing crime operation/legacy that stretches back four generations.
Most recently, when Bu$h’s father was Vice President he functioned in the Ronald Reagan White House pretty much as Dick Cheney functions in his administration, the behind the scenes Svengali whose fingerprints were all over every dirty trick, covert op and scandal known and unknown. Take the Iran Contra fiasco for example. The Reagan/ Bu$h administration knowingly plotted to violate US law by arming Nicaraguan insurgents to overthrow the socialist Sandinista government through a series of convoluted arms transactions in which Israel served as the middle man. When Congress found out about it and held sensationalist media hearings several lower level henchmen were targeted for investigation. Lt Col Oliver North and John Poindexter were the two most prominent culprits but culpability went all the way up the political chain. The enlarging scandal (the US sold arms to an avowed enemy at the time, Iran, in violation of US laws with the aid of Israel, there were also widespread allegations of massive drug running and money laundering that were also a major part of Iran Contra) soon enveloped the Reagan/ Bu$h administration. Some of the far reaching machinations and implications of the administration’s illegal operations were exposed for all the world to see. (Ronald Reagan was really out of it mentally by then after having barely survived an assassination attempt by the son of one of George H.W. Bu$h’s friendly Texas neighbors [is this merely a “coincidence�?], a bout with cancer and Alzheimer’s disease, [this is another similarity to the current Bu$h administration except this time, baby Bu$h serves as the brain dead puppet being manipulated by the more criminally astute Dick Cheney]) Much of the criminality was suppressed. What did emerge was the fact George H. W. Bu$h ran the arms and drug smuggling operations out of the National Security Council office where Oliver North worked. Investigative reporter Gary Webb erred when he said it was the CIA that was running drugs and using the money to arm the Contras. Yes the CIA were a part of the overall operation but the CIA was not calling the shots. The drug running, at least the South American portion was being run by North out of the NSC office at the behest of George H.W. Bu$h
Ronald Reagan took the hit public relations wise, but his media manufactured popularity helped him weather the resulting storm. He and George H W Bu$h should have been impeached and prosecuted for knowingly and deliberately violating US and international laws. But as usual they were given a pass. Congress barked but did little else to get at the heart of the scandal, thanks to the good ol boy network and the wheeler dealer influence of George H.W. Bu$h a former Director of the CIA. The Tower Commission Report that investigated Iran Contra was essentially a whitewash. Tower was discredited around Washington by Republican operatives for being a womanizer and lush. The resultant report was soon flushed down the memory hole to be forgotten or ignored.
Another Congressional Committee that could have shed more light on what the Bu$hites were doing was the investigative work of a young US Senator named John Kerry who uncovered the drug link within the Reagan/Bush Iran Contra network. Even more importantly Kerry began documenting the involvement of Democratic Party blue bloods with the criminal operation known as Bank of Credit and Commerce International or BCCI. Some say Kerry’s work was sabotaged by a plethora of bipartisan players. Others say he backed off once he saw where the trail led. Either way, the international crooks were given a pass. Many of those same players remain big on the scene today.
When George H.W. Bu$h was elected president in 1989 following a divisive and racially charged campaign. He quickly pardoned all the insiders involved in Iran Contra criminality: Robert McFarlane, Elliot Abrams, Casper Weinberger, Duane R. Clarridge, Alan Fiers and Clair George. When you take a look, many of the same players in the current Bu$h administration were active players in the Reagan-Bu$h administration too. The criminality continues and the corporate mind control apparatus keeps us distracted with a steady diet of banal fare so we don’t connect the dots and see the whole picture.
The Libby commutation was done by George W Bu$h to prevent Libby from talking and exposing the sordid details of how Cheney, the NeoConmen and the corporate media manipulated the “intelligence� to make Saddam Hussein to be the second coming of Adolph Hitler as a pretext to invade Iraq, overthrow Hussein, save the US dollar and steal Iraqi oil. Iran Contra lives on in 2007. Iran Contra has many implications for current events. Many of the actors in the Iran Contra scandal and the other criminal operations run by the Bu$hites and their cronies on both sides of the aisle are active in the current administration’s push for war, oil, US dollar hegemony and drugs: Elliot Abrams, John Poindexter, John Negroponte, John Bolton, Michael Ledeen, Robert M Gates, David Addington and Dick Cheney. All of these men are staunch advocates of raw and unbridled US military power, circumventing the US Constitution to attain it and US imperialism. These psychopaths plot and plan. They foment wars and polices that send your kids to die in far off places so they can enrich themselves and their cronies using words like freedom, spreading democracy and national security as the ruse to do so. The beat goes on. The Libby commute is just one more sour note in an ongoing cacophony of crime, corruption and warmongering.

-30-

posted by Junious Ricardo Stanton @ 10:23 AM 0 comments links to this post
Sunday, July 01, 2007
The Hypocrisy of the US Forth of July

The Hypocrisy of A Forth of July Celebration As We Morph into Servitude

As AmeriKKKa mindlessly celebrates the Forth of July amidst food and festivities designed to boost nationalistic pride and delusions of liberty and freedom, the world groans under the awesome weight of AmeriKKKan military and economic oppression. But there is justice, AmeriKKKa for her blatant disregard for the Divine Laws of MA’AT (Divine Order, Harmony, Equilibrium, Truth, Justice, Righteousness and Reciprocity) and KARMA (Action-Consequence) is suffering and will experience exponential suffering due to the psychopathic hubris of its leadership and the wholesale ignorance, apathy and cowardice of its’ citizens. Frederick Douglas reminded nineteenth century AmeriKKKans who were steeped in the traditions of genocide and slavery that their shouts and celebrations of liberty rang hollow and hypocritical. “Fellow-citizens; above your national, tumultous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions, whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, to-day, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them. If I do forget, if I do not faithfully remember those bleeding children of sorrow this day, ‘may my right hand forget her cunning, and may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!’ To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs, and to chime in with the popular theme, would be treason most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before God and the world. My subject, then fellow-citizens, is AMERICAN SLAVERY. I shall see, this day, and its popular characteristics, from the slave's point of view. Standing, there, identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, I do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this 4th of July! Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion, I will, in the name of humanity which is outraged, in the name of liberty which is fettered, in the name of the constitution and the Bible, which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery-the great sin and shame of America!� Frederick Douglass, ‘What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?’ 5 July 1852
Ironically in the year 2007 most sane and morally astute men and women in AmeriKKKa can honestly still echo the eloquent words of Frederick Douglas. Today AmeriKKKa is just as sinful and wicked as it was in the 1800's. Many can also see the consequences of AmeriKKKa’s evils are consuming her like an aggressive cancer devouring its host. But this time white AmeriKKKa and their progeny are the ones who will experience the negative consequences of Cosmic proportions: massive privation, debt peonage , wage slavery and loss of micro and macroeconomic vitality. AmeriKKKa’s current economic and political conditions: rising unemployment, plummeting standards of living, widespread home foreclosures, overwhelming consumer and governmental debt, fiscal insanity and a fascist police state will be their legacy. Economic and political oppression are the name of the game. The numbers and pictures are not pretty and unfortunately conditions will progressively worsen as the ruling elites pursue their globalist polices of perpetual imperialist resource wars, futile dollar hegemony and domestic fiscal ruin.
The cost per each man woman, child and family in AmeriKKKa are staggering now, but they will get much more egregious as these policies continue. “Bottom line: Taxpayers are now on the hook for a record $59.1 trillion in liabilities, a 2.3% increase from 2006. That amount is equal to $516,348 for every U.S. household. By comparison, U.S. households owe an average of $112,043 for mortgages, car loans, credit cards and all other debt combined. Unfunded promises made for Medicare, Social Security and federal retirement programs account for 85% of taxpayer liabilities. State and local government retirement plans account for much of the rest. This hidden debt is the amount taxpayers would have to pay immediately to cover government's financial obligations. Like a mortgage, it will cost more to repay the debt over time. Every U.S. household would have to pay about $31,000 a year to do so in 75 years. The Financial Accounting Standards Advisory Board, which sets federal accounting standards, is considering requiring the government to adopt accounting rules similar to those for corporations. The change would move Social Security and Medicare onto the government's income statement and balance sheet, instead of keeping them separate.� http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-05-28
Keep in mind this merely represents the liabilities for entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare. It does not take into consideration or account the cost of imperial wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia and Columbia just to name a few places the US is making mischief. Nor does it take into account AmeriKKKa’s massive trade deficit, the slumping dollar and the insurmountable federal debt (the three billion dollars the US government borrows daily from private banks and foreign governments just to continue operating.) AmeriKKKa finds itself in economic quicksand, simultaneously foundering in a moral quagmire facing the fatal abyss of all evil empires. “Today, the US economy is a ‘dead man walking�, a term used to describe those condemned to death but still alive. Like in the movies, the scene has now been set, events have transpired that will determine the outcome, and although the exact ending is not yet known, the end itself is unavoidable. The amount of debt owed by the US government and its citizens can never be repaid. In today’s modern banking system, debt-money is constantly fed into the system until debt levels reach such heights debts cannot be serviced or retired. At that point, the system will begin to collapse. This is where we are today. The coming collapse may be triggered by a run on the US dollar, once backed by gold but now an irredeemable piece of paper whose only value is determined by speculators, or it may be triggered by the failure of an over-leveraged hedge fund or the inability of a large money-center bank suddenly unable to meet its obligations. But irregardless of what triggers the coming collapse—the collapse will result from our worldwide modern banking system, a system whereby governments allow private bankers to issue debt as money in order to further the insatiable ambitions of those who govern.� D IS FOR DOMINANCE, DEBT & DEPRESSION Sell Dreams on credit, you'll make a fortune on the interest by Darryl Schoon http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/ed...hoon/2007/0619.
Domestically, AmeriKKKa is fast moving to a police state similar to the one that existed during slavery only this time it will not just be Africans the state plans to move against, “WASHINGTON (Map, News) - The U.S. military command in charge of protecting the homeland asked the Pentagon earlier this year for a contingent of special operations officers to help with domestic anti-terrorism missions. Military sources told The Examiner that U.S. Northern Command, established at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado in 2002, requested its own special operations command similar to ones assigned to overseas war-fighting commands, such as U.S. Central Command. A spokeswoman for NorthCom this week issued a statement to The Examiner saying, ‘This capability resides in every other geographical combatant command and would allow the commander of U.S. Northern Command to deploy these unique capabilities for homeland defense and civil support operations.’ The request was approved six months ago by the then-commander of NorthCom, Adm. Timothy Keating, who has since moved to U.S. Pacific Command.� http://www.examiner.com/a-790871%7EMilitary The bogus justification of domestic terrorism aside, the US government is really moving to prepare for social upheavals by the AmeriKKKan people as conditions worsen and they realize the ruling elites and their puppets (like George W Bu$h and Dick Cheney) are the ones who sold them out. These policies are not being put into place to “protect� us from some phony terrorists. They are in preparation for another 9-11 type false flag operation designed to create fear and create a climate for the planned New World Order fascist police state.
“Roman imperial sorrows mounted up over hundreds of years. Ours are likely to arrive with the speed of FedEx. If present trends continue, four sorrows, it seems to me, are certain to be visited on the United States. Their cumulative impact guarantees that the United States will cease to bear any resemblance to the country once outlined in our Constitution. First, there will be a state of perpetual war, leading to more terrorism against Americans wherever they may be and a growing reliance on weapons of mass destruction among smaller nations as they try to ward off the imperial juggernaut. Second, there will be a loss of democracy and constitutional rights as the presidency fully eclipses Congress and is itself transformed from an ‘executive branch’ of government into something more like a Pentagonized presidency. Third, an already well-shredded principle of truthfulness will increasingly be replaced by a system of propaganda, disinformation, and glorification of war, power, and the military legions. Lastly, there will be bankruptcy, as we pour our economic resources into ever more grandiose military projects and shortchange the education, health, and safety of our fellow citizens.� Chalmers Johnson Sorrows of Empire Page 285
If you are foolish enough to celebrate the Forth of July as a holiday commemorating sovereignty, liberty and freedom, think again because sovereignty, liberty and freedom are increasingly slipping through your fingers (if you ever really enjoyed them) as AmeriKKKa devolves into a fascistic (corporatist) has-been global empire. Frederick Douglas denounced the barbaric underpinnings of AmeriKKKa in 1852 when he said, “At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. O! had I the ability, and could I reach the nation's ear, I would, to-day, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced. What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelly to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy - a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour. Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the old world, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.� Frederick Douglass, ‘What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?’ 5 July 1852
Substitute Douglas’ words about slavery with AmeriKKKa’s current war crimes and its culture of global corporate corruption, criminality and neocolonialism and we glean a candid and sobering picture of the real AmeriKKKa, past and present. To his credit, Frederick Douglas was a prime catalyst in destroying the system of slavery in AmeriKKKa. Rather than mindlessly celebrating a “holiday� to honor hypocrisy, and crimes against humanity we, like Frederick Douglas before us, should be actively working to bring this evil system to its knees.