Dick Cheney

Victoria Nuland’s role in 30 years of U.S. invasions and interference

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“Progressives in Congress and their partners in the media, think tank world, and among grassroots activists should join forces with the growing caucus of anti-interventionist Republicans on the Hill and vigorously oppose her nomination.” — James W. Carden
theamericanconservative.com/articles/stop-bidens-neocon-nominee-to-the-state-department/

“Victoria Nuland is highly dangerous and should not be confirmed.”

From MintPressNews
February 11, 2012
Rick Sterling

As the Senate prepares to confirm Nuland for Under Secretary for Political Affairs, a reflection of her last 30 years in government shows how she was connected to nearly every foreign policy disaster undertaken by the United States.

President Joe Biden’s nomination of Victoria Nuland for Under Secretary for Political Affairs, the third-highest position at the State Department, is a dangerous sign. Nuland exemplifies the neoconservatives who have led American foreign policy from one disaster to another for the past 30 years, all while evading any shred of accountability.

As a top-level appointee, Nuland must still be confirmed by the Senate. And while pro-peace groups have waged a campaign to stop her confirmation, reflecting on her career in public service makes clear why she is incompetent, highly dangerous, and should not be confirmed.

Afghanistan and Iraq

From 2000 to 2003, when the Bush administration attacked and then invaded Afghanistan, Nuland was serving as Bush’s permanent representative to NATO. The Afghan government offered to work with the Americans to remove al-Qaeda, but the offer was rejected. After al-Qaeda was defeated, the U.S. could have left Afghanistan but instead stayed, established semi-permanent bases, splintered the country, and is still fighting there two decades later.

From 2003 to 2005, Nuland was principal foreign policy advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney who “helped plan and manage the war that toppled [Iraqi leader] Saddam Hussein, including making [the] Bush administration’s case for preemptive military action based on Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction.” The foreign policy establishment, including Nuland, insisted that removing Saddam Hussein and installing a U.S. “ally” would be simple.

The invasion and continuing occupation have resulted in over a million dead Iraqis, many thousands of dead Americans, hundreds of thousands with PTSD, and a bill for American taxpayers of 2 to 6 trillion dollars.

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Gen. Wesley Clark 2007 interview: U.S. planned to take out 7 countries in 5 years, finishing with Iran

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From Democracy Now

Interview with retired Gen. Wesley Clark
March 2, 2007

Excerpt:

About 10 days after 9/11, I went through the Pentagon, and I saw Secretary Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz. I went downstairs just to say hello to some of the people on the Joint Staff who used to work for me, and one of the generals called me in. He said, “Sir, you’ve got to come in and talk to me a second.” I said, “Well, you’re too busy.” He said, “No, no.” He says, “We’ve made the decision we’re going to war with Iraq.” This was on or about the 20th of September. I said, “We’re going to war with Iraq? Why?” He said, “I don’t know.” He said, “I guess they don’t know what else to do.” So I said, “Well, did they find some information connecting Saddam to al-Qaeda?” He said, “No, no.” He says, “There’s nothing new that way. They just made the decision to go to war with Iraq.” He said, “I guess it’s like we don’t know what to do about terrorists, but we’ve got a good military, and we can take down governments.” And he said, “I guess if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem has to look like a nail.”

So I came back to see him a few weeks later, and by that time we were bombing in Afghanistan. I said, “Are we still going to war with Iraq?” And he said, “Oh, it’s worse than that.” He reached over on his desk. He picked up a piece of paper. And he said, “I just got this down from upstairs” — meaning the secretary of defense’s office — “today.” And he said, “This is a memo that describes how we’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.” I said, “Is it classified?” He said, “Yes, sir.” I said, “Well, don’t show it to me.” And I saw him a year or so ago, and I said, “You remember that?” He said, “Sir, I didn’t show you that memo! I didn’t show it to you!”

For the full interview:
https://www.democracynow.org/2007/3/2/gen_wesley_clark_weighs_presidential_bid

Another U.S. military toxic secret — the poisonous burn pits in Iraq and the role of Dick Cheney’s Kellog, Brown, and Root (KBR)

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The VA denies Gulf War Illness and treatable mycoplasma infections which untreated can lead to crippling illness and death as well as being transmissible to spouses and children, denies Fukushima radiation sickness in sailors from the USS Ronald Reagan, denied Agent Orange health effects, denied atomic bomb testing radiation sickness, denies depleted uranium health effects, etc., etc., etc.
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…the reality is that soldiers are just a name and a number, and they’re thrown away when the military machine is done with them
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By Justin Gardner
Global Research, February 27, 2017
Free Thought Project 19 February 2017
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“The Poisoning of American Soldiers” in Iraq — They’re Dying — And the Media is Silent
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The legacy of death and misery from the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan continues today, and, once again, Dick Cheney plays a central role. A new book by Joseph Hickman, a former U.S. Marine and Army sergeant, titled “The Burn Pits: The Poisoning of America’s Soldiers” details how soldiers and local civilian populations were exposed to constant streams of toxic smoke from the burning of waste.

The infamous Kellog, Brown, and Root (KBR), which was a part of Dick Cheney’s corporate empire under Halliburton, operated about 250 burn pits which contributed to the $40 billion that Halliburton made during the Iraq occupation. “Every type of waste imaginable” was burned, including “tires, lithium batteries, asbestos insulation, pesticide containers, Styrofoam, metals, paints, plastic, medical waste and even human corpses.”

dick-cheney-burn-pits

This reprehensible practice proves yet again that nothing is sacred when it comes to the military machine.

Just as the U.S. laid waste to Vietnam’s human health and jungle environment with Agent Orange, it wrecked human health and environmental quality in Iraq. That country will suffer from this toxicity for decades, as evidenced by sharp increases in birth defects and cancer and leukemia rates.

Likewise, U.S. veterans and their families are bearing the brunt of this travesty.

“The Burn Pits: The Poisoning of America’s Soldiers” begins with the story of a healthy young soldier sent to Iraq who was constantly exposed to smoke from burn pits. When he returned home with respiratory problems, the Veterans Administration (VA) denied him care, and he later developed brain cancer and died.

Those who do survive are having children with birth defects at a rate three times higher than normal, according to the book. The denial of medical coverage by the VA for burn pit-related illnesses is a central strategy in denying that burn pits even posed a health hazard.

Beau Biden, the son of vice president Joe Biden, died of brain cancer after serving in Iraq in the vicinity of burn pits. Even this tragedy, which is similar to many stories of exposure and death, never brought attention to the issue of burn pits.

Salon interviewed author Joseph Hickman, who provided even more shocking details, and how the Department of Defense (DoD) does all it can to keep this knowledge from the public.

I think the Department of Defense does its best to squash this story and so does Veterans Affairs. They really don’t want this out at all.

Hickman interviewed one former KBR employee who was very reluctant to even talk about burn pits for fear of repercussions, as he was harassed by KBR when he previously came forward about the issue. By using private contractors for such operations, the DoD facilitates these egregious assaults on human and environmental health because contractors are not held to the standards of the military.

This dependency on contractors feeds their tendency for carelessness. According to Hickman, the upper management said at one point, “If they’re going to investigate us over these burn pits, don’t worry about it. If we pull out, they can’t run this base.”

The U.S. government, in its effort to conceal the impact of burn pits, even managed to influence a World Health Organization report that downplayed the effects. It stands in stark contrast to several independent researchers who found large increases in birth defects, leukemia, cancer and other carcinogenic diseased in populations living near burn pits.

There’s a large group of epidemiologists that absolutely believe that that report was influenced by the U.S. government. Dr. Mozhgan Savabieasfahani, a widely respected environmental toxicologist, has been there and seen the birth defects and how we literally destroyed that country with pollution. There are birth defects there that don’t even have medical names yet.

The evidence compiled by Hickman and presented in his book makes it downright criminal for the DoD and politicians to continue denying the issue. When veterans suffering from burn-pit illnesses contact their Congressmen, there is silence because they are in bed with the defense industry.

General David Petraeus and other top DoD officials have denied the health effects of burn pits, but veterans have no recourse because they can’t sue the government. There is a lawsuit against KBR, but the DoD will not acknowledge that the burn pits were misused.

While politicians and military brass issue patriotic platitudes about honoring those who serve their country, the reality is that soldiers are just a name and a number, and they’re thrown away when the military machine is done with them. Defense corporations reap billions as veterans and local populations suffer sickness and death.

 

Declassified memo proves the Pentagon had ZERO evidence of WMDs in Iraq

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From Activist Post
By Justin Gardner
January 26, 2016

Thirteen years after the invasion and occupation of Iraq, it is common knowledge that this war of choice was based on fabrications and slick propaganda. There were no weapons of mass destruction, the country posed no real threat to the U.S., and it was not a hotbed of terrorism until after Saddam was deposed.

Now, a bombshell has dropped in the form of a leaked classified report—a “smoking gun” if you will—that confirms the utter deception carried out on the American people to support the invasion. It demonstrates just how far the cabal under George W. Bush, making up a group known as the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), would go to prey upon fear in pursuit of global hegemony.

While Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and others were proclaiming their certainty about the imminent threats posed to the U.S. by Saddam’s Iraq, the leaked documents reveal that they knew almost nothing about any actual weapons or capabilities.

On August 16, 2002, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld asked Air Force Maj. Gen. Glen Shaffer, head of the Joint Staff’s intelligence directorate, for a report on “what we don’t know (in a percentage) about the Iraqi WMD program.”

The findings, titled Iraq: Status of WMD Programs, were underscored by this statement:

Our assessments rely heavily on analytic assumptions and judgment rather than hard evidence. The evidentiary base is particularly sparse for Iraqi nuclear programs.

Regarding the actual programs, it says:

We’ve struggled to estimate the unknowns. … We range from 0% to about 75% knowledge on various aspects of their program…

Our knowledge of the Iraqi (nuclear) weapons program is based largely—perhaps 90%—on analysis of imprecise intelligence.

When forwarding the report, Air Force Maj. Gen. Glen Shaffer answered Rumsfeld’s original question by noting, “We don’t know with any precision how much we don’t know.”

Rumsfeld apparently believed the report had some significance when he sent it to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, saying, “Please take a look at this material as to what we don’t know about WMD. It is big.”

Considering that this was a summary of all that the U.S. intelligence apparatus knew about Iraq’s WMD capabilities (or lack thereof), how could any responsible leader try and sell the invasion to the American people?

Yet that is what happened, perhaps no more fervently than Vice President Dick Cheney. There are countless examples of Cheney stating in no uncertain terms the nuclear, chemical, biological and ballistic missile threats that Saddam’s Iraq posed to the U.S.

Cheney asserted that Iraq was secretly reconstituting its biological and chemical weapons programs, but the report stated:

We cannot confirm the identity of any Iraqi facilities that produce, test, fill, or store biological weapons.

We do not know if all the processes required to produce a weapon are in place. [The Iraqis] lack the precursors for sustained nerve agent production…we cannot confirm the identity of any Iraqi sites that produce final chemical agent.

While Cheney and the gang issued repeated fear-mongering about “mushroom clouds,” the report stated:

We do not know the status of enrichment capabilities. We do not know with confidence the location of any nuclear-weapon-related facilities.

Days before Bush claimed that Iraq was developing ballistic missiles that could hit Israel with WMD, the report had found:

We doubt all processes are in place to produce longer range missiles.

The secret report was kept from the view of key players in the propaganda campaign, including Colin Powell who was made to look the fool [Ed: other evidence has shown that Colin Powell knowingly lied]. Just before the invasion, Powell said before the U.N. General Assembly:

My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we’re giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence.

With this lack of factual evidence for their yearning to invade Iraq—a goal of PNAC since 1998—the war-mongering officials with deep ties to the defense industry proceeded to fabricate their own tales to justify the propaganda campaign.

They turned to a parallel intelligence apparatus that they created, which relied on a network of Iraqi defectors and exiles, most notably the late Ahmed Chalabi who admitted he provided wrong information.

Back home, Cheney and Rumsfeld had set up something called the Office of Special Plans, run by Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith. This Pentagon office sent raw intelligence from Chalabi and other nefarious sources directly to the president, unvetted by intelligence analysts and uncorroborated.

If there was ever a smoking gun, this is it. If there was ever enough reason to bring charges of war crimes and other abuses of power against George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, this report provides it.

Justin Gardner writes for TheFreeThoughtProject.com

Copyright Justin Gardner 2016

http://www.activistpost.com/2016/01/declassified-memo-proves-the-pentagon-had-zero-evidence-of-wmds-in-iraq.html

 

The assassination of Sen. Paul Wellstone — October 25, 2002

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By Stephen Lendman
Posted on War is a Crime, October 28, 2012

October 25 [2012] marked the 10th anniversary of Wellstone’s death. Was it accidental or an assassination to silence a sadly missed principled voice? Convincing evidence suggests foul play. More on that below.

On October 25, 2002, The New York Times headlined “Minnesota Senator Is Among 8 Dead in Crash,” saying:

Wellstone “was killed today when his campaign plane crashed approaching a small airport in a wooded region in the northern part of his state.”

Campaigning for a third term, he “perished along with seven other people when the chartered King Air A100 went down near Eveleth around 10:20 a.m. Central Time, the Federal Aviation Administration reported.”

Weather conditions weren’t abnormal. Light rain mixed with snow was reported. Flights without incident occur normally under these and harsher conditions. Wellstone perished with his wife, one child, three staff members, and two highly experienced pilots.

From the time the news broke, suspicions arose that perhaps what happened wasn’t accidental. Professors James Fetzer and Don “Four Arrows” Jacobs examined the tragedy. They concluded that Wellstone was assassinated.

In 2004, they published “American Assassination: The Strange Death of Senator Paul Wellstone.” More on what they said below.

Like former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, Wellstone was a rare exception that proves the rule. He was uncorrupted by money and power ambitions. He left academia to run for office. Explaining why, he said:

“I don’t represent the big oil companies, the big pharmaceuticals, or the big insurance industry. They already have great representation in Washington. It’s the rest of the people that need representation.”

His voting record explained why he was called “the conscience of the Senate.” He opposed the Gulf War and 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution.

He was also against NAFTA, oil drilling in Alaska’s National Wildlife Refuge, sending troops to Haiti in 1994 without congressional approval, and bankruptcy legislation benefitting financial giants at the expense of working people.

He supported labor rights, children’s and women’s rights, universal healthcare, public and higher education, good jobs with livable wages, small farmers, campaign finance and lobbying reforms, and retirement security.

He once told his students, “Never separate the lives you live from the words you speak.” He stood for saying what you believe and doing what you say. At a time destructive neoliberalism took hold, he was a living, breathing antidote. His voting record showed it.

He supported progressive activism. He believed in backing principles with action. He battled hardliners supporting anti-populist measures he opposed.

At a fall 1990 White House reception for newly elected congressional members, he urged GHW Bush to spend more time on education and other social issues.

He also advised him against attacking Iraq. Not at all pleased, Bush privately asked an aide, “Who is this chickenshit?” His activism and outspokenness cursed him with the mark of Cain. He’d learn later how hard it stings.

Project Vote Smart covered his voting record from April 1992 – October 2002. Many progressive ones included:

  • yea for family and medical leave;
  •  yea for homosexuals in the military;
  • yea for ending military operations in Somalia;
  • nay on the Comprehensive Terrorism Prevention Act;
  • nay on space-based lasers;
  • nay on the Telecommunications Bill letting media giants consolidate to greater size;
  • nay on harmful welfare reform hurting poor people when they most need help;
  • nay on Cuba sanctions;
  • yea on helpful immigration reform;
  • nay against reconfirming Alan Greenspan;
  • yea for campaign finance reform;
  • yea for increasing the minimum wage;
  • nay for the partial/birth abortion ban;
  • yea for the Chemical Weapons Convention; it prohibits development, production, stockpiling, and use of these weapons; it also mandates their destruction;
  • yea for family tax relief;
  • yea for aiding higher education programs;
  • nay for banning Cuban travel;
  • nay for confirming John Ashcroft;
  • yea for a patients’ bill of rights; and
  • nay for No Child Left Behind.

His book titled “The Conscience of a Liberal: Reclaiming the Compassionate Agenda” explained his passion for economic and social justice.

In 2002, he ran for a third term. Doing so reneged on a pledge to serve two and leave. He had unfinished business on his mind. He also faced long knives wanting him gone.

Big money was marshaled against him. An aide to his Republican opponent, Norm Coleman, said, “There are people in the (George W. Bush) White House who wake up in the morning thinking about how they will defeat Paul Wellstone. This one is political and personal for them.”

Polls showed him ahead. Reelection looked likely. Potentially controlling the Senate was at stake. Eleven days before November 5, he tragically died on route to a funeral and campaign event in rural Minnesota.

Fetzer and Jacobs say Wellstone’s death was no accident. It wasn’t weather, plane trouble, or pilot error connected. Evidence they uncovered explains otherwise.

Confirmation of the tragedy didn’t come from Wellstone’s office, state police, or Minnesota’s governor. It first came from GW Bush’s ranch. Why was it known there before anywhere else?

FBI agents arrived with suspicious speed. Perhaps they knew in advance and positioned themselves nearby. They prevented fire teams, journalists, and others at the crash site from taking photos.

An AP photographer said he was intimidated, delayed and monitored. Was vital evidence removed or destroyed? NTSB investigators didn’t show up for 10 hours. Why did FBI agents try having things both ways?

On the one hand, they declared the site a “crime scene.” They also said no crime took place. How could anyone know without careful forensic examination?

Fetzer and Jacobs believe Wellstone was killed for political reasons. Coverup followed his assassination. The official story is rife with inconsistencies and willful omissions of key facts. They explained how, why, and who was responsible.

Besides eliminating a powerful progressive voice, Wellstone’s enemies wanted Republican Coleman’s win to help Republicans gain Senate control.

Fetzer and Jacobs explained the following:

Former CIA official Carol Carmody handled NTSB’s crash investigation. She’s a damage-control expert. Coverup is her game. She was also in charge of investigating Missouri Governor Mel Carnahan’s suspicious aircraft crash during his senatorial race against John Ashcroft two years earlier.

NTSB is legally mandated to investigate transportation accidents. Yet it let FBI agents control things. Why it didn’t explain. Mention of the FBI’s involvement was excluded from their final report.

Ahead of the crash, neither Wellstone pilot signaled distress. Why not since they were going down in a remote area perhaps with no help nearby.

Some witnesses heard what sounded like the engines cutting out or stalling. Others reported odd cell phone and automatic garage door phenomena coincidental with the crash.

They included electronic interference and strange noises never before experienced. The auditory pattern appeared consistent with electromagnetic (EM) weapons use.

They were developed to knock out computer systems and harm human subjects. Most Americans know nothing about them. They can disable radio communications and warning systems.

They can alter an aircraft’s flight pattern and cause pilots to lose control. They can make them lose consciousness, incapacitate them in other ways, or kill them.

Fetzer says they can “literally fry the electronic components in an aircraft” the way microwaves heat meals or lightening bolts affect objects struck.

NTSB’s simulations replicated weather conditions, the flight pattern, and overall conditions at the time. Even at abnormally low speeds, they couldn’t down the plane.

NTSB member Richard Healing said he had no idea what caused the crash. Yet he signed the official report giving reasons that didn’t wash. They included pilot error, bad weather, and other preposterous claims. Instead of investigating responsibly, they made stuff up.

Fetzer and Jacobs established compelling prima facie and conclusive evidence to prove Wellstone’s death was no accident.

They called his Beech King-Air A100 the “Rolls-Royce” of small aircraft. Pilot Richard Conry had 5,200 hours of flight experience. His rating was the highest civilian one possible. Two days before the crash, he passed his FAA flight check. He was highly qualified to fly the Beech aircraft.

Co-pilot Michael Guess was also instrument qualified. He was very able to fly the plane on his own under adverse weather conditions. It’s inconceivable that either pilot alone or together fouled up.

According to NTSB’s report, the “airplane descended through the trees wings level and upright on about a 26 degree downward flight path angle on a ground track of about 180 degrees.”

Fetzer called this angle “too steep to suggest anything but a very serious dive, not likely to result from a low altitude stall but from a plane completely out of control very abruptly or all of a sudden.”

NTSB should have stressed this. It didn’t. Why was never explained. If electromagnetic weapons were used, evidence would have clearly showed it. For example, digital clocks would have failed immediately, not at impact.

FBI agents arriving quickly did nothing to stop the fuselage from burning. It continued for hours. By the time NTSB investigators arrived, bodies were charred beyond recognition. Other forensic evidence was destroyed or concealed.

According to Fetzer:

“Dennis Ciminio, a pilot and expert on devices of this kind, has confirmed that the technology to take out the plane has been around for decades and that the intense fire – which burned the fuselage but not the wings, in which the plane’s fuel was stored – was almost certainly intended to destroy the evidence of how it was done.”

“He has explained to me the most likely culprit here to put that kind of power directly onto the plane itself to cause such widespread mayhem would have been an electronically beam-steered-system, such as Raytheon’s BFL (Beam Forming Lens) equipped Army jamming system.”

“That is especially plausible, since Raytheon owns Beechcraft, which makes the Air King A-100 and would know exactly how it could be taken down.”

More than electromagnetic weapons may have been involved. At about the time the plane crashed, “a white van” was seen departing the area at high speed.

“The melted area at the altitude where ice forms, moreover, strongly suggests that the Wellstone plane was taken out using a satellite-mounted laser, which would have had the effect of melting the ice at that level.”

Dick Cheney was running “an executive assassination ring” out of the White House at that time. He did then what Obama is doing now. Wellstone was perhaps one of Cheney’s targets.

He, “Karl Rove, and Donald Rumsfeld may not have executed this hit personally, but they were in a position to make it happen.” Eventually perhaps the full truth will be known. Enough already is clear to say Wellstone’s death was no accident.

Anyone with a powerful public voice supporting principles he embraced could end up targeted for elimination and killed. That’s how rogue states operate. Bucking the system risks life and limb. Wellstone paid the ultimate price.

David Ray Griffin calls Fetzer and Jacob’s book compelling and vitally important. It’s hard not believing that Wellstone was assassinated. Bush administration officials likely ordered it.

Based on all relevant evidence, “we must conclude that the theory that Wellstone was assassinated is far more probable that the official story” that doesn’t wash.

Fetzer and Jacobs agree that “evidence shows beyond a reasonable doubt that Wellstone was assassinated. They have, in my view, made a convincing case.”

In November 2002, investigative journalist Michael Ruppert asked, “Was Paul Wellstone Murdered?” He wrote:

“The day after the crash I received a message from a former CIA operative who has proven extremely reliable in the past and who is personally familiar with these kinds of assassinations.”

“The message read, ‘As I said earlier, having played ball (and still playing in some respects) with this current crop of reinvigorated old white men, these clowns are nobody to screw around with. There will be a few more strategic accidents. You can be certain of that.’ ”

Everyone challenging the system is vulnerable. Wellstone paid with his life.
———————————-

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book is titled “How Wall Street Fleeces America: Privatized Banking, Government Collusion and Class War”

http://www.claritypress.com/Lendman.html

http://warisacrime.org/content/paul-wellstone-tenth-anniversary-his-assassination

 

“U.S. human rights abusers not welcome in Venezuela.” President Maduro calls for “global rebellion against US imperialism”

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Posted on Global Research
From Venezuela Analysis.com, March 2, 2015
By Raphael Boothroyd

Caracas, March 2nd 2015 (venezuelanalysis.com) The Venezuelan government has responded to increased pressure from Washington by revoking visa rights for former US politicians such as George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, described by President Nicolas Maduro as “terrorists against the peoples of the world” on Saturday.

“I have decided on a prohibition list for people who will not be permitted visas and who can never enter Venezuela, for a set of chief US politicians who have committed human rights violations. They have bombed the people of Iraq, the people of Syria, the people of Vietnam… It is an anti-terrorist list,” declared the head of state to an impassioned crowd.

The statements were part of a rousing speech delivered by the president on Saturday to thousands of marchers who had taken to the streets of Caracas to reject White House interference in the South American country. The march was a direct response to a string of further US sanctions enacted against the Venezuelan government in early February and to what Maduro characterised as a “moment of increased aggression” from the Obama administration. The head of state went on to call for a “global rebellion against US imperialism”.

“The US thinks it is the boss, the police of the world… Something happens somewhere, let’s say in Asia, and a spokesperson for the US comes out saying that the US government thinks that such and such a government shouldn’t do such and such a thing in Asia… Are we going to accept a global government? Enough of imperialism in the world!” stated an incensed Maduro.

During his speech, the head of state also announced a slew of new diplomatic measures against the US which include the implementation of visa requirements for all US citizens visiting Venezuela.

“They must pay what Venezuelans pay when they want to travel to the United States,” said the president.

Maduro explained that the changes were designed to “protect” Venezuelans, after a number of US citizens were discovered to be taking part in acts of espionage by Venezuelan authorities.

One of the most recent detections includes the pilot of a US airplane who was stopped and questioned by authorities on the border last week. A number of US citizens were also detained last year for their participation in the armed barricades or Guarimbas which sought to bring down the government and led to the deaths of at least 43 Venezuelans.

Despite the latest measures, Maduro emphasised that Venezuela continued to value its relationship with US citizens.

“You can count on the fact that the people of Bolivar respect the people of the US, and recognise in you a brother peoples, these decisions are against the imperialist elite,” he stated.

The new measures will see the number of staff at the US embassy in Caracas significantly reduced and US representatives obliged to inform Venezuelan authorities of any meetings that they intend to hold.

The diplomatic institution currently has over 100 employees, in comparison to just 17 who work at the Venezuelan embassy in Washington. Venezuelan Foreign Minister, Delcy Rodriguez, has explained that the US diplomatic mission will be obliged to reduce its staffing numbers to 17 over the next 2 weeks.

Tense Relations 

Recently the US embassy in Caracas has become embroiled in a diplomatic altercation with the Maduro administration which has intensified since the discovery of a planned coup against the government in February. The Venezuelan head of state has accused the White House of conspiring against his government and charged embassy personnel with having advanced knowledge of the coup plot, which was allegedly being funded in US dollars from Miami.

Prior to the discovery of the coup, the US embassy was reported to have attempted to bribe senior military and government officials to partake in insurrectionist actions against the government. US Vice-president Joe Biden also made a series of statements accusing the Venezuelan government of repression following a meeting with the wife of jailed opposition leader, Liliana Tintori.

Current opinion polls suggest significant support amongst the population for government actions against the US. According to a February poll conducted by opposition aligned think tank, Hinerlaces, 92% of Venezuelans oppose any kind of foreign intervention while 62% think that the US should not be allowed to pass judgement on the country’s internal affairs.

In 2014, the US government issued 103 statements against Venezuela and another 65 since the start of the year. Just a few weeks ago, the Obama administration also approved increased funding for Venezuelan opposition groups and Non-Governmental Organisations.

 

http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/11245

http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-human-rights-abusers-not-welcome-in-venezuela-president-maduro-calls-for-global-rebellion-against-us-imperialism/5434546