Western Bloc Barbarism
July 17, 2008
Today’s guest editorial is the latest in toni solo’s Globalization and terror series.
It has not always been so hard to map the frontiers of North Atlantic Treaty Organization country foreign policy beyond which US imperialism goes it alone. Nor, until now, have NATO countries’ relations with Israel encroached so blatantly on the enduring symbiosis between Israel’s militarist aggression and the US government’s militarist imperialism. If it is clear by now that US power and influence is less than it was even ten years ago, what might be the implications for how NATO is used and abused in terms of shifting international economic relations and, in particular, the diverse processes of corporate globalization?
A banal anecdote may help set those questions in some kind of manageable framework. Back in 1993, the Irish government, like many other Western European governments got on the transparency and participation bandwagon prior to that year’s UN Human Rights Conference in Vienna. So a bunch of NGOs working on a broad range of human rights matters were invited to a preparatory meeting in Iveagh House, the Department of Foreign Affairs’ building on St Stephen’s Green in Dublin. We all sat about a large conference table along with various DFA staff and an avuncular guy informally dressed who turned out to be an important member of the Irish government delegation to the United Nations.
At Work for John Negroponte?
June 19, 2008
Noam Chomsky, Tom Hayden, Ariel Dorfmann et al have published an open letter in Nicaraguan centre-right El Nuevo Diario. In today’s guest editorial toni solo takes apart its assertions.
On June 16th the Nicaraguan centre-right newspaper El Nuevo Diario published a letter [1] from various well known people calling for the Nicaraguan coalition government, led by the Sandinista FSLN, not to shut down political freedom and to hold a national dialogue to address the food crisis and the high cost of living in Nicaragua. This appeal was made in solidarity with Dora Maria Tellez, the former president of the neo-liberal social democrat Movimiento Renovador Sandinista. The letter’s signatories end their appeal by saying that Tellez represents a broad section of Nicaraguan political opinion and should be listened to.
The signatories’ response to criticism of their endorsement of the former MRS president’s oportunistically calculated, factitious appeal is likely to be that critics of their letter themselves offer misplaced solidarity the FSLN government does not merit. But a brief review of the facts of the MRS record in the last few years renders the dishonesty and shiftiness of Dora Maria Tellez and her colleagues in the MRS leadership very clear. Apologetics on behalf of the FSLN are superfluous in this case. The facts speak for themselves.
The Terrors of the Earth
May 6, 2008
Cuba and the Liberal Propaganda Media
March 2, 2008
Today’s excellent guest editorial from my friend toni solo in Nicaragua.
Cuba was ranked at 51 in the 2007 UN Human Development Index. One place above Mexico. You will never read that fact in corporate mainstream reporting on Cuba. Nor will you read that around 90% of those eligible voted in Cuba’s recent elections. Nor will you read a thorough comparison between Cuba and similar countries like, say, Jamaica or the Dominican Republic.
The Human Development Index is a comparative measure of standard of living among UN member countries. In last year’s Human Development Index, Jamaica sits at 101 and Dominican Republic at 79. Among Caribbean countries only the Bahamas, at 49, and Barbados, at 31, do better than Cuba. Among Central American countries only Costa Rica, at 48, does better.
US Foreign Policy Failures Thrust Into Spotlight
February 22, 2008
Excellent analysis on the Pakistani elections by the Toronoto Star‘s Haroon Siddiqui.
This week brought two failures of American foreign policy into sharp focus – in Cuba and Pakistan.
The Cuban catastrophe is familiar. Isolating Fidel Castro only helped consolidate his iron grip. Political and trade sanctions hurt the Cuban people more than his regime.
Washington has been so trapped and so much of a hostage to right-wing Cuban exiles in the United States that it wouldn’t even take advantage of the end of the Cold War to change course.
A contemporary parallel can be seen in the U.S. approach to Iran.
Philip Agee (1935-2008) R.I.P
January 10, 2008
Al Burke of the on CIA whistleblower and rebel Philip Agee.
Let Us Now Praise an (In)famous Man
10 January 2008 (NNN) — Philip Agee, former agent of the CIA, died in Havana, Cuba, on 8 January 2008 at the age of 72. He was the first agent to leave “The Company” and reveal its dirty secrets, having become disillusioned with its appalling practices in Latin America.
I had the pleasure and privilege of meeting Philip on three occasions in Stockholm, and he once confided that he was a distant relation of author James Agee,whose best-known work is probably Let Us Now Praise Famous Men– a book-length reportage on the desperately grim lives of dirt-poor farmers in the U.S. South during the 1930s’ Great Depression. It is an apt reference, as it was Philip’s eye-opening encounter with the desperate conditions of South America’s impoverished masses– and his growing insight into the central role played by U.S. foreign policy in perpetuating their misery– which led to his resignation from the CIA and the disclosure of its criminal activities in the political and literary bombshell, Inside the Company: CIA Diary.
Rearguard Success, Strategic Defeat
January 3, 2008
Today’s guest editorial from toni solo looks at the decline of Anglo-American economy, developments in Latin America the varieties of imperial decline.
“from 1920 to 1960, Venezuela was the leading world exporter of oil and here, through our Caribbean sea passed thousands of boats loaded with oil: but they left nothing to benefit the peoples of the Caribbean, the sister peoples of Latin America. Today revolutionary Venezuela places this wealth, above all, at the disposal of our sister peoples of the Caribbean and of Latin America: not for the North American empire.” Hugo Chavez Frias, from closing words at Fourth Petrocaribe Summit.Returning to Europe after some time away is like visiting an unloved relative falling into dementia. It may be unwelcome, but one sheds no tears. The persistent optimism of Western Bloc political and financial leaders is bizarre. For example Brian Cowen, Ireland’s Finance Minister presented a budget recently based on projected inflation through 2008 of a little over 2% and growth in gross domestic product at 3%. Subsequently, Ireland’s Economic and Social Research Institute’s latest quarterly economic commentary reckoned growth at nearer 2% and inflation at over 3%.
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Hold the Ham N’ Eggs
December 3, 2007
Globalization and terror. The two often go hand in hand. Here my friend toni solo looks at Euro-American efforts to derail the possibility of an emerging alternative.
Efforts by the Bush regime to destabilize and overthrow governments resisting corporate globalization in Latin America, and everywhere else too, will persist whoever wins the next US Presidential election — assuming no attack is launched on Iran and the election does in fact take place. The monolithic plutocracy that runs the United States is supported in those destabilization efforts by the governments of their European and Pacific allies. Analysing a list of the world’s top corporations, leaders in their respective industries, explains why this should be so.(1).
One finds that companies from the United States and its European and Pacific allies account for well over 80% of the total. One can also note that the Latin American, African and Asian corporations in the list are all State owned companies, with the exception of China Mobile and Brazil’s CVRD mining company (privatized from 1997 onwards). The consolidation of monopoly corporate capitalism over the last decade through mergers and acquisitions is certain to continue. So the only chance for less developed countries to defend the rights and needs of their impoverished majorities against the ravages of monster multinational companies is to integrate and to invest in their future together.
